Imagine one day you are just minding your business when all of a sudden, you are confronted by someone who wants to fight you. You were taught that the right thing to do was to walk away and avoid trouble, and that’s exactly what you do in this type of situation. Then, all of a sudden, you are pounced on and find yourself fighting to protect yourself.

After this shocking and traumatic incident, you find yourself in the office and ultimately suspended. You did not start the fight. You were simply protecting yourself, but you are suspended. So you ask the question: Why? You were only defending yourself but the principle does not want to hear it. It is unfair to suspend students who got into fights only to defend themselves. If their intentions weren’t to harm anyone then they should not get in such serious trouble.

Kids can be very brutal, especially when they have a lot of anger built up in them, and these are the kids who generally start fights. If a kid is attacked by someone like this, then he has every right to hit back and defend himself. You can’t just sit there and take a beating. Taking a beating is dangerous and can result in the person getting seriously injured. Being afraid of getting suspended should not preclude someone from defending or protecting themselves. Staff always says to just “walk away”, but it’s clearly not always that easy. If a person is mad enough, he or she will come after you and attack you so you can’t always do the right thing.

When faced with this type of situation, you have to make a tough choice. Some may argue that you should wait for security or staff to come and help you but, what if they are not quick enough? You could be seriously hurt by the time they get to you because they are not always around or nearby. Students love a good show, so if they see you getting beat up, they are most likely to pull out a phone or just stand around and watch so should be able to look out for yourself and defend yourself if nobody will.

Doing anything other than defending yourself if you’re attacked would just encourage the bully or whoever is confronting you to continue. Defending yourself is the only way it’s really going to stop, so you should not be punished for solving the problem that, at that moment, the school cannot do anything to resolve. Some people do not care if they get suspended so fighting is not an issue for them, but for others, who do not like to fight and are caught up in others’ issues, defending themselves should not result in such harsh punishment.