# Bullying needs to go out of schools



## BlueIceHusky (Sep 26, 2011)

How many horribly neglected people must take their lives before congress decides whether its their time to pass an anti-bullying law nation wide? Why didn't we do anything before in the past? Bullying leads to anger that could be directed to taking a life away. Has anyone remember Columbine? That was caused by bullying in its first stages. What has our country been doing the past ten years, sleeping with its head in the sand? We have to b pro-active with these situation, this is our country's future we're talking about. How many lives could we prevent from getting extingushed from a problem that can prevented from lesson learned? 

Just a hunch, but I think teen bullying has gotten much worse over the last two decades. Technology has something to do with it, but its people who initiate it. We need to crack down on bullying in schools, no matter what grade or age, bullying is never a good image to put in any school. I was bullyied sense for so long in my school, no one helped me. There was no place to go, I felt stuck in a prison of hatred and lonelyness. Teachers aren't only paid to teach kids, but they use to teach kids how to behave. Some schools are horrible, the district boards focus more on football more then the right care of helping students getting through what they been through. 

I little story about myself. I recieved a death threat when i was a nerdy freshmen in high school. It was such a twisted and dark case, it was regarded as the worst in the New Berlin school area in 20 years. I was in a horrible situation, to be bullyied like that was beyond inhumanity. I fight against bullying in my school, making sure no one ever has to go through what I went through, no one should.

The suits in power should think about a law passing to protect schools from the ever growing presence of bullying, for pete sake this is the lives of children we're talking about. How long must we go before countless lives lose that gift of life who's mysterious origins is regarded to something of uniqueness. I would think life is more important to grasp then to think about war expenditures and making sure those fat cats get their money cheaply somehow.

I don't rant out as often then most people, but this problem should of been solved years long ago! What are your thoughts?


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## Kyrodo (Sep 26, 2011)

I've had to deal with a lot of crap myself when I was in high school. Nearly got beat up a couple times, including from these two bikers who would shove me on their way home from school while I'm walking along. Never got any death threats though. Of course, my participation in high school was minimal, and eventually I learned how to become "invisible", ways to prevent myself from being a target such as sticking with other people and being as calm and laid back as possible.

There's really no way to completely get rid of bullying, not without going to extremist measures. Most people won't even report bullying or they'll end up looking like a "tattle-tale", which is viewed as dishonorable and lame. Bullying is too commonplace to be easily dealt with, and sometimes it doesn't even happen on school grounds. Good f-ing luck is all I can say.


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## Unsilenced (Sep 26, 2011)

The law is not a magical shield that just stops shit from happening. Sorry. It's not. Schools already have rules against most forms of bullying and all that laws could do would be to increase the consequences. If that was all it took to stop shit from happening we'd have public executions for everything and a crime-free utopia, but it's not. 


Also, do you have any idea what it means to have a law passed by congress? Any idea? 

Congress couldn't pass a law against _lynching. _As in they had a bill that would give people 5 years in prison and a fine for the crime of _publicly hanging another person, _and they couldn't agree to it. 


EDIT: Yes bullying is a problem, but if you think that "just banning it" is going to help in any way you are mistaken. I don't have a solution myself. If I did I would probably be famous, but I don't. Absolutely terrible laws come from the idea that you can just outlaw things into oblivion. If there is a one-shot "solution," and I highly doubt there is for something like bullying, it is not dragging thousands and thousands of minors to court. Seriously that's just a terrible idea.


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## Rilvor (Sep 26, 2011)

As the above said, attempting to pass laws to stop bullying is ridiculous. The fact these are minors also complicates the issue even further.

No OP, I don't think it has gotten any worse in the last 20 years. For that matter, since you are 18 I don't see where you could possibly put forth such a perspective either.

What CAN be done is people who see bullying happening doing something about it.

But as Carlin would put it...

"NOT IN MY BACKYARD"


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## Captain Howdy (Sep 26, 2011)

This is from the same theme as forbidding tag from happening on school  grounds, giving all the kids trophies for participating, and all that  new-age ass-patting. 

Bullying on a whole, is not as  evil as it's made out to be - Those who are bullied that end up flipping  their shit are in such an extreme minority that passing a  broad-sweeping law is asinine at best, and won't really change a thing  even if you added juvenile jail/prison/whatever time to it.


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## Gavrill (Sep 26, 2011)

Wikipedia said:
			
		

> Forty-seven states in the United States have passed *school anti-bullying legislation*, the first being Georgia in 1999. The three states without anti-bullying legislation are Hawaii, North Dakota, and South Dakota. A watchdog organization called Bully Police USA advocates for and reports on anti-bullying legislation.





> According to National Safety and Securities Services â€œAnti-bullying legislation, typically an unfunded mandate requiring schools to have anti-bullying policies but providing no financial resources to improve school climate and security, offer more political hype than substance for helping school administrators address the problem."



It's been around in the US for more than 10 years. Most noticeably (if I'm reading correctly) the shift towards anti-bullying came about in the late 80's/early 90's. So it's been around, but schools have a hard time enforcing it unless there's hard evidence or credible witnesses.

Edit:



> The National School Safety and Security Services questions the motive behind some anti-bullying legislationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislation. The line between â€œfeel-good legislationâ€ and â€œmeaningful legislationâ€ is not clear at the moment and The National School Safety and Security Services suggests â€œunfunded state mandateshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate and an overemphasis on any one component of school safety will likely have minimal impact on school safety and could potentially upset the comprehensive approach to school safe recommended by most school safety professionalsâ€.


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## Captain Howdy (Sep 26, 2011)

(woops)


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## Mentova (Sep 26, 2011)

As nice as it would be to stop bullies, it is never ever going to happen. There are always going to be assholes. They will always be in school, outside of school, and everywhere. There isn't going to be some magical law that will make every asshole in the world just disappear forever.


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## Deo (Sep 26, 2011)

Rilvor said:


> As the above said, attempting to pass laws to stop bullying is ridiculous. The fact these are minors also complicates the issue even further.
> 
> No OP, I don't think it has gotten any worse in the last 20 years. For that matter, since you are 18 I don't see where you could possibly put forth such a perspective either.
> 
> What CAN be done is people who see bullying happening doing something about it.


This. A law is meaningless to children and wouldn't stop them anyways. Even if such a law was passed, how do you go about proving that such a generic and broad term as bullying happened and how do you prosecute a minor for such trivial crimes? Really I think some bullying is good for kids, character building in a world that hands them everything on a silver platter it';s good for them to occasionally get their ass handed to them instead. It's natural. Kids are mean, the world is mean, boo hoo deal with it. It sucks, but suicide will continue to happen law or no law, bullying or no bullying.


