The Bus Monitor Got Bullied by Those Kids Because We Took Prayer Out of Public School

We have become a place where we teach our kids everything is handed to them and the world owns them.  We don’t allow them to experience failure, or negative impacts.  In return most of the kids today are a bunch of  brats.  They feel they deserve respect without giving any.  

Do you have children? I will be shocked if the answer is yes.

Seems to me this all started in the 50s, when they added God to everything.  XD

Hemant those kids were not thugs. They are nothing but wanna be’s trying to act tuff on camera. When you have to pick on an elderly women to get your jollies something is wrong with you in the head and religion wouldn’t fix it.

I went to an all-boys Catholic high school. We prayed every day. We wrote JMJ (jesus, mary and joseph) on our test papers. And the kids in school were merciless to the bus driver that drove the sports teams basically calling him a sheep-fucker, day after day, year after year. We also had one kid basically assault another kid on a daily basis when they got off my bus to rousing screams from the kids still on the bus. Yes, prayer in school is the answer.

Everybody thinks they know the answer.  Kids are brats, especially at that age in any millenia.

If someone ever called me a sheep fucker to my face I would burst out laughing.

They needed a 4th option:  These children are little shits

Did the driver speak up at all?  Those kids should know better.  I certainly hope their parents are shamed that they raised such malevolent pricks.

But, stuff like that didn’t happen in a vacuum.  Someone, somewhere (though the other kids on the bus may want to speak up but don’t dare…maybe it’s a ‘better her than me” problem)  gave these wastes of carbon tacit approval of their behavior.

I only sub, but I truly try to tell kids they’re wrong when they behave horribly.  I even use the word ‘wrong’.  Sometimes I’m pretty sure I won’t sub again when I tell someone something like that.  I usually go to lunch and rat myself out….so when a kid complains the principal/counselor will be able to say ‘yes, she told us’.

Sam

That was also when the “Greatest” generation was also supposedly hard at work raising us baby boomers who have ever since been know, based on their “great” efforts, as “spoiled whiners”. But I guess it is now our turn to be charged with messing up a couple more generations. You never saw this kind of thing on YouTube in the 50’s.

I agree with you, Jim, and I also think the lady was not doing her job by not putting a bunch of 7th graders in their place. She is an adult, and she is in charge of monitoring the bus! Many truly powerless people are bullied far worse, and don’t get half a million bucks in compensation. I know I’m going to get in trouble for saying this, but as the mother of two boys (now men), kids that age are all bark and no bite, it’s easy to put them in their place, with a few right words, and simply by being firm.

Sorry, oh poll answering folks, but my atheist, raised by single mom eldest son was the target of bullies, not the perp. Guess that smashes your “needs prayer” and “breakdown of family” delusions to shit, eh?

I’ll concede that there are often too many restrictions on discipline in school settings, but I am also willing to bet that if you asked the poll takers, their primary idea of discipline would be corporal punishment.

Well, my stepmother goes to church every Sunday, but she’s still a bigoted twit that does idiotic things, especially on Facebook. Giving someone a set of guidelines doesn’t mean they’re going to follow them. Isn’t the old saying “rules are meant to be broken”? Even if those rules are set by an apparent supreme being.

If daily prayer in school will make everything better…

…then why is it that we have had tens of thousands of cases of rape and abuse in Catholic churches, schools, and orphanages? Not to mention churches of other denominations, as well as ultra-orthodox Jewish communities?

Just askin’.

No it’s happening because the bus driver didn’t stop the bus turn around and throw the kid’s off the bus by the neck of their shirts. Me personally I would have punched them in the face, but I’m old school.

This shitty attitude was learned at school.  This is what happens when 800 students are monitored by 40 adults who, let’s face it, don’t care much about how your kids act – they can’t – they’ve got a curriculum to cover as well as their asses.  
I taught in the public schools for ten years.  My first year at one school one of the coaches had just survived being arrested and sued for breaking up a fight.  So, even if teachers would like to intervene, they best not because some ambulance chaser is ready to pounce.  It’s not the teachers fault, it’s not the parents fault, it’s everyone’s fault.  

In modern America we cannot seem to do anything that requires a consensus.  Concerted efforts have been painted up as “communist” so we fail at everything.  

My kids took on a civics project a few years back to get the entire neighborhood to use one trash service.  We had five services each running two trucks and it was dangerous, noisy, damaged the streets, and wasteful.  So, we solicited trash companies for a bid that included a group discount.  About five of the neighbors saw through that – Karl Marx was trying to move in.  So, they turned down the discount and insisted on choosing a trash company OTHER than the one that came in with the lowest bid and best service.  Why?  Because it wasn’t their idea – pride and prejudice.  

So, how would we EVER teach our kids to be civil?  That would take EVERYONE agreeing on a tactic.  I don’t see it happening so we continue to home school.  [By the way, one of the biggest reasons is to keep our kids away from ridiculous religious notions including the forced prayer of the pledge, but that’s another topic.]

