The sickest unspoken rule of all

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Yeah. I know I can easily fall into that category at times when it comes to certain things. As for reality tv, I have always hated it. it isnt creative at all or anything. I view it more like a tool the media uses to keep everyone from paying attention to the real issues. Same for most mainstream media to be honest. I have honestly been hoping for world war III because it should effectively eliminate the majority of the troublemakers in the world. You need to destroy in order to create, equivalent exchange blah blah blah...

Good point.

I was kind of on both ends, one end I was bullied a lot by others. However, the other end, I did bully others simply and looking back to it, it was due to jealousy and my lack of fitting in. I was neither completely normal nor completely disabled as a kid and I would see kids from the special ed class who were "mainstreamed" and went in and out from my class in elementary school and they would get all of this attention while I did not, or at least I felt like it was not the right attention. They were viewed as "special" while I was not and I had no way of communicating my troubles to teachers.

Then there was "Treat others the way they wanted to be treated" well, people treated me badly, but it was to the point that it was so frequently that I didn't care or was simply unaware of their insults so therefore, I thought it was okay to do so because I didn't care if I was bullied. I tried to pick on them in subtle ways, and if I was caught, I was accused of being intolerant. Sure, I had people that came an helped me, but they just were simply useless. What appeared to them as an anger issue was a sensory issue or a communication issue. It was hard to tell with me because it varied from day to day... Most of the days I spent staying in the office, it was pretty much my home in second grade. I remember I would be so bored that I would do random suff like take off books from shelves and stack them up into a big tower or rearrange things and when I was told I couldn't leave the room, I interpreted that I couldn't even go to the bathroom so I wet my pants and they got really mad with me. I believe I was suspended five times...

Fortunately, I transferred out of there while I still had a chance and went to a Montessori school that had the best teachers ever who understood me so therefore, my bullying stopped and I was no longer being bullied.

While I do believe there are many despicable human beings in this world, I do not believe that bullying, as a general rule, is practiced or accepted by the vast majority of them, including teachers and school staff. Maybe it is just the trend of the part of the world I happen to live in. I just happen to have not seen much evidence that bullying as a practice is intentionally accepted by adults in the school systems I have either been a student of, or the parent of a student of.

On the other hand, I do think, at least when I was in public school, bullying was overlooked and ignored far more than it is today. That though, I do not believe was intentional. I believe the attitude that prevailed then was unfortunately misguided. People in general had more of a tendency to think that children needed to learn to be tough, and tended to accept that bullying was simply a normal part of everyone's childhood. Many people truly believed that all children were bullied, not just the weak and vulnerable. I was often told to pay attention to the kids that bullied me, and watch and see that they bullied each other as much, if not more, than they bullied me. I was told these kids probably thought their behavior was normal banter meant to display friendship. I was actually told that some of those kids were probably doing what they were doing as a means of displaying that they actually LIKED me, because they were treating me the same way they treated each other.

BULL!

I DID watch them, and NO, they did NOT do the sorts of things they did to me, to each other.

Has anyone been watching the CNN segments about bullying? Are you noticing, as I am, that most of the "experts" are speaking mostly about how the victims of bullying should handle it? Have you noticed, as I have, that most of the "advice" given is all about victims not being victims?

Does that make as little sense to you as it does to me?

Why aren't these people trying to figure out how to STOP the damned bullying in the first place? Why is the focus all on the victims and what THEY should do? Why the HELL isn't the main focus on teaching kids that bullying is WRONG in the first place, and teaching them what about their behavior is really bullying, and that THEY should learn to recognize it and STOP IT?!

This putting so much of the responsibility for reducing bullying on the victims is just plain STUPID.

The problem is the bullies who are BULLYING, not the victims!

Since I left school in 1978, districts where I lived, and live now, have put the focus on the bullies themselves. They have been TEACHING kids what bullying is, what is acceptable treatment of others, and what is not. That's the way it SHOULD be. Anyway, that's what I see around me. I do not see any evidence of any sort of conspiracy to evict the weak and vulnerable. I see a huge effort to level the playing field for children. At least in the schools.

Among the neighborhoods, it's a different story. But that I see as general ignorance, not as conscious conspiracy.

Yup.

Living vicariously through the bad behaviors of our reality T.V. stars.

It's the American (or insert country of choice) way.

I have seen that. I think it's a misguided attempt to empower the victims by making them think that they have the power to get the bullies to stop. But since none of the techniques the experts recommend to the victims ever works, it winds up just holding the victims responsible rather than empowering them.

