What was the worst bullying you saw in school?

Post Reply New Topic

monsterland wrote

Then don't read them....i'm afraid I can't help the way I write and if you
find them unreadable, the solution should be obvious. I did not demand
you to show me anything. All I asked you to do is to produce some evidence
for a particular claim you made. What was I supposed to do? If I told you that
the moon is made of green cheese, wouldn't you ask me for some evidence
to back up such a claim?

Is the claim you made somehow more believable? I did not accuse you
of being Mussolini either. All said is that I believe it's insulting when you
tell people who've endured terrible suffering that their suffering had some
sort of value. Some forms of suffering do....that much i'll concede.

But you act as though ALL clouds have a silver lining and i'm sorry if I
can't abide by that. I happen to think it's sentimental nonsense and yes,
quite insulting to those who've lived under some of the darkest clouds
which never yielded any "silver linings".




Perhaps it does....i'll give you the benefit of the doubt. What exactly did
you mean by the value of overcoming and triumph then? If I misunderstood
you, then my apologies. It seemed to me that you were implying that those
who do overcome and triumph over adversity are somehow better and MORE
DESERVING people than those who do not. We all realize this fight is part of
existence....nobody in their right mind would dispute that.





I realize that and you missed my point regardless of who's fault it was.
What I was trying to say is that were it POSSIBLE to be rid life of the
brutal Darwinian/evolutionary process while still preserving the rainforest
(and everything else) there would be no reason not to IMO.


I'm aware of the fact that it's a means to an end....a necessary evil if you will.


Obviously it is not possible to rid existence of all evil and suffering.


But we should not be lulled into complacency and acceptance of ALL OF IT
by arguments which suggest ALL OF IT has both value and is impossible
to do away with. We ought to be able to seperate the whey from the chaff
here.


If you can agree with that much...then we're on the same page.





And plenty were not suffering individuals. I think it's up to the individual
to determine if the suffering which contributed to their work was worth it.

Perhaps Beethoven would've preffered sight to musical talent...who knows?

Far be from me to blame him if he would have.

Correction: Beethoven went deaf. He was completely deaf when he composed the ninth symphony.

I was spat at in 6th grade, I was taken advantage of and I get in trouble, I was egged on to do things and I get in trouble, kids liked to get me provoked to get me into trouble, my own best friends didn't stand up for me.

Ack.....I knew something was wrong with that picture.


I was too caught up in multi-tasking to put much thought into it though.

eh - it was off topic and i almost apologized for interjecting. i just couldn't help myself.

I just wanted to butt in and say that I agree with this (above). I wasn't actually participating in this thread, but I started reading these posts because I couldn't figure out how they related back to the bullying topic. It's hard to actually think about what your posts are saying (Horus) with the condescending overtone of them. You already said you didn't care, but anyways.

Back to bullying...I was never bullied, and I never really saw a lot of bullying. But, I didn't go to school until 9th grade.

How was I bullied?

Grade school: called names, someone threw my backpack in the garbage, girls would confront me in the restrooms and say really nasty things. On the playground, they'd come up to me and act like they were trying to start a normal conversation with me, but the tones in their voices (I could tell) indicated that they were leading up to more rotten remarks. I had no idea how to make any comebacks, so I didn't say anything in return, which only made it worse.

I developed breasts early and had to wear training bras by fourth or fifth grade. During gym class, one girl snapped the strap and loudly said "You're wearing a BRA?!" My mother called her dad (a respected doctor in the town) and told him in no uncertain terms what kind of a daughter he and his wife were raising. They divorced shortly thereafter. I found her sobbing in the restroom once--she was not happy that I heard her in there. She disappeared after fifth grade and resurfaced in the tenth, loudly complaining to anyone who would listen how rotten her life was and that she hated her parents.

In fifth grade, one girl loudly accused me of stealing her retainer (gross) and got a bunch of her friends to corroborate this false accusation. I kept trying to say I didn't do it, but they just kept repeating it over and over, calling me a thief and a liar. I have no idea where they came up with that one. Ironically, she used to act like she was my friend, as long as I shared my desserts with her at lunchtime (I eventually grew tired of this--it was completely one-sided). That incident did reduce me to tears. However, they did all get in trouble for it (finally).

I walked around with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach all the time. I just wanted to be left alone. Being ignored would have been welcome. I missed a lot of school days as a result of being physically ill most mornings.

Some of the teachers were no better. My mom had to change classrooms for me in fourth grade because the teacher saw the bullying openly occurring in the classroom and not only tolerated it, but seemed to encourage it.

And then--also in fourth grade, there was this weekly reading group called "Junior Great Books." One of the other student's mothers led it and she was horrible to me--openly belittling me in front of everyone because I didn't want to talk. (My first-grade teacher did the same thing, btw, making me cry more than once. However, most of the parents hated her too--eventually, she was asked to resign. I think her husband divorced her shortly afterwards.)

Sixth grade--in my Humanities (English/History) class, we had to discuss the daily journal entries in small groups. I took longer than most people to compose my responses--I saw no point in doing them if they weren't thorough. The two girls I originally had to work with didn't like that I took longer than they did and that I refused to say a word until I was ready. Their response was to call me to "Mediation" (exactly what it sounded like--my middle school's concept of dispute resolution); my response was to tell my Humanities teacher that I'd had enough. His response was to switch me to another group (which should have been done in the first place ) with a few people I got along with at the time. They were patient enough to let me finish (and usually took a bit longer themselves). My art teacher in the same year was a total b***ch--I had never been good at visual arts in the first place, and she nitpicked every assignment that wasn't done exactly "her way." My Humanities teacher actually had a long talk with her (he was one of the nicest teachers I've ever had, past or present) and she left me alone after that.

This was also the year I thought this one girl was actually my friend. She turned out to be totally two-faced. I responded by refusing to say a word to her after the fight that "broke us up"--every time she tried to say anything to me, I pretended I was deaf or that she did not exist. One year later she apologized.

Seventh grade--art class again, some kid threw an ink bottle at me. He was a jerk to everyone, though.

Ninth grade--I was assigned to an English project group with some girls who had been jerks to me in grade school. For a while, they seemed to be acting nice, and I foolishly fell for it. In the final product, none of my contributions were even present. They tried to make it all "okay" by saying I would get credit anyway, but I didn't care--I was royally P.O.'d at having my ideas disregarded. That was the final straw--my mom got me out of that (supposedly Honors) class and into a "regular" one where we actually learned stuff (including grammar--what a concept). The previous teacher ("Honors") would let kids cut other classes, hide out in her classroom and smoke pot. Really. She also had the nerve to say to my mom that "her job was to make [me] more independent." WTF?!? My mom said "I thought your job was to teach English." I think she was eventually let go, too.

In my senior year, I had to switch English classes yet again--I had a horrible teacher who criticized the way I had been writing for years and always gotten A's from; he gave me C's or worse. I started to be too afraid to write anything until I changed classes, and writing had always been one of my strongest points. I returned a year and a half after graduation to get transcripts and found out he had died recently.

Yep, karma can be a funny thing.