Forum

I went to a private, traditional (over 150 years old this year in fact) British school. The school faculty could and would expel any student they felt was behaving unacceptably, no chance of an appeal, you were out if they wanted you gone. Most of the policing of the students was done by the senior grade 'prefects'. Most situations did not get past the prefect level and resolutions were painfully simple (though I have to admit it was good fun). the prefects would arrange a boxing match, gloves on, head guards. The offender and a senior. Obviously there was the potential for abuse of power from the seniors but the faculty policed them. I don't remember there being many cases of bullying throughout my entire 8 year tenure there.

hentai4me wrote:

musashi1600 wrote:

hentai4me wrote:

But was that caused by the students or not?

The Beslan school massacre was caused by Chechen separatists who stormed a middle school in Russia.

Yes that was the one I was thinking of, I thought he may have been raising some other story in which the students went on a killing spree. As far as I have heard the only country which has it's students go on such sprees (with somewhat alarming frequency, what 4 in the last 10 years?) is America.

There was a shooting recently here in Toronto where some guys shot one of their friends. Mark Lépine was a student at the school he massacred. School massacres happen everywhere. We just hear about the ones close by on the news.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_related_attacks

Sometimes it is very difficult to draw the line between reality and drama.

I went to 2 highschools (both America, I've never left the country). The first one would make most TV shows look tame. We had over 50 recorded fights in a single year, and most of those involved over 20 people at a time. I came across a kid unconcious in the hallway bleeding from his skull. A person (not even a student) walked into the school, grabbed him and threw him headfirst into a brick wall, then left, and no one tried to stop him, faculty or not. On any given day there were fights, and most were ignored, people just walked around them, including the teachers.

That might sound like an innercity school, but actually its a region school in a rural county, in a town of about 10,000. Serious crime is practically non-existent, but for some reason that school bred conflict. When I switched to a tech school only about 4 miles away, the atmosphere was completely different. Only 3 fights over 2 years, only 1 on 1 and teachers quickly broke them up. It wasn't til I went there that I realized my old school was generally the exception to the rule.

holey bojesus.....

I state first that I know nothing of japanese culture, to the point where most non-asian students don't even know what religion japan is (shinto). the amount of information in our 570+ page textbook on "word history" ((the pagent of world history 1993, although the isbn doesn't seem to exist)) includes less then 50 pages on asia as a whole (minus the vietnam propaganda chapter), let alone japan. the majority of that says, or at least what we read of it, said "japanese evil! they attack pearl harbor! we kick their scrawney asian ass!", completely failed to mention that the casualties inflicted by the atomic bombs were civilians, and also gave far lower estimates to the atomic bombings as compared to the World peace organization. they also fail to mention that we disolved their government and installed one of our own, as far as other things I can scream for months about. how's that for a sugar coat?

I know very little of the japanese school system except for the rumors and what you guys have said, however, america is not a heaven by any standards. in 7th grade, someone stole my pants and jizzed on them while I was changing in gym, he was not suspended. another kid scratched the hell out of my face in the pool, he never even got a second look. third, the same guy as the second time punched me in the arm and I got On Campus Suspension for swearing when he did it. then the girl I liked (about a week before school ended this year) lost it, bit four people and beat more up, bit the cops that arrested her and was expelled. (a real bummer as she lives litterally next door to the school and they're making her move). I ask you, what is this school world coming to when I made a damn shrine to the killer in that university shooting on the last day...

inuyasha128b wrote:

holey bojesus.....
I ask you, what is this school world coming to when I made a damn shrine to the killer in that university shooting on the last day...

Ummm, I don't think you can blame the school world for your issue on this one, that is a pretty disturbing and offensive act.

daxomni wrote:

I've only lived in America, but I saw bullying all the way from elementary through high school across two states and it ranged anywhere from mild to life threatening. Needless to say it was pretty bad and surprisingly common. Supposedly it's being taken much more seriously than when I was a kid, but that's just what I read. I don't have any kids of my own so I have no first hand knowledge of how it's being handled now. It doesn't seem possible that Japan could be that much worse but since I've never lived there I guess I'm not really one to say.

