Comment: I totally agree

I would go so far as to say that other rigid policies against self-defense exacerbate bullying by removing control from the victim and consequences from the perpetrator.

I was deeply frustrated by hazing and bullying that my grade school aged son was experiencing. I tried to teach him verbal self-defense (I've never had to use my fists myself) but he was so timid and sensitive that teaching him verbal come-backs became a comedy routine as he matched the wrong phrase with the wrong insult. He just didn't have the verbal skills to parry with his tormentors.

One day, we got a phone call from the school telling us that our son had committed the ultimate sin of punching his bully. We sat, listening to the teacher, the councilor, and the principal as they informed us that this incident would go on his 'permanent record.' When they finished, I let them have it. I was proud of my son, I said, and for the first time in his life, he stood up for himself. You, his 'guardians' at school, failed to protect him from bullies so he was protecting himself. Instead of writing him up, they should be praising him. The school was dumbfounded. They didn't know what to say.

When I went home, I told my son he had done nothing wrong. But the reprimand from the school sunk deep into his heart, and for the rest of his school career he was angry and sullen due to a school-imposed helplessness. In the years since high school, he has learned to trust and open up, and much of his anger and depression has dissipated. How many kids can't do that? How much violence in schools is from the schools own policy of deliberate victimhood?

I'm no fan of the modern education establishment. They have advanced degrees, huge budgets, authority...but not a lick of common sense.