Tag Archives: school

A Fighting Chance

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By Jason Menard

As a father, I can only imagine the pain Strathroy’s John Melo is feeling today, grieving the loss of his son Joshua, who took his own life – with bullying named the catalyst for his action.

Bullying is rampant in our schools – and our schools are ill-equipped to handle it. In fact, many schools have instituted a hands-off policy, the concept of which my wife and I fully support. However, a concept and its reality can be far different things. Essentially, what educational hands-off policies encompass is a zero-tolerance approach to violence and physical aggression. One punch and you’re out.

The hands-off policy has brought a different form of bullying to the fore. Now, more than the realized action of violence, the perceived threat of violence and intimidation are the preferred tactics of bullies. What hands-off policies tend to breed is a refuge for more subtle forms of bullying: veiled threats, intimidation, implied violence, and ostracizing run almost unchecked, with little recourse for the victims of this situation. While there’s an increased awareness of the social and emotional ramifications of bullying within the school system, the current system, as it exists, ends up protecting the aggressors and further victimizing the victimized.

As adults we tend to overrationalize the problems faced by our children. What seems clear to us, illuminated by the wisdom of experience and perspective, is not so clear to our youth. While adults can understand that these threats are nothing more than a cry for attention, or braggadocio covering up the bully’s insecurities and fears, to our children these threats are real and present threats to their physical and emotional well being.

I’ve seen some kids’ frustration with their situation. Up until a certain age, kids just aren’t equipped with the mental and emotional maturity to diffuse situations with intellectual tools like negotiation, humour, or dialogue. Rather, they’re more impulsive, conflicted in their thought processes, and incapable of resolving their emotions in a mature way.

So what do they do? They either become sullen and reclusive, or they lash out – but with the hands-off policy, they are punished for striking back against their aggressors, while the bullies get off scot-free. And as much as students and administrators encourage students to come forward with their concerns and fears, few if any students will do so out of fear of being branded a “squealer” or “tattle-tale.” Parental intervention often does more harm than good as well, as the child then becomes a target for having other people fighting their battles (the irony of which is that these bullies often travel in packs, having older children as their muscle.)

Bullying also is not simply restricted to the schoolyard. While threats may not be carried out on the playground, the victims of bullying carry the fear that they could be confronted on their way home from school, in their neighbourhood, or at their park. While the hands-off policies may discourage violence on the school property, they have little effect on the outside world.

So what are we to do? If a school embraces a hands-off policy and is vigilant in its execution, it must be equally, if not more so, vigilant in the proactive curtailment of intimidation. A verbal threat must be treated with the same response as if a punch was thrown, and teachers and administrators must be increasingly vigilant about actively looking for these situations. Threatening another student should eventually result in suspensions, parents should be immediately notified about their children’s aggressive behaviour, and consequences must be set in place to discourage this type of activity.

It’s a lot of work, but it needs to be done. When I was in school, you dealt with bullies in one of two ways, you either turned tail and ran or you stood your ground and fought. There was a clear line and there were no shades of grey. Obviously a return to this type of frontier justice is neither desired or warranted.

However, if we truly want to embrace a hands-off policy and make our schools a safe haven for social and educational development, then we need to do a better job of making sure that all our students stand – pardon the expression – a fighting chance.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Lest We Forget?

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By Jason Menard

Let we forget. That plaintive admonition from our forefathers seems to be getting drowned out by the din of modern society and, unless things change soon, threatens to be silenced.

As we approach Remembrance Day, our collective attention is supposed to be turned towards those men and women who fought for our beliefs and ideals in the Great War, WWII, and the Korean War. Yet, for more and more people – especially the younger generations — those conflicts are rapidly distancing themselves from our present-day reality.

In my own case, the only direct links I have to Remembrance Day observances are my grandfathers – one of whom passed away in my youth, and the other of whom I never knew. My own children have no direct experience. Will Remembrance Day mean anything to them as they grow up?

My fear is that the answer will be no, unless we do something about it. We need more than a poppy on a lapel or on a coin – we need to embrace Remembrance Day as a country and pass our passion, appreciation, and knowledge on to future generations.

Although many of our veterans survived horrors beyond comprehension, tragically we are rapidly losing them to the one battle from which there is no victory. Fewer and fewer WWII veterans remain with us today, and in the not-to-distant future it’s not hard to see that those living links to our past will be broken. And with their passing, so goes the living history that’s at the root of Remembrance Day observances.

