The School Bully

[Matthew Dalton]

They were all probably fifteen or sixteen.

 

[Lincsong]

Forget about the bum. Ignore him like the plague and have fun with the people who are really worth going to a reunion.

 

[Doh!]

I say either ignore him... or slash tires.

When I was in high school, these two older guys were performing some non-stop harrassment on one of my gym classmates. Nothing really physical, just a LOT of verbal, bratty abuse. Then one day their victim brought in a knife and threatened to use it if they didn't back off.

They backed off.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

That's pretty extreme!

Blackboard Jungle looks whimsical compared to some of the stuff in this thread.
We are becoming an increasingly violent and disgruntled society.
Maybe soon we will regress to the days of the old west, and everyone will be forced to carry a sidearm.

 

[Trickeration]

In my neck of the woods, many already do! Sadly, I live in a city known by many for being Snoop Dog's hometown. :eusa_doh: Seriously though, it is a sad thing. So much violence around, and so many just turning a blind eye to it.

 

[MudInYerEye]

I say either ignore him... or slash tires.

When I was in high school, these two older guys were performing some non-stop harrassment on one of my gym classmates. Nothing really physical, just a LOT of verbal, bratty abuse. Then one day their victim brought in a knife and threatened to use it if they didn't back off.

They backed off.

Haha!
I did that once. Junior high. The only empty seats left on the bus when I got on were on a three seater which this jock a-hole was sitting on. When I tried to sit next to him he blocked me from entering. I'd had problems with this creep before and was fed up. Neither the busdriver nor the other chickensh*t students offered any help. Being a paperboy, I always carried a boxcutter to open bundles. I put the boxcutter's razor right up to his throat and told him to move over and be quiet, and he complied. Later on at school he ratted me out and they took my boxcutter away but I didn't care much as I had a few more at home in a drawer. Never had a problem with that creep or any of his friends for the duration of my student career.
I have turned the tables on many jerks who have thought to bully or take liberties with me and encouage all others do do the same by any means necessary.

 

[Elaina]

Yeah, but you can only encourage it so far when you've got a little nerd boy in the making.

While I do tell my son to fight for his rights, it can be taken too far. There is a balance between fighting fairly for a cause and being as big an a-hole as someone else.

 

[MudInYerEye]

Yeah, but you can only encourage it so far when you've got a little nerd boy in the making.

While I do tell my son to fight for his rights, it can be taken too far. There is a balance between fighting fairly for a cause and being as big an a-hole as someone else.

Haha! Too true. There's a certain great KING OF THE HILL episode that deals with exactly that situation.
But...if someone unjustly picks on you or and you don't do anything about it, you yourself are either a martyr or an a-hole (which can often be the same thing.) Not fighting back strips ones' dignity which inevitably leads to self-loathing. Just try not to kill the bully if you can avoid it, embarrassing him in front of his peers is quite enough.

 

[Lincsong]

I do see zero tolerance for weapons and drugs in the school system...but still hallway,lockerroom,and now even classroom intimidation runs rampid in many public schools,and becomes worse every year. Even here in the midweast. The student achiever must try to excell in spite of groups who thrive on a lack of effective discipline. Several of my teacher friends have retired early or finally left teaching in disgust,claiming their hands were tied in dealing with these problems. Talking,eating,disruption,disrespect,cussing,and confrontation even in the classroom. The parents fault for sure when their children can do no wrong. School administration's,too,as they feel they must walk on eggshells due to lawsuits,discrimination,and sixteen year old kids demanding freedom of disrespectful expression and getting away with it.
HD

I went through the same school district from 1974-1987 here in San Francisco Bay Area and bully's were a common thing from day one in kindergarten right up through graduation. They ran the gambit from neanderthal parents who encouraged their sons stupidity in elementary to spoiled sons of local merchants in high school. I was lucky because, Dad bought me a punching bag when I was six and gave me some lessons, and being the youngest I had older brothers, sisters, cousins and their friends looking out for me in K-2 grades. But, by and large there are always going to be punks that no amount of diplomacy will suffice and they need a good swift one across the mouth. One punk in elementary school used to get his pot joints from his biker father, another moron's parents deported him back to Madeira. Low-riders, high riders, pot heads etc all needed a "good lickin'".

When dealing with the children of neanderthals, the parents really have to step in and straighten the bullying parents out. Sometimes, the bully's parents are the ones who may be jealous of another kids family and relate that to their kids.

Once my mother drove her car across one parents driveway, got out and told the wife that either she controlled her boys or my mother would beat the hell of the them herself then come over there and beat the hell out of the mother in front of the boys.lol The husband came out and my mother told him he needed to control the boys because she'd beat the hell out of him once my Father had done it. My freind lived across the street from the same family and his father wasn't as agressive, as a result both the sons and father harassed my friend and his father. Once when I was in the first grade, after I knocked one bully across the head with my lunch pail, he and his mother came up to the door to complain. The woman had the nerve to say I called her son a derogatory four letter word, my Dad (who never used that word in front of his kids) told her point blank; "obviously your son learned that word from you and your husband because I don't cuss like that" and slammed the door on her face.:eusa_clap

Then of course there are the parents whose "golden child" does no wrong and doesn't believe in corporal punishment unless they are there to witness it. Well folks, your little puddin' head didn't get swatted with the paddle for getting a "C-" on his test he must have done something to warrant it.