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## Fay V (Sep 26, 2011)

Do you know what 'hazing' is OP? Watch a school movie from the 80s or 90s. You might hear about the "freshmen licking" where students were beaten. My father has some stories of hazing when he was in high school it is unpleasant. Yes bullying is bad but it has been far worse than this. Bullying simply gets more media coverage now. 
There is onlyso much you can do about bullying. Laws have already been established but kids are vicious and so long as more than 4 teens are together bullying will exist. The only thing you can do is try to train teachers to deal with it after the fact.
there is also a fine line between being negative and bullying. Obviously death threats are not okay but there. Are kids that take any form of criticism as an attack.
we could never eradicate bullying sadly. Just set up support for those bullied.


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## ramsay_baggins (Sep 26, 2011)

Deo said:


> This. A law is meaningless to children and wouldn't stop them anyways. Even if such a law was passed, how do you go about proving that such a generic and broad term as bullying happened and how do you prosecute a minor for such trivial crimes? *Really I think some bullying is good for kids, character building in a world that hands them everything on a silver platter it';s good for them to occasionally get their ass handed to them instead.* It's natural. Kids are mean, the world is mean, boo hoo deal with it. It sucks, but suicide will continue to happen law or no law, bullying or no bullying.



I think the main problem with bullying is distinguishing some people occaisonally picking on/criticising someone vs a prolonged and sustained campaign of destroying someone's self-esteem and mental wellbeing.

Occaisionally getting into a fight or whatever isn't bullying, it's kids being kids. The problem is when someone or a group of people focus on one person and sustain it for weeks if not years. Most of my friends were systematically targeted and went through sustained bullying, including myself and my sister. One of my best friends was horrifically assaulted, he went to teachers who then told him to 'stop lying'. He was hospitalised at least once. Bullying of this kind can really, really destroy someone. A lot of the time schools do bugger all to combat it. I talked to teachers multiple times, and the only thing it acheived was to make the problem worse.

It's such a complex thing that there is no right answer. Simply making it illegal is going to do fuck all. Usually most of the serious types of bullying are a group on an individual, or at least the victim/victims are outnumbered. One person tesitfying against an entire group is going to end badly, and those bullies are going to step it up a notch once they know you've gone to the authorities who can't do anything.

There needs to be support in place for those dealing with bullying, and school staff need to be better educated on how to deal with it. Each case is completely different.


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## Sarcastic Coffeecup (Sep 26, 2011)

In some way, slight bullying is good. It grows people thick skinned and teaches to take hits and get up after them. But excessive bullying is just terrible. While i think it would be ideal to magically remove all bullying, that's never gonna happen.
in every generation there are dicks. Dicks who must show their attitude to others. And no law is going to prevent that.


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## Ricky (Sep 26, 2011)

BlueIceHusky said:


> How many horribly neglected people must take their lives before congress decides whether its their time to pass an anti-bullying law nation wide? Why didn't we do anything before in the past?



There are laws for specific crimes.

How do you define "bullying?"

No, I don't think there should be a law against hurting people's feelings.

Yes, death threats should be (oh, whait they fucking ARE) illegal.


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## Cain (Sep 26, 2011)

OH MY FUCKING GOD.

No law will ever stop bullying, because bullying is something we as humans do. Sure, it ranges in volume, but it's never going to stop happening. Yeah, columbine, suicides etc do happen because of bullying, but to tell the truth, it's part of life! Suck it up and just deal with it. 

This may come off to some as extremely insensitive, but I myself have been bullied, mentally and physically when I was younger, but you know what I did? I didn't take the easy way out by suicide, I didn't want revenge by gunning down my fellow students, I sucked it up, and dealt with it.

Life's tough, deal with it.


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## Perception (Sep 26, 2011)

Jagged Edge said:


> OH MY FUCKING GOD.
> 
> No law will ever stop bullying, because bullying is something we as humans do. Sure, it ranges in volume, but it's never going to stop happening. Yeah, columbine, suicides etc do happen because of bullying, but to tell the truth, it's part of life! Suck it up and just deal with it.
> 
> ...



I agree, bullying is part of life. I dont get bullied at school, but i know some people who are hyper sensitive to any kind of form of abuse, if you call them a "fag" they absolutely loose it for no reason. Of-course death threats and physical violence shouldn't be done (Both are laws) but really some people should put up with some name calling... And anyways, as soon as you get out of school and get a job you'll realize that bullying and backstabbing is sometimes a vital part of being sucsessful (Politics is a good example, to get to the top they backstab as many people as possible...)


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## Mooda (Sep 26, 2011)

As the above posters have stated, it would be near impossible to fully eradicate bullying. My previous school had went on a massive anti bullying campaign and the only thing it achieved was forcing the people who were involved to operate with discretion (sorry, can't think of a better work right now). 

If you are really bent on fighting against bullying in schools, the best thing you can try to do is to create a good support network for students. Work with the teachers, staff, senior students (provided they aren't in on the bullying as well) anyone that is willing to at least provide students that have been bullied with someplace reasonably safe that they can fall back to or at least multiple ways to seek help and support should they really need it. Admittedly my previous school was a boarding school so this was easier to pull off, but it would be more feasible than the creation of ultra strict laws that would only drive bullies underground or turn schools into police states.


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## Fenrari (Sep 26, 2011)

Laws realistically won't change anything.

I had more than my share of bullying while I was in school, not only because I was Asian, but due to the fact that I was always the new kid and couldn't make any friends because of that fact. 

It's hard but in the end a fact of life...


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## Cain (Sep 26, 2011)

BetrayerOfNihil said:


> I fucking knew I'd see a wall of posts stating "it's never gonna happen, nobody can do shit about it, just give up and 'deal with it.'" What a piss-poor mentality.
> 
> Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. Remember that.


Did you pull that off some superhero movie?
There is no such thing as 'good' or 'evil'. Just humanity.


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## Enwon (Sep 26, 2011)

My school is going on a major anti-bullying campaign.  In the junior forum, where the staff goes on a stage and talks about the rules, they explained the school's new silent witness program and new policies against bullying.  Now, there are posters all around, and they're pretty crappy posters.

One is a picture of a bull, and then a sheep, and it says "BULLying is BAAAAAD"

The issue I have with this is the question of what constitutes bullying?  While there are a few situations that are campaigns to destroy someone, and I know a few people who went through that, there are also a lot of ambiguous situations.

Also, nothing in the school has changed with the campaigns.  One girl who works on the school newspaper recently wrote an article about how high school was apparently a living hell or something.  As editor, I pulled the article, stating that I was concerned for the girl's safety.


Also, yadda yadda can't change law to end human nature bullying will always exist stuff people have already said before.


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## Unsilenced (Sep 26, 2011)

BetrayerOfNihil said:


> I fucking knew I'd see a wall of posts stating "it's never gonna happen, nobody can do shit about it, just give up and 'deal with it.'" What a piss-poor mentality.
> 
> Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. Remember that.



