Video shows kids bullying school bus monitor; now, the questions
There is an outpouring of love and support for Klein.
A video of New York schoolboys taunting a 68-year-old school bus monitor has gone viral, watched more than 1.65 million times since it was posted online June 19. It’s led many people to decry a new low in an increasingly coarse culture and to ask: What’s wrong with our children?
Social media is driving an effort to try to help the monitor, Karen Klein. More than $278,000 – and counting — has been raised. The money is ostensibly a “vacation” fund for Klein, but it’s turning into a financial indicator of the public’s outrage over the boys’ bullying behavior and a way to collectively apologize to Klein.
Here are just a few of the comments posted on YouTube, where the video can be found, and on the fundraising site created on the monitor’s behalf.
– “Lost all faith in humanity.”
– “We need to be a kinder country than this. Bullying needs to stop!”
– “Parents, this is our wake up call! It’s time we expect more from our kids — starting with common decency.”
The 10-minute video plays like a reality TV version of “Lord of the Flies.” The gray-haired Klein sits mostly silent on the Grace Central School District bus in North Greece, N.Y., as she’s mocked by foul-mouthed 12- and-13-year-olds who repeatedly pelt her with f-bombs, call her fat, poke at her hearing aid and comment about how much she’s sweating.
Click below to watch the video (Warning: contains graphic language):
As the harassment increases, the boys call her a troll, ask for her address so they can urinate and deficate on her doorstep, and say that if they used a knife to cut her open, hamburgers would slide out.
Almost at the very end, one of the boys says — “you don’t have a family because they all killed themselves because they didn’t want to be near you.” Of all the barbs, that one might have hurt the most: Klein’s son killed himself about 10 years ago.
17 Responses to Video shows kids bullying school bus monitor; now, the questions
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Neekluc
June 22, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Seriously? These kids may not be punished? I am appalled.
If these kids do this to an adult what are they doing to other kids?
dsawyers
June 22, 2012 at 5:44 pm
This is painful to watch. It’s unbelievable how far gone our youth is today, with no regard for what is acceptable in how we treat one another as human beings. It’s a parent’s responsibility to role model this behavior and to dispense consequences when needed. We can do better, as humans, we can do better than this….
tannahillc
June 22, 2012 at 6:50 pm
It is likely that nothing will be done to the students. It will be difficult to prove who they are and without clearcut proof, experience teachs that parents will argue that it isn’t their child but someone else.
Note that only the monitor is shown on video. One can assume that the students were trying to provoke a response that they could post to YouTube and get the monitor fired or at least get their ’15 minutes of fame’ as has happened in other situations.
I spent many years teaching this age level. Individually many of these kids are probably nice kids but in a ‘pack’ they can be vicious. At one time, it could be assumed that an adult’s word would be sufficient proof of student misbehavior but that is no longer the case. Students have learned that they have ‘rights’. They can provoke, insult and demean and a reaction usually elicits ‘they are just kids; you are the adult’ and the adult is sanctioned or fired. The inmates are running the asylum.
komisarka
June 22, 2012 at 7:16 pm
What can the schools do? That is always the first question, isn’t it. That’s syptomatic of the problem, not the solution. The rest of society – TV, radio, movies, parents and their attitudes towards misbehavior, their standards for their children, all of these powerful influences are given a pass constantly. They need to be held “acccountable” also or even more so. In my district in the last school year, we were deprived of one more consequency we can apply to misbehavior, taking away recess. We can’t even do that now. All we can do, basically, is talk to children and try to convince them to behave better. So don’t look to the schools to solve the problem. We are the victims of it.
moconnor1
June 22, 2012 at 7:36 pm
I have been called names by students and have had parents defend their right to say what they want. It is such a shame and I wonder if these parents are defending their child’s actions or are they holding them accountable? I’m betting they will find an excuse instead of holding them accountable.
drcat
June 22, 2012 at 10:06 pm
I hope the district, or bus company, has videotape to identify these kids. Their parents probably think they’re precious, perfect children wouldn’t do this. I’d recommend they lose bus privileges.
This happens on public transportation, too! And why didn’t anyone intervene?
Where has our society gone to???
marcistern
June 22, 2012 at 10:14 pm
I think that what these students did to Klein was reprehensible and they should be punished for their behavior. Things shouldn’t slide because it was the end of the year; punishment could be carried over to September, if nothing else.
The parents of these children and the children themselves should be embarrassed. This behavior is not acceptable and is not an isolated incident. I think that children now-a-days can tend to be on the cruel side if not taught how to behave – the bullying is escalating in smallish pockets of our communities. It must be stopped. We have to send a message that this is not acceptable.
dickreed
June 23, 2012 at 1:08 am
God bless you for the work you do — protecting the learners on the bus. Unfortunately what we see on the video clip is a lack of parenting. The parents have not taken time to demonstrate and teach kindness and how we should truly treat each other.
PAB
June 23, 2012 at 2:53 pm
These bullies were actually done a favor by the person who posted the video of their actions. The horrified and apologetic reactions of the viewers provided social pressure that made it clear even to the bullies and their parents that this behavior is still socially and morally bankrupt. These bullies and their parents do need consequences in the form of ongoing, and I stress ongoing, education and monitoring of social and parenting skills.
