School-related suicide follow-up: A principal sets a not-so-great example.

I promised an update on the bullying-related suicide letters send to the Education Minister last week. The good news is that there weren't any school suicides on November 11th. Maybe the government's subsequent establishment of a new study group to evaluate solutions to the bullying problem was enough to deter their deaths--even though the minister openly urged kids to stop writing to him about their problems. What we did hear over the weekend was news of a 56-year old elementary school principal hanging from a tree in the forest in Kitakyushu. The Japan Times writes:

During the past year at the school, eight fifth-graders had extorted some 100,000 yen from a female classmate, and the principal, Kenji Nagata, was criticized for having reported the incident to the city education board merely as "financial trouble."

Great example you're setting there on how problems should be dealt with, Mr. Principal. But I shouldn't be so hard on him. After all, social ills don't just affect children, but often trickle down from generations above. UPDATE: On the news this evening...Two middle school kids committed suicide today. A girl and a boy, both victims of bullying. And the mother of a 5th grade boy filed a complaint with the regional education board when her son's pleas for help were repeatedly ignored by school officials. The boy was being pantsed on an every day basis by his classmates, and--unable to deal with the embarassment--tried to jump out a school window earlier this year.