Bullied bus monitor: What will happen to those nasty kids?
If you鈥檙e like a bazillion other people across the world this morning, you might have caught glimpse of a YouTube video showing an elderly bus monitor sitting through an absurd amount of verbal abuse from a group of middle schoolers.
The 10-minute, brutal video, which was posted Monday and has since gone viral, shows Karen Klein trying to ignore profanity-laced insults and even some physical threats, including the suggestion that her children should commit suicide.
In the good news department, an online fund set up for Klein up on the international fundraising site indiegogo.com (鈥淜aren鈥� deserves a vacation!鈥�) has raked in more than $140,000. Turns out most people find the cruel, relentless taunting of a grandmother disgusting.聽
Which, I鈥檒l admit, is a relief. Because otherwise this story would just have me depressed for days.
Still, good intentions of the masses aside, the story of Klein should leave some pretty sobering questions 鈥� not the least of which is: what鈥檚 going to happen to those nasty kids from the Athena Middle School in Greece, New York?
And yes 鈥� I just called the kids nasty.聽 I didn鈥檛 call them 鈥渃onfused,鈥� or 鈥減oorly monitored,鈥� or 鈥渋mmature,鈥� or even 鈥渕aking bad decisions in a group environment.鈥� Because it might just be possible that the culture of excuse making for children 鈥� the all-too-common parental belief that nothing their little one does is wrong, or at least is someone else鈥檚 fault 鈥� helps contribute to an environment where a group of young teens can giggle together while tormenting a senior citizen.聽 聽
So, I might add, does our public school system.
Now this is a big one 鈥� too complex, surely, for a column this morning.聽 But think about it 鈥� there鈥檚 clearly a problem when a school system basically can鈥檛 do anything about a group of middle school kids acting like little monsters.聽 Sure, there have been the requisite comments about the kids鈥� behavior going against 鈥渃odes of conduct.鈥� (Um, yeah.) There was talk about 鈥渃onsequences.鈥�
But really, what鈥檚 the school going to do?聽 Expelling the kids would send the message 鈥� to them, to society, to the parents who then will just have to figure out what to do with a child not fit to exist in a publicly-funded setting with other people. No, we鈥檝e decided as a society that schools can鈥檛 have that stick.
So what else to do? Greece school board president Julie VanOrman had an idea 鈥� make the incident a 鈥渢eachable moment.鈥� (Gag. Really?)
"This (incivility) is a problem not just in this district but of the nation, and what are we actually doing about it," she said. "What are we all going to do to make sure this doesn't happen on another bus in another school district tomorrow?" she told the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle.
Nothing.聽 We鈥檙e all going to do nothing.
Unless there are real changes in parenting, real changes in school system policies, we will do nothing to make sure this doesn鈥檛 happen on another bus tomorrow. And next time it might not go up on YouTube.