Ah, here we go. Something very similar to what I wrote. So there are others out there whose experiences tell them that it's unlikely anything can be worse than America.

selenta, what you say is indeed true and I agree 100%. Everyone's personal experiences will vary. However as you yourself said, you went to a very prestigious school therefore it is likely you were also sheltered or were in an abnormal environment. In my case I went to mostly prestigious schools and universities across 2 states and STILL had constant encounters with bullies, fights, and/or dangerous situations. So maybe we two average each other out (for the prestigious schools). In any case, let's all continue to contribute to this thread.

mistress_reebi...as hentai4me said I don't think your example counts because it is a janitor performing the murders. The relevant murders/massacres have to be instigated by students or former students.

omar, that's one approach but let me tell you that it rarely works, even when the child's parents are respectable people. More often than not, confronting a bully's parents makes the bullying worse. My advice remains to bring a knife (any kid can buy one, folding/butterfly/etc, in the local toy store or the internet) to school. My advice is also to stab or cut the person once seriously, don't be a wuss and just show it hoping it will scare them away. But if you want to, you can do that too but you have to make sure you don't look like a little girl holding out a knife you don't intend to use.

The other alternative is to stab them with something generally nonlethal on hand, such as a pen or a pencil. The other alternative is to aggressively and decidedly gouge out an eye or something (I'm assuming the bullier is much bigger than the person being bullied, which is usually the case. If the person being bullied is bigger just smash them).

However if you go to a totally ghetto school than don't follow that advice, it's too dangerous. Bullies might be armed with guns and will probably be at too a high experience level in fighting to even defeat with a knife. And if you don't kill them they'll probably actually kill you. Either switch schools or join a gang.

psycho 101 wrote:

Maybe I'm a bit biased, growing up in a gang infested sh*t hole for the first part of my life, but I still say nothing beats a good ole inner city public school in terms of how bad a school is. I'm sure Japan has some bad schools, as do other countries, but part of me will always think that an inner city public school in Detroit or Baltimore is worse.

Hah. Another post with experiences that agree with mine. America is the worst by far, I agree.

My impressions might be wrong, but I get the feeling that bullying in Japan is more with the girls being bullied than with the boys. Perhaps this might sound bigoted, but I don't think girl-bullying is as dangerous as it is with boys. It might be nastier and more insidious, but it in general is probably not as life-threatening as with the boys. I've never seen girl bullying ever in the states (but again that's just my personal experiences and I'm sure it often happens here as well).

Also, I think a lot of us have been talking about high-school level bullying. I get the feeling that the situation changes in Japan at the college level. Do Tokyo University students get into drunken fights left and right and have constant hazing incidents like in the States? (BTW, at the college level I had absolutely no personal experience with hazing or bullying or anything like that. Only serious fights or dangerous encounters, but I think I'm not normal in this regard).

Porcupine wrote:

omar, that's one approach but let me tell you that it rarely works, even when the child's parents are respectable people. More often than not, confronting a bully's parents makes the bullying worse. My advice remains to bring a knife (any kid can buy one, folding/butterfly/etc, in the local toy store or the internet) to school. My advice is also to stab or cut the person once seriously, don't be a wuss and just show it hoping it will scare them away. But if you want to, you can do that too but you have to make sure you don't look like a little girl holding out a knife you don't intend to use.

The other alternative is to stab them with something generally nonlethal on hand, such as a pen or a pencil. The other alternative is to aggressively and decidedly gouge out an eye or something (I'm assuming the bullier is much bigger than the person being bullied, which is usually the case. If the person being bullied is bigger just smash them).

However if you go to a totally ghetto school than don't follow that advice, it's too dangerous. Bullies might be armed with guns and will probably be at too a high experience level in fighting to even defeat with a knife. And if you don't kill them they'll probably actually kill you. Either switch schools or join a gang.
.

You, sir, are an idiot.

No two ways about it. Thinking like yours leads to escalation and it is thinking like yours that has lead to the current situation in the first place.

hentai4me wrote:

You, sir, are an idiot.

No two ways about it. Thinking like yours leads to escalation and it is thinking like yours that has lead to the current situation in the first place.