 Man, YouTube SUCKED in the 1950s!   😉

You should come visit some schools in Maine because they are nothing like what you describe.

I was raised in a “traditional” family that forced God down my throat. They told me I was worthless, my only good was that I could reproduce, they didn’t bother getting me medical help when I needed it because I wasn’t a male and therefore was a waste, the list goes on. They finally formally disowned me when I came out of the closet and refused to marry the man they wanted to (literally) sell me to.

I needed years of therapy after escaping. I’m still sensitive to triggers.

Yup. Not having a “traditional” family is exactly these kids’ issues. 

 I do a version of that with my kids.  I call it ‘if you EVER’.  Generally, I did it after a day of substitute teaching when I’d had an egregiously idiotic or poorly  behaved set of kids.

Why do kids grow up to be brats? Because parents tolerate it. Because parents give kids low expectations. Because the dirty little secret about parents is that a lot of them suck at being parents. That’s why.

Wanting to respect other peoples’ rights to freedom of religion is what causes school violence? Really? 

Please explain this. Because THAT is the “ideal” behind removing forced prayer from school. Nobody has totally removed prayer from schools…You can’t. Hell, there’s even a national holiday for kids to meet up outside their school at the flag pole and pray. This fact is pretty universally ignored, though, because apparently all that matters is forcing everyone to pray. 

The reason why those kids behaved like scumbag thugs is because for whatever reason they weren’t taught how to empathize with or respect others.

Theists generally use “prayer”, “God”, or “church” as a proxy for the above. Non-theists just call it what it is.

 Actually, there wasn’t a single sucky video on it back then. 100% awesome!

 Yes, you’re very tough.

The movie Blackboard Jungle came out in 1955 – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047885/  Prayer wasn’t taken out of schools until the 1960’s… on the other hand, what happened in the 1950’s…”Under God” put in the pledge and “In God We Trust” was put on the money…just saying.

 No, DG, this is not a fact, it is a lie, just like EVERYTHING you post.  Isn’t that imaginary god of yours supposed to have some sort of problem with bearing false witness? 

It’s easily found with a quick google.  It was a topic of conversation in the schools of education in the 1980s, and was easily seen throughout the 80s and 90s.   Again, the level of violence by students and children being worse than 50 years ago isn’t really debated.  That’s like saying find a citation proving that Washington was the first president.
The ideal, of course, is that what others want is irrelevant.  There’s me, and then there’s the other 300 million Americans whose opinions or preferences don’t matter.  Works, as long as it’s me who is getting my way.  But when an entire society is weaned to feel that the individual is all that matters, everyone else is a distant second, it can’t help but have a major impact on generation after generation of children.  Especially if those same children don’t feel they’re getting everything they want, and it must be someone else’s fault.

*Big Hugs*

Thank you for sharing your story. I’m glad you got out and are doing better. 🙂

Violence by children. 

 “Sheep? That’s not a nice thing to call your mother.”

If a kid goes far enough to touch her how do you know said kid would not go far enough to physically harm her? The kids did tell her to ‘shut the fuck up” and I know I could use words to your face that would make you cry.

She is showing a lot of fear and they are feeding off it but I cannot blame her one bit. She is trapped in a seat and outnumbered. Let me take two others and place you in the same situation and see how well you do.

If you truly think you can out shout me, good luck with that. My voice could drown you out with ease.

So until you are in her situation don’t act as if it is easy to get out of. 

 So, DG, what you’re saying is that the statistics on violence can only be twisted to support your ideology if you selectively ignore any violence that you find inconvenient for your goal of hijacking public schools to indoctrinate children into your sick death cult. 

My wife and I were discussing that story yesterday.  I told her idiots where going to pull the “that’s what happens when we take God out of schools” card.  Of course if it had been a bunch of obviously Christian children bullying a gay person by telling him/her they were hellbound, depraved, sinful scum,  the peanut gallery would be playing a different card–the “religious freedom” card. 

I seem to be recalling from “Little House on the Prairie” when schoolboys killed a teacher and the only way the new teacher could stop them was to bring a whip. Prayer was in schools then…

“Traditional” families from the “Real” America, no doubt.

Thanks DG for that weird nonsensicle ramble.

 Evidently when DG wrote “isn’t really debated” he meant “isn’t really debated amongst those of us who don’t want to debate it because we need BS like this to support our position. Therefore Jesus in the Real America.”

Your making the assumption that other parents are doing something wrong.

My guess is that there are plenty of people in prison that were raised in the ideal home. You can lead a horse to water…..

 “…eliminating the free exercise of religious practices that don’t conform to the aforementioned thereof…”
Are you serious or just stupid? Are you not free to go to church/mosque/synagogue? Are you not free to pray at home/in your car/on a bus?

