West Allegheny Middle School’s superintendent says ‘kindness workshop’ had ‘unintended consequences’

[didymus]

WPXI Pittsburgh:

West Allegheny Middle School’s superintendent says ‘kindness workshop’ had ‘unintended consequences’

Some parents of West Allegheny Middle School students say an anti-bulling workshop for eighth-graders went too far.The goal of the middle school’s “kindness workshop” last week was to promote peer acceptance, but some parents are outraged, saying it crossed the line.
Channel 11’s Cara Sapida spoke with the school’s Superintendent, Dr. Jerri Lynn Lippert regarding the workshop.
“Unfortunate our good intentions had some unintended consequences,” said Lippert.
According to school officials, a variety of exercises were put together for students to get students to “become aware of others’ experiences and their role of being supporters to one another.”

However, some parents claim the workshop had the opposite effect. “All they did was give the bullies more ammunition,” parent Marie-Noelle Briggs said.
During one of the exercises, the students were given masks and asked a series of questions, including whether they had one or more parent who did not go to college, whether someone close to them had been imprisoned and whether their families ever worried about not having enough money. If the answer was “yes,” students were instructed to move towards the center of the circle.

“I would never expect a middle school to ask 13-year-old kids if your parents have ever been in jail, if they’re same sex, if they’re having financial issues. Why would my 13-year-old son know any of this?” Briggs said.
Lippert did not personally look at the questions before the workshop.
“I didn’t personally look at the questions ahead of time, I trusted the team,” said Lippert. “It’s a national age appropriate model, and my concern now moving forward is a more inclusive process with parents, other administrators and parents, even students.”

Why have any workshops at all? I’m sure all schools have anti-bullying policies, just enforce them rigorously.

 

[3DOCTORS]

What gives anyone the right to ask unnecessary intrusive questions of a person of any age, in front of others of any age, who have no need to know such private information?! Inappropriate and outrageous!

 

[pensmama87]

I used to teach 13 year olds. I remember being 13 years old.

This is just all kinds of stupid.

 

[MaryT777]

I used to teach 13 year olds. I remember being 13 years old.

This is just all kinds of stupid.

I second this being stupid. Good grief, no wonder our kids lag behind with type of stuff taking up the school day.

Mary.

 

[Lou2U]

I used to teach 13 year olds. I remember being 13 years old.

This is just all kinds of stupid.

Agreed.

I’m surprised any of them were actually honest about it. I think I would have just sat there.

Lou

 

[CJ0204]

I don’t know what is going on in schools anymore. What I do know is that “anti-bullying” policies are basically some words in the student handbook saying it won’t be tolerated.In my kids’ school, the scenario goes something like this,
bully picks on someone repeatedly, which is somehow overlooked by teachers, bullied kid finally gets enough and tries to defend themself, all of a sudden the teachers are paying attention and the bullied child gets in trouble for being violent.
Please, before the teachers flame me, i know teachers cannot be everywhere at all times and it is impossible to see everything. I have the utmost respect for good teachers, I personally could not do your job. I just know of the stories my kids have told me about what they see goes on. I also know of a couple incidences where I have had to call the school regarding my daughter, I basically said if there were any more incidents, my husband and I would confront parents and make reports to the police. I don’t care how small the incident,I will not let anyone mistreat my kids.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

There was an activity like this promoted on Oprah years ago. My boss seemed to thing that Oprah had good stuff but I didn’t so I went looking for problems with it. Whoa! Were there ever. This was several years ago so activities like this should have been done and over. It’s either a revamped or recycled project but someone’s making money off of it. Perhaps the school should get their money back.

Years ago when it was part of my job to give presentations I wouldn’t touch the topic of bullying with a 10 foot pole. This is one of the reasons. There are many, many programs and even more philosophies and it’s near impossible to get everyone on the same page. But too many advocated mediation between the bully and the target; I saw the potential for the bully to use the process to bully further. We would never suggest mediation between an adult abuser and their victim, so why would we do this with children? And just as an offside, relevant though, is that many programs for adult abusers (domestic violence) give abusers more tactics to use. Not all, but some.

 

[SuperLuigi]

What gives anyone the right to ask unnecessary intrusive questions of a person of any age, in front of others of any age, who have no need to know such private information?! Inappropriate and outrageous!

Sounds to me like it’s more do-good administrative nonsense.

I see all the nice little words in there----kindness, inclusiveness, ect.

It sounds like all it did was supply the bullies with more information and put kids on the spot.

So now the PC/inclusive/diversity crowd is losing to race-baiters, radical Middle Eastern terrorists and schoolyard bullies.

I guess that’s “progress” for us.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

I just tried to find it just for kicks and it was the first link that came up. Didn’t think it would be that easy. Anyway, it was called Challenge Day. If you look for criticisms you will find some from cult watch type websites. I forget which group this originates from but there are a lot of adherents to a particular group involved in the leadership of Challenge Day.

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

It’s an old truism: You become what you hate. “Anti-bullying” tactics have themselves become their own form of bullying.