by James Burns | Mar 7, 2018 | James Burns, Parents, Podcast, Teachers, The Bully Proof Classroom, Uncategorized
Please go to http://bullyproofcla
sroom.com/parents-can-bebullies-too-2 and read this article. Based upon the previous tip, it is obvious that bullying is wrong and it will not be tolerated. But, what do you do when parents are bullies? The real reason why parents argue with teachers and administration is because they will never win the argument at home with their own child who they, as the parent, never corrected. They are, in many ways bullied at home and react out of fear; this fear is taken out on the teacher in the form of anger and rage. They are not doing their child any favors because their child is going to have a difficult time in life when Mom and Dad are not around. What’s the answer? When dealing with a parent who is a known bully, never go at it alone. Always meet with them when you have the support of your colleagues or the administration. Parents who are bullies will usually believe what their son or daughter tells them. Things like “the teacher doesn’t like me,” or “the teacher is always picking on me” are common cries from students who are bullies. When you meet with these parents, they go on the attack and become accusatory, putting you as the teacher on the defensive. Chances are, if their son or daughter is a bully, they are a school-wide problem as well, and other teachers and administration have observed their behavior. Having the support of your team when meeting with a parent avoids the idea that you are picking on their child.
by James Burns | Mar 1, 2018 | Uncategorized
Students who excel academically usually have a fair amount of confidence. That is a good thing. But, cockiness and arrogance are not good. These attitudes can begin to prey on the nerves of other students and at times, even on you as the teacher. This student may believe that he/she has all the answers and will challenge your role and knowledge as the teacher. This can affect the student’s relationships with other students in the class and with you as the teacher. Even though the student is academically gifted, he/she may be emotionally immature. This attitude will not only have a negative impact on the student in the present, but in the future as well. Correct him/her when necessary and make him/her aware of how he/she is being perceived by other students. A bully will zero in on this kid’s cockiness and begin to victimize him. As teachers, be careful. Just because this student may be on your last nerve and you begin to believe that this student may need to get knocked down a peg or two, don’t look the other way when he/she is bullied.
by James Burns | Feb 28, 2018 | Bully Proof Classroom, James Burns, Uncategorized
Too often teachers award a grade of an “A” or a “B” to a student, when in reality the student doesn’t know the material and a more realistic grade would be a “C” or even a “D.” Parental or administrative pressure or curriculum timelines can place you in a position of awarding a grade that is not in line with your student’s actual performance or ability. This is more of a problem for the student and the student’s parents than for you. Students who have an inflated view of their own ability move on to the next marking period or the next grade with a lethal combination: an inflated view of their academic ability (overconfidence) and a lack of the prerequisite skills they need to succeed. This cockiness combined with the students perception of their true ability can produce anger-related issues that could translate into bullying behavior. These students ultimately become behavioral and academic problems for another teacher who often will blame you for the problem. Plus, another huge problem that arises is that the student’s parents also develop the same inflated view of their child’s ability. This grade inflation only produces future pain for the student, the parents, any of the student’s future teachers, and maybe even you, down the road.
by James Burns | Feb 26, 2018 | Anti Bullying 101, Bully Proof Classroom, James Burns, Uncategorized
The past is the past, right? Wrong. The past can and will dictate the future if we allow ourselves to be measured based on our failures rather then our successes. Let’s face it. We all have failed or fallen short from time to time. Just because we have failed does not mean we are a failure. It just means we did the best with what we knew at the time. Parents can do this once they take a look at the lifestyle or the behavior of their grown children. If you are a parent, take heart: you did your best with the information you had in the process of raising your children. If you are a teacher and have had your share of problems and headaches and feel like the funds are low and the debts are high, don’t look back. Don’t drive while looking in the rear view mirror; you will hit a future tree. Gandhi once said, “Be the change we wish to see in the world.” What changes do you want? A kinder and gentler place for kids to come, have fun, and learn? Realize that you are the one that has the capacity to facilitate the change. Have you goofed up in the past? So what? The past is the past, so please don’t ever let it remind you of what you are now. Let the past remind you of what the future holds when you finally let go.
