Ever noticed those fights that broke out in Middle and High School? Ever notice that both students are punished? Now, have you ever seen that happen when only one student is being abusive physically/mentally while the other one is just standing their taking it, not responding to the abuse? Both were suspended.
... Wait, what?
Yes that happens... A lot, or at least with in experience. Good friends, even family have been punished for being in a fight that they were drawn into and either defended themselves/others or simply ignored the person. This is the Zero Tolerance policy that many schools in Texas (at least all the ones I've been to) have. If you were in a fight, punishment, regardless of whether you did anything or acted in self defense.
Senate Bill 2270, authored by Mario Gallegos Jr., was approved by the Texas Senate on Tuesday, April 28, hopes to remedy this. This bill will require schools to look at the factors both sides had during a fight or similar action. Some schools that I know already do this, which results in the non-aggressive receiving a lesser punishment or none at all. Just because the school officials didn't see the fight, does not mean that no one else saw it. Are there problems with this? Yes, but the positive outcome ("Just" punishments(Hopefully you know the differences between just and Just)) will usually out weight the negatives (False witness, profiling, etc).
Somewhat off topic: I am not feeling the inspiration to write like I normally do today, so I wonder if there is any noticeable changes with my writing.
Ahhh yes, the “punish all” attitude, which is the one thing I never understood. When I was in middle school, we had the “meet the police man who walks the halls” day. He explained that if you fought back to “defend” yourself that you to would get punished and that you should just “call for help”….what the %$#@, how is this logical? Anyhow, I am glad that they are trying to pass a bill to end this nonsense. Fights in schools should be treated the same as any other wrong doing act would be treated/dealt with “in the real world”. Especially with today’s technology, they practically have video cameras everywhere in these schools; it wouldn’t be hard to find out who was the one in the wrong. Overall nice blog post, it’s interesting to see that they actually care about something like this enough to do something about the current situation.
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