One thing that is starting to be talked about which I really hope catches on in the culture is targeting neither the victims nor the bullies but instead targeting everybody else...the bystanders. It used to be socially acceptable to bully people with visible disabilities but not anymore. A bully can smack the lunch out of an awkward, shy kid's hand and bystanders just look away. But if he dared do that to a kid with Down's Syndrome, the whole room would be all over him. It has become socially unacceptable (at least in some places, at least from what I've seen) to bully those with visible disabilities and this unacceptability is enforced by peer pressure. If teachers can somehow affect the school culture to extend that peer pressure to bullying in general, not just of people with visible disabilities, bullying would go down.

But things don't look too good. A new kind of bullying that didn't even exist when I was young is here now- cyberbullying- and nobody is quite sure what to do about it. This last year brought several suicides by teens who had been cyber bullied and so things are actually worse now than they used to be although at least it isn't ok to smack the kid with Down's Syndrome anymore.

I never thought about shootings during my bully experiences in Middle School. Every student and faculty member should be thankful I didn't have access to explosives. Why go in with a shooting when you can paint the walls red with blood and black with scorch marks and live through it all standing outside the perimeter with a detonator? I guess it would be expensive to make that much explode but it was all feelings of fantasy. I hated near every person in that school from the bully who beat me to the 95% of students who encouraged him... and the teachers who claimed he was the victim of harassment and not the bloody me >_<. I hate humans... that is why I've stripped myself of humanity and became whatever I am now. I'm not a bad person but those people deserved death... I only feel bad I couldn't give it to them. As far as now... it's the past and I pretty much forgot about most of it and I've pretty much forgiven the people... it's just the fact that I'm remembering how horrible those people were and that fires me up... I'm actually a pretty peaceful animal... and in all actuality I'd have a hard time hurting anybody... so all my talk of killing 'em all is just fantasy. I don't actually care that I was bullied anymore... it was the past. And on the upside my bully is probably in prison being someones b...

In a sense, that's the end result of what the schools around here have been doing. The focus is on educating ALL the kids as to what constitutes bullying, including cyber bullying. As a result, all the kids know what it is when they see it, and they are taught to speak up if and when it happens. In the end, when the kids actually DO speak up, it's the bullies themselves who are the target of peer disapproval.

It still happens sometimes anyway, of course. A very minor incident happened to my son just a couple of weeks ago on the bus. It was just name calling, with a lot of snickering, and my son actually laughed it off at first. By the third day though, he began to realize it WASN'T funny, and told me about it. A quick email to the school, and I got a call from the principle the following morning. It was handled brilliantly, and it hasn't happened since.

In this case, rather than tell my son there were better ways to handle it, they simply questioned the other kid briefly and opened HIS eyes to the fact that what he was doing was considered bullying, and would not be accepted. With that kind of response happening where I am, it's hard to believe in a conspiracy to encourage bullying.

Well I see a lot of people here shifted to there violent tendency to scare people away and not get picked on. But I however went about things differently. You see I would always attempt to make friends with the bullies in my school... By being as weird and as quirky as possible (which wasn't too hard as you can imagine) hell one time after a guy beat the crap out of me I bought him a nice Christmas present. I was so nice to them all that they felt terrible about hurting me and never did it again. I despised doing all of that to this day and wish I would have just decked them but then again as I'm still completely nonviolent I probably wouldn't have. Oh and by the way acting like a monkey for peoples amusement was the most demeaning thing I have ever experienced and I was doing it. Problem is it never felt demeaning. Oh and I found out later the kids at school treated me specially because they thought I was mentally ret*d because of the things I did. I had a friend (my first friend and only one at the time) who was really nice to me... up until the time when he saw I was really intelligent. Then he started getting very angry and called me a liar and a fake... It hurt. It hurt worse when I found out all the kids at school thought that. And that's when I noticed how they treated me... I could never break out of it either. No matter how smart I showed I was they still thought I was... It was a nightmare.

South Hadley was NOT a school shooting, but a bullycide that happened only two towns away from where I live. It's rocked my community, and it'll be a circus when the trial of the accused finally starts. Though I'm glad these bullies are being made an example, I fear the new anti-bullying laws will cause things in the school system to implode. But like someone here said, sometimes you have to destroy before you can create. I'm quite in agreement with the Full Metal Alchemist philosophy.
I just think it's only just begun, and when all this legislation clashes with the unspoken rule, sparks are REALLY going to fly.

I have a bad feeling that the current wave of media attention given to the bullying crisis will be shortlived until the next wave bully-driven suicides or school shootings happen.

I mean if past waves of school shootings failed to address anything regarding the bullying epidemic, I will be amazed if the current wave of suicides will even be cared for.

Through school I was a constant target of bullying mainly because I was a bit overweight and I acted "different". I flat out ignored the bullies as though they didn't exist to a point... when they passed that line, I would let them have it. Most of the time after I exploded on one, the others would stop as well.. I ended my violent behavior after an incident where I broke another boy's nose and knocked out his front teeth.(really long story) the short of it was I was dragged out of class later that day by a police officer and charged with assault. In court the judge dropped the charges as it was obviously self defense. However, this entire episode was EXTREMELY traumatic to me because of my instense fear of authority figures. After that I found less violent ways to deal with bullies...

