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Comment by TylerE | Hacker News Reader

An interesting approach I read - I think it was a novel, honestly, but may have been an autobiography - was that fights were not just tolerated but sanctioned, with one big proviso: In the gym, with boxing gloves and headgear on, and fists only. Going down or taking a knee ends the fight.

Let 'em work out the tension, but with very minimal chance of hurting anything.

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I am here for safe and supervised middle school duels. It would have helped me a lot.

I went to a strict religious school and a kid who bullied me over years pushed me too far one day and I started after him, got maybe one kick to his leg in. Teachers stopped me immediately, but never did the same for the years of verbal abuse mocking me for my weight though. I ended up getting spanked by the principal with a thick wooden paddle in front of my teacher that day. This was the mid to late 90s. I heard once the kid who bullied me is in prison now.

You should get the straight facts on that kid and what he did and confront the school over it. They obviously failed across the board with him and probably someone got hurt for him to get time. They could have done things to correct his behavior, instead they punished you for lashing out against his abuse. This needs to show up when people search that school so other parents know how they really are and avoid sending their kids there.

This is completely unrelated to the harassment, abuse and assaults labelled as "bullying".

I wonder how many people would be still willing to fight if they were forced to delay for some amount of time (hours?). My hunch is it'd be very few, which would be a win.

I was a peaceful kid and no good at gym class, which played some part in why I was bullied. What benefit would I have received from officially sanctioning my regular physical humiliation?

Well, for one it forces the school to scknowledge thst'd it's happening, which is at least half the battle.

And of course both sides must agree, you can't be forced in to it.

So let me just game out what happens:

The bully comes up and shoves a kid around, doing some minor injuries.

The bullied raises the matter to school authorities.

Their solution is "would you like to fight the bully some more?"

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At what point did the victim want to get involved in this? The victim didn't instigate violence, the victim didn't want to participate in violence, the victim wants the violence to stop and to feel safe at school.

And you propose to instead offer them "would you like to risk more bodily injury engaging in violence?"

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