Evil also has a pretty good time when good men are bat shit retarded.


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## Volkodav (Sep 26, 2011)

Mentova said:


> As nice as it would be to stop bullies, it is never ever going to happen. There are always going to be assholes. They will always be in school, outside of school, and everywhere. There isn't going to be some magical law that will make every asshole in the world just disappear forever.


Lady Gaga is actually pushing to make it illegal after a bisexual kid committed suicide due to homophobic bullying
So there's that


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## Term_the_Schmuck (Sep 26, 2011)

Schools have already attempted a "Zero-Tolerance" campaign in the early 2000s and it's not exactly been the answer to the issue of bullying.

Frankly, you can't enforce an "anti-bullying" law because most of your evidence stems from a "he said, she said" debate.  So are you going to fine or incarcerate kids because another kid said that he was called names or was picked last in gym class?

It's a delicate line we're walking here when we're dealing with kids, because a lot of the issue here is that the establishment is moving in leaps and bounds to coddle children by trying to remove red ink from test papers, removing nearly everything competitive in gym class, and even some suggestions of removing the letter grading system to try and make kids feel like special snow flakes whilst dealing with the innate cruelty of kids in general.  You're dealing with two extremes here and somewhere we have to find a medium, on both sides.  A little bullying, as Deo mentioned, does build character in my mind, just as being the goat in sports is an exercise in character building at a young age.

Because really, the alternative is turning school into a low-security prison, which in some instances is the case, like a high school near me which actually has key-card access to the multiple levels of the building in order to keep older students from picking on younger students, as well as stem violence.  Of course none of these measures amount to anything for kids when they go home and head online.


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## Cain (Sep 26, 2011)

Term_the_Schmuck said:


> Because really, the alternative is turning school into a low-security prison, which in some instances is the case, like a high school near me which actually has key-card access to the multiple levels of the building in order to keep older students from picking on younger students, as well as stem violence.  Of course none of these measures amount to anything for kids when they go home and head online.



Jesus, really? That sounds like something from a totalitarian/authoritarian society D:


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## ramsay_baggins (Sep 26, 2011)

I have another point I just thought of. If particularly bad bullies can, they will play the system.

For example. Say bullying is now illegal and you can be put up in court.
A group of kids who bully one kid decide to go for broke. "MISS! HE'S BULLYING ME AND ALL MY FRIENDS CAN BACK ME UP!"
Who is the court gonna believe? The one kid, or the group of kids?
That's a life ruined/marred for a long time.


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## Term_the_Schmuck (Sep 26, 2011)

ramsay_baggins said:


> I have another point I just thought of. If particularly bad bullies can, they will play the system.
> 
> For example. Say bullying is now illegal and you can be put up in court.
> A group of kids who bully one kid decide to go for broke. "MISS! HE'S BULLYING ME AND ALL MY FRIENDS CAN BACK ME UP!"
> ...



That's a bit more extreme version of what I was saying about the "He-said, she-said" thing.  If your only evidence is anecdotal, you can't realistically make any kind of decision on a kid's guilt.


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## Onnes (Sep 26, 2011)

Really, bullying is a problem that has to be addressed at the teacher and administrative level. Laws are only as meaningful as they are enforceable, and with bullying enforcement is the entire battle.

One thing to note is that incidents of bullying and other forms of harassment are typically caused disproportionately by a small number of students. The identification and removal of those students to a separate corrective school system could greatly alleviate the bullying problem. The fact they are involved in a relatively large number of incidents aids in the process of identification.


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## ramsay_baggins (Sep 26, 2011)

Onnes said:


> Really, bullying is a problem that has to be addressed at the teacher and administrative level. Laws are only as meaningful as they are enforceable, and with bullying enforcement is the entire battle.
> 
> One thing to note is that incidents of bullying and other forms of harassment are typically caused disproportionately by a small number of students. The identification and removal of those students to a separate corrective school system could greatly alleviate the bullying problem. The fact they are involved in a relatively large number of incidents aids in the process of identification.



Heh, funnily enough the girl who made my last few years at Primary School a _living hell_ had to move secondary schools 4 or more times because she then got bullied. She ended up at the school my mum works at.


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## VoidBat (Sep 26, 2011)

What truly is needed are clearer guidelines and actions to be taken. 
Most schools have either very weak, flawed or no protocols at all on how to deal with bullying. This leads to insufficient results, were the bullying in most cases will continue to occur. My former secondary school is a great example of such a failure. They had insufficient guidelines, which in the end led to a incident were a kid that was being bullied got jumped on by 4-5 of his bullies and tied to a lamp post after school.

 Passing laws won't make a damn difference, but educating the school staff in how to notice and handle these situations will do that. According to surveys, most teacher don't even know how to act if they should be faced with such situations.


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## Xenke (Sep 26, 2011)

Ugh, I knew that the OP was going to be full of clichÃ©d, dumb, and victim crap. Good job rest of FAF, though, y'all surprised me.

The school system today has already been warped and twisted from what it should be. There have been some arguably good things, such as the measures already put in place to try and prevent bullying, and then there are some stupid things. I don't want to touch on those bad things, but I will say that school have done plenty in the way of keeping the schools from becoming a bloodbath, and at this point it's up to parents and even the students to try and actually do something to keep Jimmy from offing himself. The school can't be expected to do everything.

Victims of bullying need to _fucking talk about it_. Talk about it to their friends, talk about it to their parents, talk about it to their teachers, whatever. Just talk about it. It can help you feel better, or at the very least establishing a pattern like that will help people see if/when you're going over the edge and they can try to help you, provided they can't actually stop the bullying. If you feel like you reach a point where you can't go on, just fucking get help.

I've seen too many people get bullied and just sit their, twiddling their thumbs, bottling up all their worries. That's fine an dandy for a while, but dear god, if you're being consistently bullied, open up you idiots.


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## DevistatedDrone (Sep 26, 2011)

My personal experiences with bullying went pretty well, mostly because my school was a decent school regardless of being in the ghetto. Fights would break out and break up almost every day because the kids at the school were taught to not be afraid of intervening. Verbal abuse was taken as "nothing personal" to nearly everyone. Though it was a nice experience, it was all to sheltered.

Bullying does 'build character'. Imagine being in a sheltered environment all your life where you were not bullied at all or experienced the harms of the real world. Then, imagine two guys come up to you and try to assault or mug you or whatever. Would you calmly cooperate and walk away clean? Chances are, no. You'd either cry like a bitch and become traumatized from the experience or you'd have the 'invincible' mindset and try to fight. Bullying brings a humbling experience of knowing that sometimes you can't fight and have to take some hits. It's good in moderation, but in a lot of cases it goes too far.