I HATE when people argue that this stuff didn’t happen “back in the day”. My mother, who went to school during the “Under God” heyday, was mercilessly bullied. One time, she was chosen for a solo during a school performance, and the jealous girls who weren’t chosen stuck straight pins in her costume so that they stuck her when she put her costume on. My GRANDFATHER had his lunch money stolen every day for four years. There have always been, and will continue to be, bullies. Prayer in school has nothing to do with it.

Actually catboy, you’ve revealed why it is I have such a hard time on this blog.  I don’t get along well with fundamentalists – of any stripe.  One of the classic traits of fundamentalist mentalities is, of course, a willingness to deny what’s accepted as fact by most.  Try explaining to a 6 day creationist that the universe likely wasn’t created in 6 days.  Just try it some time.  You *think* you have evidence on your side.  But you’ll see that you don’t.  The 6 day creationist will argue, argue, accuse you of lying, twisting facts, dismiss the evidence you give.  They will demand you account for things that at other times they will even admit!

So we have here, people suggesting I made up this whole violence among kids today in schools is worse than ever.  Now, this very blog has had posts about bullying, how it’s worse than ever, and many have agreed.  That is, of course, part of the trend.  Not that violence never happened before.  Increasing violence began as early as the 40s, during the war.  But it has gotten worse by every account.  It was discussed and studied in the 70s, in the 80s, in the 90s.  Today.  Nobody denies it. Until now. 

Because I’ve come to see that this is really a fundamentalist blog, atheist style.  It should have been obvious, but compared to some atheist blogs, this seemed the height of open tolerance and respect.  Some atheist blogs are so crass and horrible, they make Fred Phelps seem sane and kind by comparison.  So this blog stood out like a shining star.  At first.

But as so many would approach me as you have, which is not uncommon behavior, things began to reveal themselves.  As I noticed the subject of so many posts having that whiff of ‘woe is us, poor us, we’re always beautiful, they’re always the bad guys’ (classic fundamentalist perspectives); as some posts seemed to be completely outside of an ability to see the obvious (proud that Jesse Ventura is an atheist?  Thinking P.Z. Myers is brilliant when there are atheists who cringe at what he says?), then you can see that I probably won’t make any headway here.  Just as I never have with fundamentalists of any stripe, since one thing nobody has ever accused me of being is a fundamentalist.  And at my age, I have not the time nor patience to deal with folks who must deny reality and live in a semi-fantasy world of self-imposed limits on what is and isn’t true.

I think I’ll go to some of the other atheist blogs I’ve been pointed to.  Not all the commenters here are of that sort, of course.  But enough are.  Enough to spin the conversation toward uselss bickering, rather than accepting the obvious truth that religion isn’t the cause of evil, people are.  And the reasons are complex and varied, and then looking for cause and solution accordingly.  Actually engaging, rather than the usual fundamentalist retorts (with extra F-bombs and strange fantasies about people’s sex lives thrown in in this case).   Maybe Leah Librisco’s blog – but she’s actually converting at this point.   Still, she admits that things are actually complex, and is willing to see the world, not the fantasy.  And that makes for a pretty good discussion right there.  So ciao everyone.  I wish all the best, and may your destinies find you at their appointed ends happy, and with a meaningful life to look back upon.  TTFG.  Friendly Atheist is now off the Favorites.

 “Actually it’s a fact that the level of violence and physical harm that
occurred in schools as recently as the 1940s was much, much, much lower
than that today. ”

As a former Christian I can honestly say faith is meaningless and god is a lie, this is a fact not open to dispute. 

Eh? What? You think I’m wrong? But I said “As a former….” to qualify my credentials and establish my authority on the subject . How can I be wrong?

For the record, the National School Safety Center, and several other sources, shows school violence has declined since the 90s. Granted the 90s are not the 40s but I cannot find any official records going back that far. Without an official unbiased source, I have to account for the possibility that you have romanticized the past somewhat.      

To be fair, “traditional family values” are not about gays and sex. When I was growing up as a kid, I was taught to value honesty, respect, and kindness. Then again, I grew up in a godless heathen family that became half-Mormon after the divorce, so what do I know…

What a pathetically dishonest response. Kevin of Bangor merely argued that words could be found to hurt people, and you turned it into an insinuation that he is a bully. Your previous post was stupid and naive too, with its assumption that “the right words” would magically control any group of children.

oh….those arent “real” christians, same when any denomination does something wrong, like when Hitler did what he did, people often tell me he wasnt a “real” christian, even though he said about the Jews and other “undesirables” most of the things today conservative christians say about Muslims and Gays

Christians are the biggest bullies on the planet and have been for a couple thousand years now. I’m willing to bet that these bullies are the product of Christian homes with conservative “family values”.

Nope, prayer in schools has nothing to do with it. Japan, Sweden, The Netherlands and a slew of other secular nations have no prayer in schools and their children are the brightest and most well behaved on the planet. Besides, if we were to require prayer in schools, why must it default to Christian prayers? Perhaps prayers to Vishnu, Buddha or Gaia will make it all better.