Big Brother Keeps Getting Bigger.

[Aractus]

By making schools into quasi-police functions?

You might want to give that one a little more thought.

It's absolutely within the rights of the school to discipline students for bullying or violence towards other students that take place outside of the school. Not only is it their right to do so, but protecting students from bullying should be high on their priorities, and monitoring social networks that the kids use is an excellent idea. The parents should be doing this as well of course, but they don't discipline their children for bullying others they just try to protect their own children from the bullying.

Things have changed since I was in school - when I was in primary school I was relentlessly bullied by a student, the student was suspended 4 or 5 times and ultimately expelled from the school. Their parents were not happy at all - mine were. And I think that was in year 3. I think that because on 13 01 1993 my dad died of cancer, so obviously I started year four (in February, that's when when the school year starts in Australia) with no dad. And as heart breaking as it is to remember all the kids had heard about it and were pretty supportive at that time. And now I'm involuntarily tearing up remembering that my dad was 44 years old when he died which is now just 13 years older than I am now. After that time I never had another problem with bullying - just with friends being dicks as kids are from time to time.

In this day and age though more needs to be done - when I was at school bullying took place in the school or on your way to or from the school. I used to cry and refuse to walk home from school. See my brother is two and a half years younger than me, so we were meant to walk home together, but I would flat-out refuse to leave the school - the teacher would say "it's time to go home" and I would say "no I can see him look" - the teacher would see why I wouldn't leave. And to be honest, I don't actually remember the bullying itself. I must have blocked it out. I think he was just really really threatening and intimidating.

On a darker note, a few years prior to this there was a kind named Kentir, 17, and another kid named Grant Cameron (check the link), and they were at the school fate (obviously not students since they were teens). Kentir (that is his real name, although legally I can't tell you his last name, and probably shouldn't be using his first name because he was a minor) was a bully. And at the fate he beat Grant so severely that he died. And many times as a child I would take the time to look at his plaque at the school at the location where he had been beaten (he didn't die there, he died in hospital). The parents were also former members of my former church. Kentir was sentenced, as a minor, to two years for manslaughter (he pleaded guilty), although I have no idea what length of time he actually served and I don't think there's any way of finding out since he was a minor. His parents were not happy with such a short sentence.

At a different school, (Holder) which closed down there was a section in his memory (because he had also been a student there), and when the school was closed it was turned into a community centre called the "Grant Cameron Community Centre" in his memory, now used by ACT Health.

Grant would not have died had he not been bullied by Kentir - who took his bullying to the extreme. In my view what he did amounts to murder, not manslaughter. If you beat someone with callous disregard to their well-being, and they die, with your friends around you watching the event, I don't believe that's manslaughter. If I was one of the parents I would have been furious that they accepted a plea on manslaughter instead of murder. Manslaughter is where you do something stupid, or negligent, or accidental, it's not meant to be for things you did deliberately - e.g. kicking someone in the guts so you rupture internal organs and cause them to die, which is exactly what he did.

So I guess Grant would be 43 today if he were alive, if he hadn't been bullied.

Bullying is, in my view, a VERY serious matter. And I reiterate, any school that goes the extra mile to look out for how students are treated in social media would have my support for doing so.