A law against bullying is good on paper, but then again so is everything  else. It's unrealistic, as everyone has been mentioning ad nauseum.


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## Fay V (Sep 26, 2011)

The biggest problem of just making a "no bullying" law is that schools are given no tools to get there. It's like giving someone a stump and a rock and saying "make a vehicle". We already see schools that don't know how to cope with bullying and go to extreme measures. Someone hit another person? "No physical contact!" no high hives, no hugging, nothing. It happened and it is nonsense. 
We don't need more laws, we need more procedures.


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## SnowyD (Sep 26, 2011)

When I was in high school the only kids who were bullies were hicks. That being said, everybody hated all the hicks so much that their so called "bullying tactics" never worked. Haha.

But I've never been a victim of bullying so I don't understand much on it. I don't think there is much you can do other than allowing children to understand that keeping quiet isn't the right thing to do, even if they're scared. Kids get scared so easy, like if they get hurt, it's not the pain that makes them cry, it's the fear of what just happened.

Pro Parenting tip! Don't ask your kid if they're hurt, ask'm if their scared. You'll get a yes more than you think.


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## Aleu (Sep 26, 2011)

Pretty much what everyone else had said.

Though I have to touch on cyber-bullying. I think that's just way too vague. On fucking facebook, some little twats were bitching about being "cyber-bullied" on a fanpage discussion thread. I don't remember exactly what it was about, but it was only a disagreement. They could leave at any time. All the responses were to that thread and not inbox spamming. That is not cyber-bullying.
Also, if someone IS messaging you and "being mean". Fucking block them. If they continue to do so, refer to the ToS of whatever website and see if you can report them for harassment. IMO, cyber-bullying is not bullying at all. It's just victims of flaming being pussies and not knowing how to internet at all.
Now if the bully somehow hacks whatever account and fucks your shit up, well that falls under hacking and pretty sure that's illegal anyway.


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## Xeno (Sep 26, 2011)

I personally have had to deal with bullying since elementary school because....Well I'm not really sure why they did it. I still have to deal with bullying in high school as a Jr. but, mostly because the under-classmen think their all bad ass because they can pick on a jr. I have thought about suicide a few times because somebody on my bus actually told me they would be happy if I were to kill myself.


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## Rilvor (Sep 26, 2011)

On a related note, bullying never actually stops. You will see them in adult life in the workplace, but it takes on a much more subtle form.

So with that thought, I would vouch that being bullied in school will help you to recognize it in the workplace as an adult.


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## EchoWolf (Sep 26, 2011)

Yes bullying is quite an inconvinient truth(i do not own that) but it won't stop the more a bully gets in trouble the more angry it makes him/her and it can just lead to more radical possibly violeent acts. Do I think something should be done? Asolutely, but what you cannot monitor it enough to completely stop it.


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## DarrylWolf (Sep 26, 2011)

I don't understand the reasoning behind the anti-bullying laws. Bullying has always existed in schools and I don't see the reason why we need laws to stop it. I was bullied in school growing up and it didn't hurt me one bit- I could see the reason for laws banning physical assaults, mugging, and thievery in schools but the occasional pushing and shoving and insults and raised voices, if you don't experience adversity growing up how will you handle it when you are grown up?

And how exactly does one define "bullying"? The definition changes from place to place and case to case.


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## Spatel (Sep 26, 2011)

Ajsforg said:


> I agree, bullying is part of life. I dont get bullied at school, but i know some people who are hyper sensitive to any kind of form of abuse, if you call them a "fag" they absolutely loose it for no reason. Of-course death threats and physical violence shouldn't be done (Both are laws) but really some people should put up with some name calling... And anyways, as soon as you get out of school and get a job you'll realize that bullying and backstabbing is sometimes a vital part of being sucsessful (Politics is a good example, to get to the top they backstab as many people as possible...)


There's nothing positive about bullying. The way politics and business are conducted in this country are not good examples of society at its best. Bullying is coercive and abusive behavior. 

*Insulting someone and bullying someone are very different things.* It's important to learn to insult people. It's important to learn to take insults. It helps develop humor, it helps keep people from inflating their egos too much. It makes everyone better improvisers, better thinkers, and I think there is some value to learning to cope with negative messages. 

Bullying goes way beyond insults. It involves deliberately breaking someone down and dehumanizing them. Bullies will hunt down one person and encourage everyone else in the class to pick on that person. Anyone that doesn't play along or stay out of it risks joining the 'out' group. Bullying relies on in-groups and it's an attempt to exclude someone from an ingroup, based on their looks, their sexuality, their race, or their idiosyncrasies. It is a system of fostering intolerance and creating pecking orders. If someone turns every other person in the class against you there's really nothing you can do about it. Humor is based on a consensus, and any insults, any comebacks, any attempt to defend yourself against a hostile majority no matter how clever you might be, will be lost. In fact, trying to fight back will just make things worse. That's why bullying works. It creates a trap that the victims can't pull out of, and even the thickest-skinned people will resent it if they find themselves in it.


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## ryanleblanc (Sep 27, 2011)

I think I'm probably alone when I say this, but in my various schools, it seemed like bullying had diminished as the years passed, to a point where in grade 11 and 12 I didn't see a single person getting bullied either in person or on social networking sites. 

Maybe all seven of those schools were just too lame for bullying. :V


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## PenningtontheSkunk (Sep 27, 2011)

Fuck the laws against bullying it wouldn't do much of a justice to *minors*. It's the school districts handling of this situation anyway why get congress involved when there more serious things that have more purpose to have laws for. Bullying might be an epidemic but its a part of growing up. Hell I've been bullied throughout elementary to high school even online and guess what I still stand tall because once you challenge a bully in their own game they coward or troll on that social network. Main thing is not to give a shit.

(I've got physical scars from fights.)


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## Heimdal (Sep 27, 2011)

Your bringing this up with FaF? We punch and wedgie the wimpier, thin-skimmed furries here.

Really, they just need to pay teachers more, and give them more (any) power to actually discipline children. Everyone cares so much about stopping bullying, but limit what teachers can do, and then yell at them for never doing enough. Waita go, idiots.


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## Rex Aeterna (Sep 27, 2011)

i never been bullied before....or had any problems when i went to school. i think passing a law is pretty dumb and not worth the hassle.i find the problem with stuff like this is cause of how much bunch people became pussies in this modern society. we use to be known as bad asses but nowadays known as pansies who love to try to kiss up to our enemies.they don't allow people to defend themselves anymore. they tell you it's wrong to hit back and be like '''uhhh 2 wrongs don't make a right'' and if you do defend yourself your as wrong as the person that messed with you first. i find it stupid and i find most modern day parents bunch a dumb people in this generation when it comes to crap like this. if they want to stop it. allow people to defend themselves and don't force them to believe that hitting back is wrong.