I hate how people are so inclined to do that and to take enjoyment from watching things like that. In a society obsessed with power and personal gain, the biggest downfall is that we are tearing each other to pieces to get what we want. It's pathetic.

I'm a teacher at a large high school and I can tell you that the teachers I work with (about a hundred) and staff (maybe 30) do not like bullying and certainly do NOT favor the bullies. As a teacher I can tell you that I LOVE my nerds, just like any teacher who has to try to control a class of 30 teenagers while trying to teach them something. The quiet, studious kids do their work and don't bother anyone. They're angels and I wish the kids were all so easy to manage. High school could move at a college pace if they were all like that.

Bullies are a pain in the ass - to other students, teachers, administrators and staff. TRUST ME. We talk about them in meetings and give each other info on them to look out because maybe something happened earlier. They are exasperating on good days. They are the most high maintenance, troubled and insecure kids in the school. Think about who most teachers are. They were usually the nerdy kids themselves - hall monitors, book worms, etc. Some of them have just evolved to be old and nerdy - but still nerdy.

Of course there are sh***y teachers who are just going to work to clock in and clock out when the bell rings, but even if you're lazy and don't care about the kids, this job is f*****g difficult - those clock watchers are the extreme minority and still have hard work ahead of them each day. There's a shortage and a high turn over rate in the field for a reason.

When I was a kid I was bullied repeatedly right in front of teachers and they just let it happen, but that doesn't mean that teachers as a whole feel that way. It was, in fact a loving and compassionate teacher who came to my defense.

Keeping hundreds of kids just basically safe and from humping each other while trying to teach them how to sound like literate adults is an enormous job for which we get paid a pathetic, infuriating wage. We have our hands full. We are trying to teach them content while they're getting pulled out of class for countless field trips and sports crap.

And above all, most bullying doesn't happen right in front of a teacher. We don't know all the interpersonal things that are going on between kids or if they have no friends, etc. We have no way of knowing if a kid whispers something mean to another one, talks trash at lunch, or texts hateful things. I usually have no idea how the kids feel about each other unless they talk all the time (that equals friends) or one comes to me and asks to be moved because he can't stand being next to so and so for another minute. We don't usually know when kids are enemies because outwardly, their behavior can look like they're just not friends and they can appear neutral and uninterested in one another.

And this rubbish about wanting the special ed kids/gay kids etc. out of the school is deluded. Most schools have gay students and out gay teachers. I'm sure some people still have a problem with it, but teachers as a whole are not trying to get them out of the school. If you're in a school with anti-gay sentiment, start a LGBT club. They make a big difference.

We have lots of special ed kids who we cheer on at our special olympics games (I've seen jock type kids get misty eyed watching them) and when you've seen a sweetheart of a kid slowly work through high school for 9 years because of severe learning disabilities, your only reaction is a softened heart.

Please don't think teachers as a whole like bullying. Examine the line of reasoning. It is faulty.

Well, that's my rant. It feels like yelling into an empty abyss.

You aren't, though.
You...and people like you, truly deserve to be teachers as you see the gifts and abilities in all people. It's just that you will get the odd person who will enter into the teaching profession with no sense of how to foster a sense of inclusiveness or community...and they thus side with the bullies as they are just as obsessed with power and weeding certian groups out of the picture as they are. I know this because I've gone through the special and regular education system and have had teachers from both categories...but the majority of the ones I see are very caring and compassionate. So don't think that you're yelling at a brick wall, there are plenty of people who appreciate people like you who truly care about their children regardless of their (dis)abilities, including me.

Thanks, Anneurysm. You made me feel better. I'd talked myself into quite a mood. Heh.

I've been through different systems, too. I had so many teachers and moved around a lot, so I definitely came across some awful ones, but they were such the minority and they're human, so they can be jerks, too. But to put teachers in general into that category is so upsetting. Teaching is so emotional and most teachers can feel quite protective over their students. It's wildly self-centered to think teachers know everything that's going on among students. I've had kids come to me because they were being abused by a SO, bullied, hated for being Muslim, etc. I wouldn't have known had they not told me. It's not a job you can just leave at work. Honestly, it's so emotionally draining that I want to quit, and conversations like the one in this thread just make it worse.

Thanks for being encouraging, but as you can see it's thankless which makes lots of us (fools who got stuck teaching) feel so beat down and the pay is barely enough to live on. It's almost 10pm - I really shouldn't even be thinking about it. Ugh. Maybe this is how teachers become numb and just make it their goal to get through the chapter without any one getting a beating on their watch.