Continuing a thought

Today I bought an English newspaper because I knew there would be lots of sports news.  Much of the first page was devoted to the men's gymnastics all-round gold medal winner.

Then I turned to the second page and noticed an editorial from the Japanese paper about bullying.  It talks about how a new office has been established which specializes in bullying issues.

The office will provide information to local schools and education boards to help with probing cases of serious bullying or cases where bullying may have lead to suicide and how to prevent their recurrence.  They also believe it is important to give advice on preventing suicide.

That information was covered in about two paragraphs and the rest of the editorial talked about school boards and whether they were effective, if they were even necessary.

What about preventing bullying?  Isn't that important?  How can we help children learn that it is okay to be different from others?  How can we help children learn that each one of them is important and loved?  How can we help them learn to accept each other and celebrate their differences, as well as their similarities?

I know this is a bit redundant after the post before the last one, but reading the editorial made me wonder what the ministry thought was important, children's lives or bureaucracy.

Now I am going to go back to watching the Olympics and gazing at the moon out the window!