by James Burns | Feb 15, 2018 | Florida Shooting, Nikolas Cruz, Uncategorized
Originally Published September 26, 2013
Tell me how we miss these people; enough already. Let’s start at the beginning: A general discharge from the Navy indicating eight to ten events of misconduct, a discharge that the system converted to an honorable discharge, arrested for shooting three bullets into a neighbors apartment, shot out three of his neighbors tires, admitted he had blackouts that were fueled by anger, identified by his father as having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from involvement in 9-11 rescue attempts, a sweet and intelligent guy, but very aggressive, identified by a lay person at the Buddist Temple where he worshiped as someone who might kill himself one day. Well Aaron Alexis doesn’t have to kill himself, somebody did it for him. Security did it at The Washington Navy Yard. But, not before he went on a rampage and shot and killed 12 people and injured countless others both physically and emotionally.
They walk amongst us and we don’t even know it. But, we do know it! Take a look at the track record. Not only do we know it we ignore it. Aaron Alexis discharge from the Navy was commuted from a general discharge to an honorable discharge. He had up to ten counts of misconduct while in the Navy. Who makes these systemic changes? He was identified by friends and co-workers as aggressive, had swings in his personality, was potentially bi-polar, carried and used weapons, and had suicide ideation. Yet, it was reported that he as a civilian information technology contractor, he worked on the Navy and Marine Corps intranet and was given a security clearance classified as “secret.” He had a bogus common access card and gained entrance into the yard with a minimum security check. He was deviant and dysfunctional enough to smuggle weapons into the yard probably because his intranet security clearance gave him the full blown view of where to hide himself and his weapons. And, oh yes did I mention that he applied and was granted a license for these weapons like he was applying for a dog license.
I don’t understand it. I do understand it, but I don’t. I can give you the reason, but I can never excuse it. You see reasons have become excuses. We evade the excuse and call it a reason and in doing so we allow those who are dangerously mentally ill to walk amongst us and have their way with us. We remain politically correct at the risk of allowing someone with Aaron Alexis’s profile to walk into a Navy Yard, open fire and kill twelve people; people that he didn’t even know but that represented the dark world that he lived in. Oh, he had anger issues for sure, but no one will know who he was angry at. Political correctness will be the undoing of this country. The truth is something that we all think but rarely say for our own fear of judgment by others. But, if we don’t learn to understand that someone with Alexis’s profile is dangerous we will fear the judgment of others who accuse us of racial, political, psychological profiling. I love this quote by George Orwell; “The further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those that speak it.” The truth is they walk amongst us and the question is who or what do you fear.
Nikolas Cruz
February 15, 2018
There have been many other school shooting since I originally published the article on Aaron Alexis seen above. I wrote this article because of my outrage that as a society we have plenty of information available to us about the danger of certain individuals, in fact more now than ever before; social media has taken care of that. With all that knowledge isn’t it time to reevaluate our stance on being politically correct and start taking a look at the social media footprint that these deviant minds leave for all to see. Now let’s take a look at Nikolas Cruz and The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that occurred at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. One of the ten deadliest shootings in United States History; Seventeen students and teachers are now dead.
The teachers were warned in advance about Nikolas Cruz, he was placed in an alternative school and was ultimately expelled because of some undisclosed behavioral issues. I mean we don’t want to hurt this guys feeling by letting anyone know that he was thrown out of school for threatening teachers and students, deviance, violence, and for basically disrupting the lives of anyone that told him NO! Or anyone that got in his way. He was not allowed to bring a backpack to school; for fear that he might be carrying concealed weapons. A former student said that he was found to have bullets in his backpack. He was also found to be abusive toward his ex-girlfriend and others.
Other Comments Made
“He seemed like the kind of kid who would do something like this.”
Some other students echoed that opinion when interviewed.
“Everyone predicted it,” one told WFOR-TV.
But police said they were not warned of any possible attack by Mr. Cruz. (How Come)
Superintendent Robert Runcie told reporters: “We received no warnings. (Then why was he thrown out of school? Isn’t that enough of a warning that he is dangerous)
“Potentially there could have been signs out there. But we didn’t have any warning or phone calls or threats that were made.”
According to reports Mr. Cruz told the family he was staying home and that he did not want to go to school because it was Valentine’s Day.