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## Digitalpotato (Sep 28, 2011)

Rilvor said:


> On a related note, bullying never actually stops. You will see them in adult life in the workplace, but it takes on a much more subtle form.
> 
> So with that thought, I would vouch that being bullied in school will help you to recognize it in the workplace as an adult.




Not to mention other forms of harassment and assault. Least adults can (often, keyword here.) do something about it. Kids can't get restraining orders or sue others for harassment. And nobody listens to kids claiming to be sexually harassed at school unless the person they're accusing is an adult member of the faculty. (And note the keyword again before oyu start saying "But what if it's your boss doing it?", "What if it's your superior doing it?", "What if it's your landlord...") 


I still love people trying to give those excuses of "Just stand up to them and they won't bother you anymore", "ignore them", or "Remove yourself from the situation". Well that works in After School Specials but in real life...most people just upped the assault or pushed harder. I once "removed myself from the situation" and walked right on out of class. 
People passed insulting notes to me and I just threw them into the nearby garbage without reading them. What happened after that? The person next to me then took out a paperclip and then started to scratch "I am a fag and have AIDS" on my arm. 
And as for standing up...every single time I saw someone who was being physically bullied stand up, they continued to get beaten up by the person they stood up to. Why were they being beaten up? Because the idiot bullies wanted to just push around someone smaller and weaker. Or in the worst case scenario, start whacking them with sticks, stabbing them with paperclips, using books, kicking them in between the legs, etc.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Sep 30, 2011)

It makes me laugh, people don't have th strength to deal with bullies yet they have the strength to kill themselves, that doesn't make any fucking sense to me. I mean surely if you have the guts to kill yourself, you have the guts to deal with bullies?


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## Volkodav (Sep 30, 2011)

ramsay_baggins said:


> I have another point I just thought of. If particularly bad bullies can, they will play the system.
> 
> For example. Say bullying is now illegal and you can be put up in court.
> A group of kids who bully one kid decide to go for broke. "MISS! HE'S BULLYING ME AND ALL MY FRIENDS CAN BACK ME UP!"
> ...


Court normally doesnt favor in he-said-she-said arguiments.
Jsutsayin

speaking of which, anybody who is rude to me, I will now take to court for harassment. Watch your fucking typing-fingers,people


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## Onnes (Sep 30, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> It makes me laugh, people don't have th strength to deal with bullies yet they have the strength to kill themselves, that doesn't make any fucking sense to me. I mean surely if you have the guts to kill yourself, you have the guts to deal with bullies?



There is no prize for making the worst post imaginable.


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## Ad Hoc (Sep 30, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> It makes me laugh, people don't have th strength to deal with bullies yet they have the strength to kill themselves, that doesn't make any fucking sense to me. I mean surely if you have the guts to kill yourself, you have the guts to deal with bullies?


Please to read. It's a blog post, but the sources are cited at the bottom. 

Would you really laugh at that kid?


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## Randy-Darkshade (Sep 30, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Please to read. It's a blog post, but the sources are cited at the bottom.
> 
> Would you really laugh at that kid?



I was talking figuratively, jeeze. Obviously it's just a British way to term things then.

It's another way we Brits would say "I find it funny how......" As in in Funny weird not funny hahaha.

Anyway, I still find it odd they these people have enough courage to end their own life, but not to deal with the bullies. I mean am I missing something here?


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## Volkodav (Sep 30, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I was talking figuratively, jeeze. Obviously it's just a British way to term things then.
> 
> It's another way we Brits would say "I find it funny how......" As in in Funny weird not funny hahaha.
> 
> Anyway, I still find it odd they these people have enough courage to end their own life, but not to deal with the bullies. I mean am I missing something here?


Not all of us liked to fight people as kids. I didn't. I liked hanging out w/ myself.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Sep 30, 2011)

Clayton said:


> Not all of us liked to fight people as kids. I didn't. I liked hanging out w/ myself.



Please point out to me where I specifically said fight in my post. Oh that's right, I never did, I said DEAL with them You assumed I meant fight them.


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## Ad Hoc (Sep 30, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Anyway, I still find it odd they these people have enough courage to end their own life, but not to deal with the bullies. I mean am I missing something here?


Did you even read the article? This kid had been systematically terrorized for years, and _had_ no ability to deal with them himself, he was handicapped. By the time it came to court, he was already so traumatized that he was absolutely terrified of the retribution he would face if he testified against his aggressors. 

Were his actions rational? No, but when you've been abused like that, day in day out for years, you change psychologically. Why do you think battered wives stay with their husbands? Why do you think kidnapped people develop Stockholm Syndrome? Prolonged abuse and helpless make you act strange, especially if it happens at a young age, when the mind is most pliable.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Sep 30, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Did you even read the article? This kid had been systematically terrorized for years, and _had_ no ability to deal with them himself, he was handicapped. By the time it came to court, he was already so traumatized that he was absolutely terrified of the retribution he would face if he testified against his aggressors.
> 
> Were his actions rational? No, but when you've been abused like that, day in day out for years, you change psychologically. Why do you think battered wives stay with their husbands? Why do you think kidnapped people develop Stockholm Syndrome? Prolonged abuse and helpless make you act strange, especially if it happens at a young age, when the mind is most pliable.



I never said anyone HAS to deal with them themselves, for fuck sakes stop assuming that is what I meant. There is more than one way to deal with bullies.

Yes, I read the blog, but it still doesn't make suicide the right thing to do. People let things get to them, hell I was called a fat cunt and four eyes and shit when I was ins school, but I never went home crying about it, I never ALLOWED it to get to me. Those that did start bullying me were dealt with, either one of my friends stood up for me, or in one case, my dad worked with the older brother of a kid who started to pick on me, I just told dad what had happened that day and dad said "I'll sort it. I know his brother"

Another question I have is, why do people bully?  It's not just kids in school who get bullied.


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## Ad Hoc (Sep 30, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I never said anyone HAS to deal with them themselves, for fuck sakes stop assuming that is what I meant. There is more than one way to deal with bullies.
> 
> Yes, I read the blog, but it still doesn't make suicide the right thing to do. People let things get to them, hell I was called a fat cunt and four eyes and shit when I was ins school, but I never went home crying about it, I never ALLOWED it to get to me. Those that did start bullying me were dealt with, either one of my friends stood up for me, or in one case, my dad worked with the older brother of a kid who started to pick on me, I just told dad what had happened that day and dad said "I'll sort it. I know his brother"


Just because you had friends and a familial network to help you, doesn't mean everyone does. You are very privileged. 

My brother was bullied, bad. Not like this kid, but he's got scars to show, he was beaten. He was singled out on his first day of school and didn't have a chance to make friends. (He made friends just fine in other situations, so it wasn't because he was just a particular prick.) So, he didn't have that support. When my parents talked to the school, they did nothing, because the bullies' families were rich and we were poor. (To quote the principal, "Oh yes, Aaron's bullies are from _good_ families, it's very strange." And then they did nothing.) When my parents tried to contact the parents of the bullies, they were blown off. This was back when the idea of taking legal action on the matter was unheard of. Basically the only way to stop it was it switch him to another school; some families don't even have _that_ option. 

Good for you for not allowing a few isolated _name calling_ incidents, that were by your own words "dealt with," to get to you. Go get yourself a cookie. What if it's physical and violent? (This kid was beaten so hard he needed _reconstruction surgery_.) What if it's not a few isolated incidents, what if it's the whole school or class instead of a few troublemakers? What if you have no one to help you, or you do but they can't help you, or they won't help you because they're slap happy victim-blamers? Sometimes there is no way out. And then we get to the second paragraph of my last post, which you seem to have ignored. *Prolonged abuse and helplessness fuck you up, bad.* It doesn't make you stronger, and it usually makes you irrational. 

You're right, suicide is never the right answer. But if you have a lick of empathy in your soul, it's not that hard to understand why a systematically terrorized child might turn to it.


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## Volkodav (Sep 30, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Please point out to me where I specifically said fight in my post. Oh that's right, I never did, I said DEAL with them You assumed I meant fight them.


I can tell you straight up, when I told my mom about the bullying, she told the school and FUCK ALL happened.


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## Fiesta_Jack (Sep 30, 2011)

I agree with Deo/Term here. Bullying builds character and is a necessary part of growing up. Pre-high school, I had rocks thrown at me, I was shoved against fences, and I was threatened with knives and gang intimidation. It's part of life to deal with assholes. In the adult world, they take a different form, but without the coping mechanisms and conflict management skills you develop from being bullied, I don't think kids would do as well in the real world.


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## Ad Hoc (Sep 30, 2011)

Fiesta_Jack said:


> I agree with Deo/Term here. Bullying builds character and is a necessary part of growing up. Pre-high school, I had rocks thrown at me, I was shoved against fences, and I was threatened with knives and gang intimidation. It's part of life to deal with assholes. In the adult world, they take a different form, but without the coping mechanisms and conflict management skills you develop from being bullied, I don't think kids would do as well in the real world.


Yep, except when it doesn't.

I know it's a real shock, but it's possible to toughen a kid up without abusing them.


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## Rilvor (Sep 30, 2011)

One thing I think we could do with is separating Assault and Battery from Bullying.

An example of the former can be found in the previous discussion.

An example of the latter is something like "Let me in front of you in the line or I'll tell everyone you eat out of the trash."


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Rilvor said:


> One thing I think we could do with is separating Assault and Battery from Bullying.
> 
> An example of the former can be found in the previous discussion.
> 
> An example of the latter is something like "Let me in front of you in the line or I'll tell everyone you eat out of the trash."


The problem is that so few of these pro-bullying people realize that the latter does lead to the former, and don't seem to consider it very much between their chest pounding.  In most of these cases, there's a gaggle of adults who look the other way because they think the kid _deserves it_ or it will _toughen them up_. See my brother and whatever poor kid took his place when he switched schools; see this poor bastard. People who spit on bullying victims who commit suicide especially don't  seem to realize the scope it can have, which is what got me riled up  enough to get involved here.

And frankly, it doesn't need to be physical to do serious damage. When a family member or spouse goes on a campaign of prolonged verbal attacks and ostracism, we recognize it as emotional abuse, and there's a heap of documentation on the damage it does. But when it's a gang or a class or a school ganging up on a _child_, that kid's supposed to be magically impervious. 

I agree that a bit of name calling and roughhousing has a place in a child's life, but this failure to acknowledge that it goes well beyond that, and this way of blaming the child for being affected by it, is mind boggling.


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## Gavrill (Oct 1, 2011)

I didn't even realize "pro-bullying" was a thing


what the _â€‹fuck_


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## Fiesta_Jack (Oct 1, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Yep, except when it doesn't.
> 
> I know it's a real shock, but it's possible to toughen a kid up without abusing them.



Suicide is obviously a tragic end result of these things, but you're missing the point. Life has bullies. IT'S PART OF LIFE. I'm not going to say bullying is a good thing, but I honestly believe it's actually important. You can't hide from problems in the real world, you need to learn to deal with them. As an unfortunate minority, some children *do *end up severely damaged or even dead from this process, but it sadly boils down to survival of the fittest.


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## ramsay_baggins (Oct 1, 2011)

Fiesta_Jack said:


> Suicide is obviously a tragic end result of these things, but you're missing the point. Life has bullies. IT'S PART OF LIFE. I'm not going to say bullying is a good thing, but I honestly believe it's actually important. You can't hide from problems in the real world, you need to learn to deal with them. As an unfortunate minority, some children *do *end up severely damaged or even dead from this process, but it sadly boils down to survival of the fittest.



Yes, but what _we_ are saying is there is a difference between some character building name calling or whatever, and elongated, targeted and _vicious_ campaigns designed to break someone down so they can't function emotionally or properly anymore. Yes, bullying exists in the real world, but it usually isn't as vicious and horrific as you get in schools. If someone outside of school is raped in the real world, and knows who it is, they go to the police and the rapist is taken to court and tried. I have a friend who was raped at a school. He went to a teacher with the names of the kids. He was told to "stop making stuff up". How is that acceptable in schools, when it is not in the real world? I have a friend who was hospitalised a couple of times because he was so badly assaulted in school. If that was out in the real world, those people would be done for assault/GBH. Because it happened at school, it got glazed over. The teachers didn't give a shit. The police wouldn't get involved because it was a 'school problem'.

Yes, it is important for kids to learn to deal with things they will end up running into in life, but a lot of the stuff that goes on in schools is much, much, _much_ worse than a lot of the stuff adults can get away with.

I've also seen bullies who have never got in trouble for what they've done go on to think it's an acceptable way to behave when they move on out of school. If they had been punished, maybe they wouldn't have gone on to be like that.

The levels to which bullying can go to are so very, very extreme. A lot of the stuff would never be accepted in the real world. Assaulting your co-workers would be pretty much a gaurentee of you losing you job, but in schools it's somehow seen as ok, or 'character building'. Load of bullshit.