We face a number of problems, not the least of which is that we live in a disposable society. Modern-day conflicts are lamented, and just as quickly forgotten. Horrors like the Chechen school invasion are featured on CNN for 24-hours a day, and then just as quickly forgotten when the next story breaks. How can we, as a society, expect to remember wars that many of us have no direct ties to when we can’t even remember what happened last week?

Add to that the fact that war has been sanitized and edited for broadcast on the nightly news. The horrors of sending wave upon wave of soldiers from the trench to their death is incomprehensible to those growing up with remote-control wars! The majority of Canadians just don’t have the first-hand experience of what’s it’s like to have many of their friends and family go overseas never to return.

Is this all bad? Not when you consider that the price for this disconnect has been years of peace. It’s getting harder and harder to remember conflict because we’ve been blessed with years without it directly affecting our country. But, as the old adage states, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

We need to remember the horrors of war, instead of treating it as entertainment. Movies and video games depicting ‘realistic’ warfare are proliferating, but where are the real stories of tragedy? Where is the compassion for the families that were irrevocably altered by armed conflicts? Where is the commitment to honouring the brave men and women that gave so much of their lives for us?

A couple of years back I was in Montreal for Remembrance Day. I left my office and walked the two blocks to the cenotaph for the 11:00 ceremony. There I was joined by a handful of veterans, a smattering of others, and nobody else my age. With easily over 100,000 people within walking distance, this was the best we could do.

In fact, how many of people in their 30s and below even know where the local cenotaph is? We grew up wearing our poppies, going to school assemblies to hear Taps, and making wreaths out of tissue paper. And what has that left us with?

Recent generations have gone through the motions without understanding the movement. We must change that pattern before Remembrance Day becomes simply another empty gesture that will eventually fade into the mists of time.

Where do we start? Ideally, a national holiday on Remembrance Day would be welcome. A day wherein families can participate in memorials, visit monuments, or lay a wreath at a cenotaph. But we all know that even if it was a holiday, too many would treat it with no significance – after all, how many celebrate Victoria Day compared to those that celebrate ‘The 2-4’?

We need to do a better job as parents to educate our children about our past. We need our schools to take an active role in focusing curriculum on what Remembrance Day truly is. Instead of wasting time with empty symbols, we need to learn from those precious few veterans we have left. We need to record their stories — and those of their families – so that future generations can reflect upon their sacrifices.

Most of all, we need to make Remembrance Day matter again. Our veterans’ courage, sacrifice, and passion for our country has to be worth more than a quarter with a poppy on it.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Following Our Children’s Lead

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By Jason Menard

It’s about time. Now it’s about time for the rest of society to follow the lead of our children.

The Thames Valley District School Board did the right thing last night, expanding its safe-school policy to include same-sex relationships. However, unless some parents follow the school board’s lead, it won’t mean a wet slap for our society as a whole.

There are parents and groups out there that believe this amendment will lead to schools promoting the gay lifestyle. Like homosexuality is an intellectual virus that once learned will lead to a Queer Eye for the Straight Kid makeover, causing mass Pride parades down the halls of our city’s elementary schools, and a run on Cher memorabilia for the under-12 set!

I’m sorry, but being gay doesn’t work that way. You either you are or you aren’t. I’ve been around homosexuals the better (and I mean that in every sense of the word) part of my life, and yet I remain staunchly heterosexual. You would think that this powerful homo-hypnosis people seem to fear would have, at some point, affected me, but it hasn’t.

Including the understanding of gay lifestyles in our young children’s lives can only broaden and enrich their lives. In the same way that children were once – and at times are still – ostracized due to their ethnic background or religious beliefs, an attitude of intolerance and fear exists in our schools that make it difficult for homosexual children to feel comfortable with themselves.

I thank my parents for raising me in an extremely tolerant household. They taught me to respect and appreciate people for who they are – not who they’re with or what they look like. But as soon as I stepped out of the door, I entered a world where such compassion for others – at least as it relates to homosexuals – rarely existed.

Whether it was in the locker room with my hockey team or on the playground with other school kids the words ‘fag’ and ‘homo’ were tossed around as common insults. Up through high school, people that would never consider using a racial epithet tossed around insults based on sexual orientation without a second thought.