To punish without educating and long term follow up will not effect the intrinsic change needed.
sjoliver
June 24, 2012 at 2:22 am
Yes it’s a shame that some parents do slacken off and forget that children learn a lot by example. There are people who are so busy wrapped up in their own troubles that they don’t stop and see that the example they are displaying to their children may not be right. All too often parents have the opinion that once students are at school they will learn all they need for life. ( morals also!)
michele970
June 25, 2012 at 1:10 pm
This is a disgrace! Children today are very selfish and not brought up with manners. First, why should an adult be on the bus as a protector. If students misbehave, the bus driver should drop them at school and tell them this is the last bus ride. The parents and the children need to take responsibility for their behavior. Second, children play video games and watch the garbage on television; being rude or hurting others seems to be the norm. Children do not think about what they are doing or the consequences of their words or actions because usually there are not any consequences. Parents stick up for their children and make excuses. Discipline is lacking in the home and at school because the parents allow the children too many freedoms. They treat them like adults. Children need guidance, discipline, and lots of love.
reycarr
June 25, 2012 at 6:28 pm
One of the most important aspects of this video was the reaction of the parents of the students involved who were absolutely shocked and in disbelief that their children would act this way and say these things.
Unfortunately, this is much more common than we think. We conducted a number of experiments in the 1970′s using video where we asked students to make moral and ethical choice decisions regarding various challenges. After their decisions were recorded on video, we then asked their parents to predict what their children would do or say when presented with these moral and ethical decision points. Exceptionally surprising to us as researchers and highly enlightening to us as parents, the parents of the children involved were almost always wrong.
They argued strongly, at first, that their children would never do X or Y when faced with these choice points. Then we showed them the video evidence. They were as shocked, stunned and in disbelief as the parents of the children involved in the shameful bullying of the grandmother on the video.
What do we learn from this gap?
kstenbch
June 26, 2012 at 12:01 am
I do not know if this school system still has corporal punishment, but if they do, they need to use it. Second, regardless, in the school district where I grew up: 1) If a teacher said you cursed at her, you did. 2) You got paddled and suspended 3) Bus drivers and monitors have the same authority as teachers, and students will respect them the same as teachers 4) If we had ever so much as called been rude or disrespectful toward our bus driver, we would have walked the rest of the way home. You do not have the right to ride the bus, you will behave. 5) If a teacher or staff member says this is the student or these are the students who did it; they did it no excuses and no questions asked.
If their parents don’t like it, they can drive their kids to school everyday because riding the school bus is a privilege that you keep through good behavior. You can be suspended from the bus and/or from school. The rules of the bus are like kindergarten: Keep your hands, feet, and bodily fluids to yourself. You stay in your seat and keep your head and hands inside the bus. You say nice things to others or you say nothing. If an adult tells you to do or not do something, do it right now or stop doing it and say yes or no. You get up only at your stop, after the bus has fully stopped moving, and you get off only at your stop. Finally, you may sit where you like unless I assign you a seat.
Dr. Richard NeSmith
June 26, 2012 at 3:57 am
Herein, lies the problem with American education. 1) Where did these children learn to act like this, and 2) Why is it being tolerated?
Has anyone considered that maybe teachers are not the reason for the problems in education that we face today?
michele970
June 26, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Every parent would like to believe that they raised their child to make the right choices. A parent cannot be responsible for the choices of the child, but they can discipline to hopefully show the child the consequences that follow bad choices so as to deter more bad choices in the future. Children are born with conscience and know right from wrong. They need to realize they are responsible for their behavior.
rackerly
June 27, 2012 at 3:10 pm
4) Children compare what some adults say with what other adults say with what their peers say with what these people actually do with what they see in the public media. They try to make sense of it all by forming hypotheses, and test those hypotheses by acting things out it the real world and seeing what happens. They mostly do all this without thinking (or what we commonly call thinking.)
5) As they learn from their mistakes and work to make better and better decisions, they are trying to act from some center. They are trying to find that point of integrity. Integrity is not something you “teach” kids, it is a life-long project for all humans. (For example I don’t see integrity in adiults who stand up for respect and decency by making death threats or insults or considering cruel and unusual punishments.)
6) Blaming children and their parents is avoidance of responsibility and scapegoating for a bigger, deeper problem. Do we really think that this problem was cause simply because certain parents didn’t “teach their children right from wrong?”
more at http://www.geniusinchildren.org
mmcnamara332
July 2, 2012 at 5:28 pm
While it’s indeed disgraceful that these students behaved so atrociously, why is no one pointing out the obvious – isn’t this why we have bus monitors? Isn’t it the monitor’s job to keep this type of activity from happening? The students deserve to be punished, and this woman did not deserve to be treated this way, but why isn’t she being held accountable? If a teacher sat through classes and allowed students to talk and act whatever way they chose, the teacher would be held accountable, at least in part for the students’ actions. It was the bus monitor’s job to keep the students in line. She certainly does not deserve to profit financially, and if she can’t perform the duties of the job perhaps she should consider another line of work.