How did your teacher's deal with bullies?

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sigh ... again typical

I was never bullied directly as bullies 'test' their targets. They pull small things with someone smaller and weaker than themselves to see how they react. If the target doesn't defend themselves they know they can bully them more openly without pulling attention to themselves. I grew up with boys, all my best friends were boys which gave me a bit of a backbone. I always stood up for myself during the 'test' phase, so the few bullies who tried things on me moved on to someone easier.

I remember one teacher I had in fourth grade embarrassed the class bully (who was really a huge coward when you stood up to him) by telling him she would kiss him in front of the entire class if he didn't stop. One day she caught him goofing off yet again. The teacher called him to stand in front of the class, she walked over to him, and bent as if to kiss his cheek, then handing him (the then really red-faced) a Hershey kiss candy. It made an impression, the embarrassment, as he cooled his jets for along time after that.

My teachers didn't deal with bullies at all. They knew there was a lot of bullying going on, but did nothing to try to stop it or punish the bullies or help the victims of the bullies. They just ignored the problem as if it was not their problem to deal with it. So the bullying just went on and on and gradually got worse as the bullies realized there would be no consequences for them.

I've noticed this a lot in more recent years. When I was in school teachers weren't afraid of being reprimanded for controlling their own students, they were expected to take control of their classrooms. What with the digital age of today kids grow up feeling safe hidden behind their electronic devices too.

I'm 28 years old, so it's been a while since I was in school. I've noticed the same thing though about teachers nowadays being afraid of being reprimanded for controlling their students or upholding discipline. They seem to get in trouble for saying anything to their students to keep things under control in the classroom, which I think is a bad development. But when I was in school the teachers just didn't seem to care or consider it their role to deal with the bullying that happened at school. I'm not sure they even understood the effects bullying can have or realized the severity of it. They didn't seem to think it was a big deal.

Clearly I see now, that they thought I was doing something "on purpose" to cause the bullies to focus on me. I'm 43 now, and I think I'm experienced and qualified in life enough to say that I was not doing any such thing. The cause of the bullying was that I was "different", and kids are cruel toward whom they don't understand.

Being from a Victorian family background, I was taught that fighting or hitting would send me straight to hell, and I was to scream and run to the school office if anybody was bothering me. Obviously that itself was causing bullying, as I was a rather tall kid, and that kind of response was not at all what I should have done. I'm not condoning physical violence, but there comes a time when a boy or girl may have to resort to it. Running screaming from a bully is NOT the answer; it's an idealistic lie that such a response will do anything but further the bullying!

Charles

Teachers did nothing for me, I had to deal with the bullies that were getting on at me