Hahaha. It's good that you said that. Because what I said is indeed not the norm in many ways. I'm not disagreeing with your assessment of my advice at all. But I stick to my advice I gave earlier. Note that I did say that my advice should NOT be followed if you go to a very ghetto school. As you say, the chance for escalation is indeed higher there.

However, in a fairly average school or a fairly respectable school, chances are that such an action will immediately scare the crap out of the bullies and they will go away. You may even change their thinking permanently (i.e. they will never bully anyone else again, you aren't just helping yourself) if you do a good job with your retaliation. On the other hand you could get into life or death situations following my advice. However, being bullied is often a life or death situation to begin with. If you want to be a wuss and just let people steal your lunch money every day, go ahead.

Mistress_reebi, in the wikipedia link you gave there is not one single description of a murder or massacre in Japan, outside of the janitor one which does not count at all. But there are like 30 or so USA based attacks. And 80-90% of the incidents in that page are from the USA.

That page only supports the idea that the USA has the most violent/dangerous/bully-infested schools in the world.

You should also stop using Russia or Canada or other countries to explain why bullying is a problem in JAPAN. Find Japanese incidents for us. I am sure there are many for you to find, as is the case everywhere.

Porcupine wrote:

However, being bullied is often a life or death situation to begin with. If you want to be a wuss and just let people steal your lunch money every day, go ahead.

Oh man, do you hear yourself talk sometimes?

Being bullied is not a life or death situation in 99.999% of cases, and in that 00.001% that it is life threatening it really shouldn't be called "bullying" any more. To respond by stabbing someone when they're not trying to beat you to blackout or something is idiotic, will probably land you juvy in most places; and if they are trying to beat you until you blackout, you're just defending yourself. Both law and social modern social morals hold that it is ok to defend yourself with appropriate force, but that doesn't mean stabbing the guy in the throat when he calls you a queer in the hallway.

It's hard to argue that Japanese schools have more violence (though god knows that's hard to tell since nothing ever gets reported over there), but violence obviously isn't the only (or even the most prevalent) kind of bullying out there.

Last edited by Porcupine on Wed Jul 11, 2007 4:50 pm; edited 1 time in total

> Oh man, do you hear yourself talk sometimes?

Yeah I might be a bit off the deep end sometimes, and especially in this thread. But I honestly believe in everything I've said here.

> Being bullied is not a life or death situation in 99.999% of cases, and in that 00.001% that it is life threatening it really shouldn't be called "bullying" any more.

I completely and utterly disagree with you on this.

> To respond by stabbing someone when they're not trying to beat you to blackout or something is idiotic...and if they are trying to beat you until you blackout, you're just defending yourself.

Maybe I can agree with this. But any sort of aggression can be interpreted as an attempt to beat into blackout. If someone pushes me or touches me, I can interpret that as an attempt to beat into blackout if I so wish, and respond accordingly.

If you feel that my approach is too reckless, then I can suggest you instead just punch the guy a few times and see if he fights back or not. If he just stands there and lets you hit him freely then feel free to continue punching him whenever he bugs you. If he retaliates (and remember he is the bully to start with, so presumably he pushed or punched you or did something to start out) in any physical manner...that can and should be interpreted as him attempting to "beat you into blackout" and you should respond accordingly. Anime smile

> It's hard to argue that Japanese schools have more violence, but violence obviously isn't the only (or even the most prevalent) kind of bullying out there.

Yes. I think I can agree with that. However, any kind of bullying can (and maybe even should) lead to violence, in my opinion. Bullying in general occurs because the person being bullied is not willing to take the necessary steps to defend himself. Once you demonstrate that you are willing to take the risk necessary to do this, the bullying usually stops, unless the bullies are very stupid. Unfortunately this is the case on rare occasion, usually with drunken people, and so things escalate. Fortunately that's not an issue in high school, but it's a huge problem at the university level and beyond.

Thank God you and others like you didn't go to my schools.

I'm glad that I don't have kids that you could possibly come near either.

Porcupine wrote:

Maybe I can agree with this. But any sort of aggression can be interpreted as an attempt to beat into blackout. If someone pushes me or touches me, I can interpret that as an attempt to beat into blackout if I so wish, and respond accordingly.