And then we wonder why it’s so hard for gay kids to come out? As a youth, I considered myself tolerant and understanding, but to a homosexual kid did my words – in this case – speak louder than my actions?

I went to a high school with roughly 900 other kids – and none was openly gay. While I may not believe that one in 10 people are gay, I find it hard to believe that all 900 of us were straight. Our culture was just not one where coming out was a welcome option. And I know we weren’t the only school like that.

I had hoped things had changed, but earlier this year, my son – who’s been exposed to gay friends and family all his life – came home and told me that some of his schoolmates were making fun of gay people and saying that they’re bad. The culture of intolerance still exists.

We, as a society, need to view sexuality in the same light as we do race. The only intolerance should be an intolerance of discrimination. We live in a secular society, so religious beliefs should hold no sway over our societal responsibilities. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to all people, straight or gay.

And this decision isn’t about undermining parental rights. I’ve got two kids and they didn’t come with instructions for me to instill intolerance and hate. My parental obligations include preaching love, understanding, and acceptance of our differences.

Hopefully, considering the world we live in now, the Thames Valley District School Board’s decision will help make my obligations a little easier. But that can only happen if we all support its ideals. Kids truly do learn the most from their parents and if we preach intolerance, what do you think are kids are going to believe?

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

I [Now] Love a Kid in Uniform

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By Jason Menard

If the 17-year-old version of me knew what I was about to write, he’d probably give me a good slap upside the head, but here it goes:

I think school uniforms are a great idea.

Whew, no blows from the past yet – although I’m sure my nine-year-old son won’t be too pleased either when he reads this article. I’d like to think that my 180-degree turn has less to do with the mellowing of age, than it does with a broader sense of perspective and an understanding of what’s truly important. And I’m sure my idealist friends from the time would tend to agree with me now.

As you know, children at London’s newest elementary school, St. Catherine of Siena, will be required to wear uniforms. While past versions of me would have railed on at length about the thought of indoctrinating our youth to a mandated norm established by an authoritarian body, my present version thinks, “Hmm, I hope they’ll do that at my son’s school?”

I’d like to toss finances aside, although that’s an appealing argument for many families. Yes, it’s true that buying a few uniforms is cheaper than trying to keep up with the outrageously expensive fashions of the times, that’s not the issue that the kids care about – at least that’s not what we cared about in my youth.

What was at stake was the concept of individuality and freedom of expression. Many of you out there probably think the same way that I did, in that the buttoned-up collars and pleated slacks of a school uniform would somehow do more than choke your neck, but would also stifle your ability to make your mark and stand out from the crowd. The thought exists that by everyone dressing the same, you’re creating a society of submissive drones, cloned to mimic one another without any concept of dissention or individual thought.

First off, I now have two problems with that. To start, I remember what I wore in high school and the only statement I was making was that I had no taste! But secondly, and more importantly, is that if everyone dons a school uniform then, finally, it’s the individual characteristics that will make you stand out!

A lack of uniforms, in fact, works counterproductively to fostering creativity. It allows people to use their clothing as a crutch to display superficial differences, but does nothing to allow the true nature of us to come forth.

I find it hilarious to see these kids tearing their jeans, throwing on a retro-Sex Pistols shirt, spiking their hair, and piercing their assorted body parts in an attempt to assert their individuality. What they’re completely oblivious to is the fact that they’re simply trading one set of conventions for another and just conforming to another group’s ideals. The same can be said for any one of those subsections of youth society – from those who look like angstful middle-class rappers, skater-kid wannabes, and retro-preppies – each style of dress is nothing more than conforming to another societal norm.

That’s what’s great – and overlooked – about uniforms. They make you work to stand out from the crowd. You have to use your mind, your talent, and your creativity to assert your uniqueness, not just look for a specific brand label of clothing.

Our society is rapidly becoming more and more multi-cultural, and we’re being exposed to more influences that are broadening our frame of reference. It’s long since time to appreciate those around us for who they are and not what they wear. If everyone starts from a level playing field, then all will be able to shine – not this those who wear the right clothes or look the right way.

Despite the old adage, clothes don’t make the man. And if you’re so devoid of depth that you need a label to define yourself, then remember that you’re only in school for a few hours each day – you can always change when you get home.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved