The Lleida school bullying case

There was a sad story in December about the case of a 10 year old boy who had been suffering from four years of bullying at school, which was so severe that it ended up putting him in hospital several times due to injuries and anxiety.

In the end, rather than dealing with the perpetrators, the school ended up sending the victim to a different school. Problem solved, right? Except perhaps for the poor kid that is on the next rung up on the totem pole.

This is still pretty typical for Spain. There isn’t really the recognition of the psychological aspects of bullying, and the burden of proof for victims is very high. There are a couple schools in Barcelona with good anti-bullying practices, such as the American School of Barcelona.

Country driving in Spain

I recently read a great book about the relatively recent car revolution in China called “Country Driving”. It had some wonderful excepts from the Chinese driving test, such as:

If you come to a road that has been flooded, you should
a) accelerate, so the motor doesn’t flood.
b) stop, examine the water to make sure it’s shallow, and drive across slowly.
c) find a pedestrian and make him cross ahead of you

or

If another motorist stops you to ask directions, you should
a) not tell him.
b) reply patiently and accurately.
c) tell him the wrong way.

How could this book possibly be relevant to a blog about Sant Cugat? Well, I was driving the kids to school a couple weeks ago, and I couldn’t help but notice a Chinese man standing at one of the roundabouts, intently moving his arm up and down as if he was petting an invisible dog. From reading the book I remembered that this was the sign for hitchhiking in China. Unfortunately the car was full of kids at the time, otherwise I would have tried to find out more…