Japanese Schools Can’t Handle Bullying

Two middle school students killed themselves yesterday.

A boy in Saitama hanged himself because he could not pay money demanded of him by a classmate.

A girl, just 12-years old, jumped to her death from the eighth floor in a public housing building in Osaka.

An elementary school principal hanged himself because he could not stop a suicide by a 10-year old girl in his school in Kitakyushu.

Last week, Japan’s education ministry received nine anonymous letters, seemingly written by children promising to commit suicide if something is not done about the bullying.

It is not known if the two suicides this past weekend are the connected to any of the letters.

The prinicipal is what gets me. Will children learn from him that the best way to handle seemingly insolvable problems is to give up, call it quits, take the ultimate jump?

It’s a terrible problem in Japan – bullying – and responding by taking one’s own life.

I don’t know that there is a similar phenomenon in other countries or not.

I am sure that Japanese schools take any and all references to suicide and bullying quite seriously. If not, they surely will now.

What do you think?