If you feel that my approach is too reckless, then I can suggest you instead just punch the guy a few times and see if he fights back or not. If he just stands there and lets you hit him freely then feel free to continue punching him whenever he bugs you. If he retaliates (and remember he is the bully to start with, so presumably he pushed or punched you or did something to start out) in any physical manner...that can and should be interpreted as him attempting to "beat you into blackout" and you should respond accordingly. Anime smile

Please, do me and everyone else a favor, and never speak to anyone ever again.

I hate to bring up the cliche "violence leads to more violence", but holy cow. You're talking about seriously wounding, possibly killing (if you hit an artery or vein, AND YOU CAN, you can kill someone by stabbing them practicaly anywhere) someone who just wants 2 f'ing dollars. There is NO sense in that. If he's alone and I think I can take him, I say no. If he has buddies, I go "here ya go".

I've never been bullied, at least not to an extreme extent. It was an extremely small sommunity (my class was 90 some), so everyone knew each other and all the teachers were respectful of students and their problems (I was a crybaby, and all of my teachers comforted me when I was picked on). When I hit 10th grade, I grew some balls, I got strong, and I made people not want to think of picking fights on me. I can honestly say I've never been in a fight in my life, but if I ever am, unless they pull a knife or a gun on me, I'm going to be a MAN with honor and dignity and fight with my fists and feet. If they do pull a weapon on me, I back off, my life is not worth a couple bucks or an insult. I'm not a callous person though, you can beat the shit out of me, but touch my friends and you don't want to know what happens.

Knives, guns, those all lead to people getting really hurt or worse. Fists aren't much better, but at the least you're letting your bully know that you aren't a coward.

If you get a knife pulled on you, don't fight though. It's not worth it.

selenta wrote:

Porcupine wrote:

Maybe I can agree with this. But any sort of aggression can be interpreted as an attempt to beat into blackout. If someone pushes me or touches me, I can interpret that as an attempt to beat into blackout if I so wish, and respond accordingly.

If you feel that my approach is too reckless, then I can suggest you instead just punch the guy a few times and see if he fights back or not. If he just stands there and lets you hit him freely then feel free to continue punching him whenever he bugs you. If he retaliates (and remember he is the bully to start with, so presumably he pushed or punched you or did something to start out) in any physical manner...that can and should be interpreted as him attempting to "beat you into blackout" and you should respond accordingly. Anime smile

Please, do me and everyone else a favor, and never speak to anyone ever again.

WTF!? Bring a knife? Yea cause that's really smart. For starters your ass is now quite probably being locked up for a string of charges I could list (under Maryland law at least). Not to mention if you pulled that kind of shit where I grew up you'd be dead. I'm not joking, I mean it when I say dead. You pull a knife in inner city areas on a bully they come back with a gun and simply catch you out somewhere and shoot you. Brilliant idea. You also can't pull a knife in self defense either if someone if attacking you bare fisted. It's called equal force. That means someone starts hitting you you can defend yourself accordingly with the same amount of force. That does not mean pull a knife on them. People who carry knives to school are part of the problem period. You're the ones that cause schools to have metal detectors and draconian martial law imposed so to speak. Not to mention you're simply delusional if you think a bully won't start the same routine on someone else because of what you did. What they'll do is simply find even smaller and weaker kids to pick on, possibly resorting to girls. More then likely all you will have done is pissed them off and then some other poor kid gets to reap that reward of yours.

Forum - View topic
Are Japanese High Schools really that bad?

Your Anime Rankings - Best of Spring 2024, Jun 10-16

Ultraman: Rising Anime Movie Review

Cheering for Gunma: Narenare -Cheer for you!- Anime Producer Hayato Kanno

This Week in Anime - Is OEL Manga Really Manga?

The Horizon Volumes 1-3 Manhwa Review

Black Butler Manga Goes on Hiatus Before Heading to Climax

River's Edge Manga Review

New Projects Bring New Opportunities for Kinema Citrus Anime Studio

Tokyo Revengers TV Anime Gets Sequel, Fairy Tale Mini Anime

The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses Season 1 Anime Series Review

Forum - View topicAre Japanese High Schools really that bad?

Forum

Forum - View topic
Are Japanese High Schools really that bad?