Bullying, Schools, and Questions of Human Nature

Insightful post here from Tom Gilson.  His conclusion:

Schools need to help children understand that evil is real. There are people in the world who mean them harm—and some of them might be riding the same bus with them.

There is a growing anti-bullying movement in America. I welcome and applaud it. I doubt it will succeed the way it could and should, though, unless it takes seriously what Bible believers have known all along (but which our culture has suppressed): that supreme goodness is not bound up in the heart of humans, just waiting for the opportunity to be released. There is evil among and within us. It needs both redemption and correction. As long as we try to hide these obvious truths from ourselves, bullycides will increase, and children like my daughter and her friends will continue to get hurt.

The school assured us today that they will deal with this incident appropriately. We’ve always worked hard to keep good relationships with our kids’ teachers and administrators, and this time I think they will do what needs to be done. I’d love for them to prove my thesis wrong (this time, at least) that schools don’t respond the way they should; for obviously it is a generalization that has exceptions. If they take the right action I believe it will help. It’s hardly the whole answer, but it would be a good step to take.

Read the whole thing.