In High School one of the star jocks/big mouths rolled his truck at the Super Bowl when it was played at Stanford. Nothing happened to him, no charges etc. Daddy and Grandpa threw their money all around, wouldn't want to do anything to harm his football career. That kind of punk really can't be dealt with because Daddy and Grandpa hold so much sway in a town of corrupted ethnics and fools who idolize athletes.

 

[Paisley]

I wasn't the golden child to my parents; I guess I was the tin child or lead child. They never backed me up in anything. If I'd clocked someone, I'd have been blamed, no matter how much they'd earned it.

I resorted to subtler means of evening the score.

 

[52Styleline]

My personal experience with bullying was during the final years of elementary school and my freshman year of High School. His father was a drunk who regularly beat his mother, and I suspect was not above knocking his kids around when he felt like it. As is often the case, he was big for his age and physically much stronger than I was at the time.

I didn’t like the bullying and the occasional beating, but I refused to let it harm me psychologically or destroy my self-esteem. It wasn’t my fault after all. Many years later, I read in the newspaper that his Mother had died and that the funeral was the next day. On a whim, I attended the funeral, and after the service, my former tormenter came up to me, thanked me for attending and apologized for his behavior when we were both children.

He caused me some trauma as a kid, but I believe his home life scarred him much more and eventually he was really the one to pay the price because he developed real problems with alcohol .

Frankly, forcing myself to go to school when I was nearly certain I would be involved in a fight I had no hope of winning, taught me about self discipline and overcoming fear and has been of great value in my life.

 

[Quigley Brown]

I say either ignore him... or slash tires.

When I was in high school, these two older guys were performing some non-stop harrassment on one of my gym classmates. Nothing really physical, just a LOT of verbal, bratty abuse. Then one day their victim brought in a knife and threatened to use it if they didn't back off.

They backed off.

There are some serious instances where the little guy finally had enough, brought a gun to school and shot them.

 

[ENfield3-8303]

There are some serious instances where the little guy finally had enough, brought a gun to school and shot them.

And yet, each and every time this happens there is a massive effort to blame video games, music (heavy metal/rap/goth whatever), the availability of guns, what have you. While some small attention may be spent on the fact that most shooters have been consistantly tormented for years, it seems to me that the shooters are themselves blamed for attracting the torment in the first place. What a sad world we live in.

 

[Chanfan]

Wow, what a thread.

It's actually good to read, as my own experiences at being bullied were, by comparison, pretty much nothing. I got my head slammed in a locker on one occasion in grade school, and arm -ocked and punched on another (in Jr. High). High school featured only psychological bullying, and not really that much of that. Still, it does stick in ones mind. I recall being unfairly, smugly approving when I saw, later in life, one of the culprits working as a gas station attendant. I wish it wasn't so - I feel badly about feeling that way - but there you go.

Be that as it may, I certainly felt an outsider, and didn't attend my reunions. I kind of regret it - I think one tends to focus on reunions being about all those bozos you didn't like, but what they really are (or should be) is about catching up again with the folks you do like, but lost touch with.

 

[Paisley]

My 10th reunion cost something like $50 to attend. There just wasn't anyone from high school I'd pay $50 to see.

Now that my 20th is coming up, I figure that I've gone 20 years without seeing anyone from there, and I can go 20 more. I'd rather spend time with the friends I have now.

 

[jamespowers]

My 10th reunion cost something like $50 to attend. There just wasn't anyone from high school I'd pay $50 to see.

Now that my 20th is coming up, I figure that I've gone 20 years without seeing anyone from there, and I can go 20 more. I'd rather spend time with the friends I have now.

My sentiments exactly---except it cost more for mine. :eusa_doh: That made the choice even easier.

Regards,

J

P.S. I might pay $50 if I didn't have to see certain people I went to high school with, or just certain people, though.

 

[Doh!]

I have no desire to attend any high school or college reunions. I still keep in contact with a handful of friends from each institution so I see no need in comparing notes with a bunch of now strangers 20+ years after the fact.

I mean, if I wanted to spend time with the rest of them I would have. I made some really good choices, I think.

 

[katiemakeup]

You couldn't get me to my high school reunions even if you paved the way with hershey bars held together with hundred dollar bills.

 

[jamespowers]

You couldn't get me to my high school reunions even if you paved the way with hershey bars held together with hundred dollar bills.

Ok, now you got me. I would go if you paved the way from here to the east coast with those materials. A couple million dollars and a couple million Hershey bars---OK. I don't really like the Hershey Bars but I could always eBay 'em.

Regards,

J

 

[Lady Day]

I guess my shield from a lot of the many many bullies I had was my drawing.

Id get constantly, "Man youre ugly, but you can draw." I guess I was 'respected' in a way, because I had a talent that they did not and one that they could not fake they had.

But all in all Im effected by their torment to this day. To say just let it go is not some thing you can do. Its a part that defines you, helped to create the person you are now, weather you wanted it to or not. And it will stay with you forever. Its up to us to channel it into something positive.

Still, all my friend were bullied and now they are productive and creative professionals. Paid their dues if you will. And the bullies, who knows...

Gee, I wonder if there are any bullies in the Lounge
Your thoughts.


LD