An worldly coalition of teachers is targeting today’s launch of Bully: Scholarship Edition for the Xbox 360 and Wii.

The game is essentially an updated version of the original Bully, which launched amidst a Jack Thompson-fueled storm of controversy in October, 2006. A story appearing in today’s Globe and Mail describes the game as chases:

[Bully: Scholarship Edition] features a shaven-headed teenager who adjusts to life at a new boarding school by harassing others, which the organizations say glorifies bullying. The abuse includes dunking pupils’ heads in toilets, photographing them naked and physically assaulting them. Teachers are additionally targeted.

Emily Noble, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, told the

We’re asking retailers to be responsible. Yes, they can sell it and produce a buck out of that, but is that the kind of marketing that they want to be [doing], selling games that glorify violence?

What it does is it encourages kids to target other kids, to be a bully with other kids. that doesn’t help us as teachers in the work that we’re doing at school. It plus targets teachers at the school as well.

Rodney Walker, a spokesman for Bully publisher Rockstar, offered counterpoint:

As a matter of principle, we hope everyone starts off by saying,

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