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## Leafblower29 (Oct 1, 2011)

I think it's somewhat good because it gives them a taste of what it will be like in the real world. I think a bigger issues is not letting them fight them. I kicked some bully's ass when I was 12 and they tried to charge me with a felony.  Luckily I had a lesser charge but the piece of shit should have just taken the consequences for his actions.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Fiesta_Jack said:


> Suicide is obviously a tragic end result of these things, but you're missing the point. Life has bullies. IT'S PART OF LIFE. I'm not going to say bullying is a good thing, but I honestly believe it's actually important. You can't hide from problems in the real world, you need to learn to deal with them. As an unfortunate minority, some children *do *end up severely damaged or even dead from this process, but it sadly boils down to survival of the fittest.


Only two of those links were about suicide, did you read them? Also, hate to use the same link three times, but if what happened to this kid happened in "real life," his attackers would be charged with assault. Yet because it's _children_, we say, "survival of the fittest?" That's barking moonbats! Ramsay says it better, though.


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## Rotsala (Oct 1, 2011)

While I agree that bullying sucks and people should be more aware of it, I don't see how some federal law is going to convince psychologically fucked-up kids from beating the shit out of weaker kids.


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

I do agree that bullying is necessary for growing up. Yes, kids commit suicide but there are either two reasons why.
1. They weren't strong enough to deal with it
2. They had gone to authorities when things had gotten way out of hand (assault, stalking, etc) and nothing is done.

One of the things that's also important is that the bullies be PUNISHED instead of the victim being punished. Self-defense should be allowed for victims but unfortunately, the victim is also punished. Remember Zangief Kid? He stood up to a bully and was punished. Wtf?
But yeah, parents/teachers need to actually do something if a child comes up to them for help.


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## Gavrill (Oct 1, 2011)

Okay so like, I know that bullying happens in the real world. 

But school is _not _the place for it. Any sort of harassment that is unwanted should go reported and punished, this whole "boys will be boys" idea needs to stop because it makes me think you're (no one in particular) giving an excuse to a kid and saying "Oh no it is totally okay to beat up that kid because that's how life works!" That's unacceptable, especially at a learning facility (not a beat-people-up-for-lunch-money facility). Kids shouldn't be have to taught to "deal w/ it". It shouldn't be happening in the first place. And when it does, it should be punished, and repeat offenders should be shipped off to juvi. 

I'm just saying this as someone who was the only white person with blond hair in a high school of 5 thousand. Sometimes victims don't want to say anything in fear of retaliation by that bully's friends, or because it would make them unpopular, or because shit like that happens all the time and the teachers don't care. That shit wears on you. I failed ninth grade twice because I was terrified of the people at my school and my school didn't do shit because "oh it happens all the time".
So yeah, imagine one puny white girl and a group of about 20 guys.
Is that honestly a "deal w/ it" situation? Or even a "defend yourself" situation? Because at that point my brain is telling me you know maybe it would be okay just to avoid this situation altogether and never go to school again. That option has the least chance of getting me murdered, we'll go with that.


SO. Basically, I don't think bullying should be glazed over the way it is, because one part of a school's job is to make kids feel safe. And there are bullies that WILL make you fear for your life. And maybe they won't do shit about it, or maybe they'll back down when you do a sweet roundhouse and kick them in the neck. But do you think a victim will want sit around to find out? 
(On a lesser note, you shouldn't _have _to result to self defense. Schools should do their fucking jobs before it comes to that.)


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## Fiesta_Jack (Oct 1, 2011)

ramsay_baggins said:


> Yes, but what _we_ are saying is there is a difference between some character building name calling or whatever, and elongated, targeted and _vicious_ campaigns designed to break someone down so they can't function emotionally or properly anymore. Yes, bullying exists in the real world, but it usually isn't as vicious and horrific as you get in schools. If someone outside of school is raped in the real world, and knows who it is, they go to the police and the rapist is taken to court and tried. I have a friend who was raped at a school. He went to a teacher with the names of the kids. He was told to "stop making stuff up". How is that acceptable in schools, when it is not in the real world? I have a friend who was hospitalised a couple of times because he was so badly assaulted in school. If that was out in the real world, those people would be done for assault/GBH. Because it happened at school, it got glazed over. The teachers didn't give a shit. The police wouldn't get involved because it was a 'school problem'.
> 
> Yes, it is important for kids to learn to deal with things they will end up running into in life, but a lot of the stuff that goes on in schools is much, much, _much_ worse than a lot of the stuff adults can get away with.
> 
> ...



I think there's a semantics issue here. Bullying, at least to me, does not include rape, and serious assault. Those are completely different issues, and should clearly *never *be tolerated. Repeated verbal abuse, intimidation, and minor physical provocation are much closer in line with what I've always believed bullying to be. Being chased by kids, having rocks thrown at you, threats, shoving, name calling, taking your stuff and hiding it, etc. THOSE are bullying behaviors. The rest are assault or worse, no need to butter them up and lump it in with "normal" bullying.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Fiesta_Jack said:


> I think there's a semantics issue here. Bullying, at least to me, does not include rape, and serious assault. Those are completely different issues, and should clearly *never *be tolerated. Repeated verbal abuse, intimidation, and minor physical provocation are much closer in line with what I've always believed bullying to be. Being chased by kids, having rocks thrown at you, threats, shoving, name calling, taking your stuff and hiding it, etc. THOSE are bullying behaviors. The rest are assault or worse, no need to butter them up and lump it in with "normal" bullying.


Read Gavrill's post, or any of the links I've been spamming. The problem is that it's the same people who go on about bullying being good/natural and that kids should just "get over it" that fail to make the distinction and let these horror shows happen.


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## Fiesta_Jack (Oct 1, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Read Gavrill's post, or any of the links I've been spamming. The problem is that it's the same people who go on about bullying being good/natural and that kids should just "get over it" that fail to make the distinction and let these horror shows happen.



I'm clearly not advocating that, since I just said I was against that behavior... I don't get what you want me to argue here. Normal bullying is a part of life. Ever been to one of those anti-bullying things in school? You know the part where they ask the audience to raise their hand if they were bullied? 95% of the school always raises their damn hand, because nearly everyone has to deal with it. It's life. It's how kids become socialized to the world.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 1, 2011)

ramsay_baggins said:


> Yes, but what _we_ are saying is there is a difference between some character building name calling or whatever, and elongated, targeted and _vicious_ campaigns designed to break someone down so they can't function emotionally or properly anymore.



It's the victims fault for allowing the bullying to get to this point. If, instead of hiding from it, they did something about it earlier on it probably wouldn't get to this point.



> Yes, bullying exists in the real world, but it usually isn't as vicious and horrific as you get in schools. If someone outside of school is raped in the real world, and knows who it is, they go to the police and the rapist is taken to court and tried.



You're being quite naive here. Not everyone who has suffered such an attack goes straight to the police.



