{"id":177,"date":"2009-09-16T11:59:14","date_gmt":"2009-09-16T11:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html"},"modified":"2009-09-16T11:59:14","modified_gmt":"2009-09-16T11:59:14","slug":"what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html","title":{"rendered":"What-If Wednesday: Would You Get In The Middle Of A School Bus Fight?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the news yesterday, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kdvr.com\/news\/kdvr-bus-beating-091609,0,6563703.story\">a video surfaced of a kid getting viciously beaten on his school bus<\/a> in Bellville, Illinois. Other children&nbsp;watched, some cheering, others standing by, others still laughing. One or two looked like they possible&nbsp;wanted to step in, but nobody did. Why? Was it fear of getting hurt? Fear of being ostracized? Indecisiveness in a fraught moment? (By the way, the videotaped incident is hardly the only one in recent days. Google &#8220;school bus fight&#8221; and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seacoastonline.com\/articles\/20090912-NEWS-909120324\">several different articles<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vvdailypress.com\/news\/school-14278-adelanto-brawl.html\">across the country<\/a> pop up, each telling a different horrific tale of student-on-student violence.)<\/p>\n<p>The big question here is, how do we teach our kids to react better in incidents like these? While I&#8217;d like to know <i>why<\/i><em> <\/em>&#8211; what the heck possesses a boy to whale on another the way those boys did &#8211; I suspect that&#8217;s a mystery only testosterone can explain. Barring that, I would seriously like to call for more peer counseling, training sessions in schools, and heck, maybe even student monitors or marshals on school buses to prevent violence. (Apparently, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.makli.com\/belleville-west-bus-fight-007244\/\">one source I read<\/a>,&nbsp;the driver followed protocol and drove to a safe location and radioed authorites for help.) Meanwhile, at home, we&#8217;ve got to keep addressing the issue of bullying, and why it&#8217;s wrong. <\/p>\n<p><b><i>Do you teach your kids to take a stand and help protect others who are being victimized? Or are you too afraid they&#8217;d get hurt if they get mixed up in a brawl? How would you yourself handle it if&nbsp;a fight broke out in front of&nbsp;you?&nbsp;<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Watch the video, if you can stomach it, and then let us know your thoughts.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/oNImzaUFHto&amp;rel=0&amp;border=1&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" width=\"425\" height=\"349\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\"><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Subscribe to receive updates from Everyday Ethics or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EverydayEthics\" style=\"text-decoration: underline; \">follow us on&nbsp;Twitter<\/a>!<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the news yesterday, a video surfaced of a kid getting viciously beaten on his school bus in Bellville, Illinois. Other children&nbsp;watched, some cheering, others standing by, others still laughing. One or two looked like they possible&nbsp;wanted to step in, but nobody did. Why? Was it fear of getting hurt? Fear of being ostracized? Indecisiveness&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,36,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-hillary-fields","category-news","category-parenting-responsibility"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What-If Wednesday: Would You Get In The Middle Of A School Bus Fight? - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What-If Wednesday: Would You Get In The Middle Of A School Bus Fight? - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the news yesterday, a video surfaced of a kid getting viciously beaten on his school bus in Bellville, Illinois. Other children&nbsp;watched, some cheering, others standing by, others still laughing. One or two looked like they possible&nbsp;wanted to step in, but nobody did. Why? Was it fear of getting hurt? Fear of being ostracized? Indecisiveness&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-16T11:59:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hfields\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What-If Wednesday: Would You Get In The Middle Of A School Bus Fight? - Everyday Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What-If Wednesday: Would You Get In The Middle Of A School Bus Fight? - Everyday Ethics","og_description":"In the news yesterday, a video surfaced of a kid getting viciously beaten on his school bus in Bellville, Illinois. Other children&nbsp;watched, some cheering, others standing by, others still laughing. One or two looked like they possible&nbsp;wanted to step in, but nobody did. Why? Was it fear of getting hurt? Fear of being ostracized? Indecisiveness&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html","og_site_name":"Everyday Ethics","article_published_time":"2009-09-16T11:59:14+00:00","author":"hfields","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html","name":"What-If Wednesday: Would You Get In The Middle Of A School Bus Fight? - Everyday Ethics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-16T11:59:14+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-16T11:59:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/what-if-wednesday-would-you-get-in-the-middle-of-a-school-bus-fight.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What-If Wednesday: Would You Get In The Middle Of A School Bus Fight?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/","name":"Everyday Ethics","description":"Moral Ethics Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f","name":"hfields","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","caption":"hfields"},"description":"Hillary Fields is a born-and-bred New Yorker, brought up on the not-so-mean streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side. She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}