When you set your children off on their educational journey you have dreams of an idealistic life of happiness, development and fulfilment. Then you wake up…

On todays episode of Fight Club.

An argument broke out on the morning school bus. Several kids got involved in a heated exchange. Resulted in one of the protagonists being hit over the head with a bottle. Thankfully a plastic one.

In the first lesson a boy accidentally bumps into another boy. Quickly a pushing and finger pointing encounter develops. This is broken up by the teacher and negatives are issued.

In the next lesson boy X makes a not very nice comment about boy Y. This escalated into a missile exchange. Pens, rulers, calculators and books are launched. Again the teacher breaks this up and more negatives are issued.

In the final lesson of the day boy Y makes a comment about boy X. Suddenly a chair is hurled and a full fist fight breaks out with a few other kids getting involved. Teacher issues negatives and a couple of isolations.

On the afternoon school bus one boy accused another one of being unpopular and without friends. Quickly punches were exchanged. Several other kids got involved. Ended up with one boy in tears with a bloody nose.

Thankfully our son was just an observer in all these incidents. He did get hit by a stray projectile but it wasn’t intended for him and absolutely no pain inflicted. Not really sure how he views these incidents through his Aspergers filters. I suppose it teaches him about life. It might encourage him to start a martial arts club – these can really help with confidence and coordination. It highlights the issues many kids face when they are assigned to the bottom set. It’s certainly makes homeschooling look more attractive.

74 thoughts on “Fight Club”

  3. I don’t know how they expect kids to learn in this kind of environment? Imagine if your work day ways punctuated with colleagues having punch ups, how stressful would that b without being autistic, let alone if you were? Glad your son was unhurt and not targeted.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. It certainly seems to be the culture nowadays. Trying to spread the message that violence doesn’t solve anything is pretty difficult. Add to that the culture of not wanting to be a ‘grass’ and the problem gets worse. I wish I had the answer.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. I’m going to propose a slightly different take on this from the other commentators. From my memories of school, and reading and hearing of school days further back than that, I would say it was ever thus, and will always be thus. Large numbers of children, especially boys, all put together – somewhat volatile. The trick is to find ways to manage the situations that will happen. Not that I’m saying that is easy…

    Like

    Reply

  9. I find that children are becoming more and more violent in their reactions lately. I’m not sure what it is, maybe they are just not being taught how to properly express their emotions? When I was a supply teacher, I had two girls start a fight and actually threaten to kill each other in a grade 5/6 class. And in another school two boys started a fist fight in the back of the classroom. Both times I was left with no support on how to handle the situation. As a new teacher it was horrible. If the principal or another teacher was brought in to diffuse the situation I was excused from the room. So I’m still left with an inadequate knowledge on how to deal with that in a classroom

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Speaking with a health professional she said that at the local schools they have stopped working with the health people at trying to work on the behaviour. They just seem to put all the kids school class as difficult into one group and then just try to isolate that group from the rest of the school. Unfortunately this is never going to work and the school clearly classes kids with autism and Aspergers and dyslexics in the same way as they are put into this group too.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Yeah that is never going to work! Schools here now have a behavioural team where students are sent to trained professionals and councillors to help with outbursts. But the public system isn’t handling it well

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Yes but they don’t always work. The fist fight participants were sent to this program as soon as I could get them broken up but one was sent back within minutes of going.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. I sent all my boys to kick boxing & it did them wonders. My eldest son, who is autistic, gained so much confidence & also gained his black belt! He gave up after that though because he didn’t want to progress to the adults class, which was a shame…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Wow! That is a lot! I wonder how your son did perceive all that. If you are Declan’s friend, and someone is mean to you – Declan will attack. He is very protective in that way but often misperceives the situation. He used to adore this teenager friend of the family, and when the teenager’s little brother dunked him at the pool in fun Declan went and punched the little brother in the nose and told him “Never hurt Seth again!” Kind of admirable.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  12. Holy cow. In the States (my school district anyway) they would have been handing out suspensions once things got thrown. And expulsions once things went fisticuffs. Once, my 9 year old son took his pocket knife to school to show it off. We were able to talk down the “mandatory expulsion” into a week long suspension. Very different societies.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  13. All three of my boys go to karate. It does do a lot for their self confidence and, in the case of the twins, has given them a fair bit of help with self-discipline and staying focused.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  17. Sadly, Bash is sometimes the instigator of fights like this. 😦 Glad your son stayed in the clear. martial arts isn’t a bad idea, actually. Lots of exercise, build up confidence, and a social activity, too! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  18. I’m hoping this day was the exception, rather than the rule???

    Your son would be in the equivalent of our last year (6th year) of Primary school – that kind of behaviour was unheard of in my time at primary school, which coincidentally allowed caning (i finished my schooling just as it began to be banned). I should probably point out that there was a little bad behaviour i witnessed in our Senior school where in one case ‘The Bad Kid’ stabbed someone in a knife fight in the arm and back. That got him expelled and i think a detention (kids prison) sentence. There were also a few odd after-school fights, sometimes with a bunch of kids from the neighbouring Catholic School (we were a govt school).

    I hope your son understand that most people operate from emotion and not rationalism or logic. A few can usually control themselves enough to not need to go to Gaol for random acts of violence, but don’t ever rely upon anyone to stay in control of their more violent tendencies 24/7 – especially not in the madness that is today’s society. Things tend to spiral out of control with much greater rapidity today than they used to when i was a kid/youth.

    I do not envy you but wish you every success with future plans. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

      3. Ahhhh! Thinking we understand things from the limited information we have and the imperfect beings we are – that’s bizarre! 🙂
        Human, but bizarre none-the-less.

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment