On Thursday, November 18, at 2:30 p.m., a monitoring operator notified the municipal police that a staged fight between two boys was taking place at the playground on Łukasiewicza Street, watched by a sizeable group of teenagers. Thanks to the detailed description, the officers managed to apprehend the two boys who were fighting. They turned out to be students at one of the middle schools. They were taken to the school principal.
The incident looked like a typical “setup” (a fight arranged for a specific day and time). We wrote about this matter in the article “Pyskaty Jaś, niegrzeczna Ala”. Boys, as well as girls, fight in middle schools over various matters. Most often, it is about gaining leadership in a group, showing off, and sometimes revenge or resentment. This time, according to information provided to us by middle-school teachers, it was revenge for beating up a younger brother.
One of the boys caught, a third-year middle-school student, wanted to avenge his younger brother. The incident had occurred two days earlier. During a break, a third-year student hit a first-year student for no reason. The teachers intervened immediately. The perpetrator was admonished and punished. The victim’s older brother, who was extremely upset by the incident, spoke with the school counselor. “The boy had to be calmed down for about fifteen minutes,” says a teacher who was present during the incident. “He was shaken because someone had hurt his younger brother. Especially since the first-year student is truly a quiet and calm child. The attack upset the older brother.”
The teachers and school counselor did everything they could to prevent the event. They talked with the children. They even held discussions in the classes, explaining to the students that taking part in and watching such a fight was just as wrong as the fight itself. “I explained to one of the classes that fights can get out of control and that those fighting can seriously hurt one another,” the teacher explains. “Watching such a battle is just as wrong as, or even worse than, the actual fighting. But nothing helped. They waited one day and arranged a ‘show.’”
The boy challenged the classmate who had hit his younger brother to a duel. The teenagers came to watch the “spectacle.” Fortunately, the entire incident was noticed by adults. But will another fight take place, this time somewhere no adult will be able to stop it? We do not know.
According to this year’s research by the Psychological and Educational Counseling Center in Bolesławiec, 75% of students in schools in the municipality and county experience violence. To begin the process of preventing violence at school, three communities must be integrated: children, the school, and the family. “Violence has always accompanied people,” says Teresa Rudzińska, director of the Counseling Center. “We would all like to protect our children from it. Knowledge about what our children are like and what problems they have, as well as building the best possible relationships with them, is the beginning of reducing aggression at school, at home, and in their immediate surroundings. Change also requires time and an awareness that it is necessary.”
(information by Grażyna Hanaf)