In many instances people start to rant about doing more in terms of mental health awareness and I agree more has to be done but Cruz is not a mental health problem he is a behavioral problem who because of his look and his attitude people walked around him and teachers quaked in their boots at the thought of having him in their class. He is a young man who was never corrected as a child and became warped in his thinking believing that he could say and do anything he wanted.
How do you stop this madness? It’s not gun control and it’s not pouring more money into the mental health industry (Although that wouldn’t hurt). It starts well before a school shooting; it even starts before a child starts school. It starts with making a child understand the difference between right and wrong and that there are consequences for bad choices. In reality we have soft peddled and allowed kids to do and say whatever they want at a young age without some type of firm and fair discipline designed to help them develop consequential thinking and do a self evaluation before they act on their impulse.
Today kids feel good about themselves for no apparent reason with everything that the child does being recognized as AWESOME. Win-Win doesn’t exist somebody has to lose except my kid, and when he does the child can’t manage the disappointment and the parents are afraid that his or her self esteem will be damaged for a lifetime. We have to balance rules with compassion and make children understand that the world doesn’t revolve around them.
As a society we have to stop walking around behaviors that we believe are circumstantial and are caused by outside influences. I realize that many people were raised in less than ideal conditions and war and neglect have left a wake of people with PTSD and a variety of conditions that need help and treatment. I have no idea what kind of environment Nikolas Cruz was raised in or what his parents did to discipline him. I do know that Cruz’s actions were one of pure evil and were designed to inflict pain and suffering. He had a digital footprint that indicated that he was a danger to others. He apparently wasn’t a danger to himself because he didn’t commit suicide after the massacre as so many perpetrators do after a school or other shootings. His behavior frightened people enough so they backed down from him like a child having a tantrum and allowed him the freedom to say and do whatever he wanted.
It’s not gun control and it’s not mental illness it’s the acceptance of deviance at low levels that leads to a person like Cruz upping the ante and believing that he can get away with this kind of behavior without consequence. The proverb goes “It’s easier to build a boy than to mend a man.” Somebody dropped the ball in Cruz’s construction and left an individual that truly is unfix-able. He knew his life was over the minute he made the decision to massacre the students and the teachers at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School. How his life will end is up to a judge and jury now. It will end, but this is no consolation to the families who have to go on living without their children and their loved ones.
by James Burns | Feb 14, 2018 | Bully Proof Classroom, Bullying, James Burns, Root Problems, Uncategorized
Often, we observe behaviors in children and begin to label them as “lazy,” “unmotivated,” and “stubborn.” What we are observing are really only the symptoms of what is actually going on within the hearts and minds of our students. When we treat the symptoms with systemic consequences, we never really get to the root problem. Don’t get me wrong; bullies need consequences, but a balance needs to be struck between rules and regulations, compassion and understanding. Bullies need to be disciplined, but consequences alone won’t stop the bullying. As an example, we label kids as “lazy” all the time. In reality, laziness is really the manifestation of disrespect. It’s not that the kid won’t do things; he/she just won’t do them for you because of a poor relationship that has developed over time. Often, therapy is necessary to peek into the mind of this kid. But, if we take the time to form a relationship with the bully and stop dealing with the symptoms, we will be providing this kid with permanent help, not temporary relief, and will be setting him/ her on the path to lifelong success.
sroom.com/parents-can-bebullies-too-2 and read this article. Based upon the previous tip, it is obvious that bullying is wrong and it will not be tolerated. But, what do you do when parents are bullies? The real reason why parents argue with teachers and administration is because they will never win the argument at home with their own child who they, as the parent, never corrected. They are, in many ways bullied at home and react out of fear; this fear is taken out on the teacher in the form of anger and rage. They are not doing their child any favors because their child is going to have a difficult time in life when Mom and Dad are not around. What’s the answer? When dealing with a parent who is a known bully, never go at it alone. Always meet with them when you have the support of your colleagues or the administration. Parents who are bullies will usually believe what their son or daughter tells them. Things like “the teacher doesn’t like me,” or “the teacher is always picking on me” are common cries from students who are bullies. When you meet with these parents, they go on the attack and become accusatory, putting you as the teacher on the defensive. Chances are, if their son or daughter is a bully, they are a school-wide problem as well, and other teachers and administration have observed their behavior. Having the support of your team when meeting with a parent avoids the idea that you are picking on their child.
