The AP (11/9, Smith) reports, "Rhode Island educators, anti-bullying activists and advocates for gay and lesbian youth said there must be a zero-tolerance policy for bullying in schools, as they held a forum Monday in response to incidents of bullying of gay students around the country. ... The forum, which streamed online and aired in part on WJAR-TV's Channel 10.2, was called by state Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, who said the culture at individual schools needs to at minimum have no tolerance for bullying, and at best celebrate the diversity of the students who go there." The AP adds that "Elliot Krieger, a spokesman for Gist, said there have been no specific incidents in Rhode Island to prompt the forum, but Gist had recently received a letter from the US Secretary of Education alerting all state education commissioners to issues surrounding bullying."
Program Utilizes Baby Visits To Help Curb Bullying. Dowser.org founder David Bornstein wrote in a blog for the New York Times (11/8), "The typical institutional response to bullying is to get tough" yet some programs "show the potential of augmenting our innate impulses to care for one another instead of just falling back on punishment as a deterrent. And what's the secret formula? A baby." Bornstein adds that Toronto-based Roots of Empathy "arranges monthly class visits by a mother and her baby" and during "the baby visits, the children sit around the baby and mother (sometimes it's a father) on a green blanket (which represents new life and nature) and they try to understand the baby's feelings."
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