Bullying in Schools

Just today, in the land of my educational exile, there was news on TV of another school shooting. This in the province of Ohio which, the report said, killed one student and wounded four others. The young shooter surrendered to the police. Such a tragedy! Of course, in Belgium we are thankful this sort of thing does not happen like in the U.S. probably because, unlike in America, in Belgium not everyone has guns. However, this was another case of a student being bullied by his classmates until finally he snapped and started shooting up the lunchroom. Bullying is not unique to America certainly and I was reminded because of this today that two weeks ago Friday Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde visited Sint Pietersinstituut in Turnhout to see the children and inspect the program there to suppress bullying in school. Tragedies like this one in America today shows how important this issue is. If the other children had not bullied the little boy (I don't know the age) this disaster probably would not have happened. It is important, as Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde did, to start with the very young children to impress on them to get along with each other and not join in when someone is singled out to be cruel to. The children, you can see, were very excited to see the Prince and Princess, wearing patriotic-decorated hats, some with the royal couple picture on them, and parents gathered outside to seem them as they came and went (for security reasons they were not allowed in the school at the same time, showing today everyone everywhere has to be extra careful). Hopefully there will be more and better programs to stop bullying and I am happy Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde took care to make this issue one of their priorities. We do not want the same thing to happen in Belgium that happened in Ohio, America today. God bless those unfortunate people.