> I have a friend who was raped at a school. He went to a teacher with the names of the kids. He was told to "stop making stuff up". How is that acceptable in schools, when it is not in the real world? I have a friend who was hospitalised a couple of times because he was so badly assaulted in school. If that was out in the real world, those people would be done for assault/GBH. Because it happened at school, it got glazed over. The teachers didn't give a shit. The police wouldn't get involved because it was a 'school problem'.



Again you're being pretty naive. there are thousands of unreported crimes out there, not every crime gets reported, not every assault is reported. Why? could be any reason, fear of repercussions, crime was a petty crime and wasn't worth reporting.



> Yes, it is important for kids to learn to deal with things they will end up running into in life, but a lot of the stuff that goes on in schools is much, much, _much_ worse than a lot of the stuff adults can get away with.



Bollocks, utter bollocks. The real world is much harder and cruel than school life.


I also agree with Fiesta Jack on that Rape and other serious assaults are not comparable  to bullying, they are on a different scale altogether.



Gavrill said:


> Okay so like, I know that bullying happens in the real world.
> 
> But school is _not _the place for it.



What? There is no "place" for bullying.



> Any sort of harassment that  is unwanted should go reported and punished, this whole "boys will be  boys" idea needs to stop because it makes me think you're (no one in  particular) giving an excuse to a kid and saying "Oh no it is totally  okay to beat up that kid because that's how life works!" That's  unacceptable, especially at a learning facility (not a  beat-people-up-for-lunch-money facility). Kids shouldn't be have to  taught to "deal w/ it". It shouldn't be happening in the first place.  And when it does, it should be punished, and repeat offenders should be  shipped off to juvi.



Agreed.



> I'm just saying this as someone who was the only white person with blond  hair in a high school of 5 thousand. Sometimes victims don't want to  say anything in fear of retaliation by that bully's friends, or because  it would make them unpopular, or because shit like that happens all the  time and the teachers don't care. That shit wears on you. I failed ninth  grade twice because I was terrified of the people at my school and my  school didn't do shit because "oh it happens all the time".
> So yeah, imagine one puny white girl and a group of about 20 guys.
> Is that honestly a "deal w/ it" situation? Or even a "defend yourself"  situation? Because at that point my brain is telling me you know maybe  it would be okay just to avoid this situation altogether and never go to  school again. That option has the least chance of getting me murdered,  we'll go with that.



Don't let the bullies win. If they see you're not willing to fight back in anyway (not just physically) they will just keep pushing on with bullying you.




> SO. Basically, I don't think bullying should be glazed over the way it  is, because one part of a school's job is to make kids feel safe. And  there are bullies that WILL make you fear for your life. And maybe they  won't do shit about it, or maybe they'll back down when you do a sweet  roundhouse and kick them in the neck. But do you think a victim will  want sit around to find out?
> (On a lesser note, you shouldn't _have _to result to self defense. Schools should do their fucking jobs before it comes to that.)



Agreed, schools should do their jobs.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> It's the victims fault for allowing the bullying to get to this point. If, instead of hiding from it, they did something about it earlier on it probably wouldn't get to this point.


Woooow.

Welp, back to square one with you, I guess. Go back and read post #57. The whole point of bullying is to pick on a kid that's defenseless. For some, there is no way out but to flee completely.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 1, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Woooow.
> 
> Welp, back to square one with you, I guess. Go back and read post #57. The whole point of bullying is to pick on a kid that's defenseless. For some, there is no way out but to flee completely.



Why? and bullshit, there is always a way out, they give up to easily, can;t take the heat so in a selfish act take their own life because "life's to hard" Being an adult and living an adult life is much fucking harder than being a kid. A child doesn't have rent or mortgage to worry about, a car to worry about, food to buy, bills to pay, debts to worry about etc etc etc.

If someone really wants something done about a problem then they peruse and keep pursuing until something does get done about it.


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## ramsay_baggins (Oct 1, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> It's the victims fault for allowing the bullying to get to this point. If, instead of hiding from it, they did something about it earlier on it probably wouldn't get to this point.



No. It is NOT their fault. I was bullied for years and when I told teachers they did fuck all. This statement makes you sound really ignorant about the entire situation.



> You're being quite naive here. Not everyone who has suffered such an attack goes straight to the police.



I didn't say _every_ case gets reported. I was talking about the ones that _do_.



> Again you're being pretty naive. there are thousands of unreported crimes out there, not every crime gets reported, not every assault is reported. Why? could be any reason, fear of repercussions, crime was a petty crime and wasn't worth reporting.



Yes, a lot of this stuff doesn't get reported, but these incidences WERE reported and ignored because it was in school. Which is FUCKED. UP. I am hardly naive. If an incident of that nature gets reported to police and it isn't in school, it get looked into at least.



> Bollocks, utter bollocks. The real world is much harder and cruel than school life.



Bullying, however, is much fucking worse in schools than outside schools. Not only in my experience, but in all my friend's experiences and even my parents' experiences, because I talked to them at length about it when I was in shit at school.



> I also agree with Fiesta Jack on that Rape and other serious assaults are not comparable  to bullying, they are on a different scale altogether.



Like Ad Hoc said, the point is that it gets lumped in with it. My friend got screwed over because the police just passed it off as bullying and a school issue so they refused to get involved. His school let it happen and did fuck all, and the police didn't give a shit. Just because it was at school.
If a woman is repeatedly attacked and emotionally destroyed by her husband, it's a big deal and he can go to jail. At school it's passed off as kids being kids, and you should just man up and deal with it. It's not fair for this massive hypocrisy to exist.

"If you're beat up as a kid, then just get over it. If you're beat up by your husband then it's awful, you should get out, here's loads of support and everyone will be totally sympathetic!"


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

It seems to me that bullying isn't the problem but the people not doing their god damn jobs to keep it from getting to criminal level.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 1, 2011)

ramsay_baggins said:


> No. It is NOT their fault. I was bullied for years and when I told teachers they did fuck all. This statement makes you sound really ignorant about the entire situation.



Ok, if a victim only speaks out once, then I see it as still their fault for not doing more. However if they did speak out repeatedly and jack was done, then I'd agree and say it is the schools fault. I think it is kinda circumstantial.



> Bullying, however, is much fucking worse in schools than outside schools. Not only in my experience, but in all my friend's experiences and even my parents' experiences, because I talked to them at length about it when I was in shit at school.



This is what happens when society throws a shitfit and demands physical punishment is banned from schools. Even if a school did suspend a bully, or give them detention, do you really think either of those will bother a bully? Hey they get suspended that's like an extra vacation to some students, that ain't gonna bother them, nor is getting detention. In truth, what can schools do? Except of cause expel the ones responsible, but then they will just find another school and take their bullying with them.





> Like Ad Hoc said, the point is that it gets lumped in with it. My friend got screwed over because the police just passed it off as bullying and a school issue so they refused to get involved. His school let it happen and did fuck all, and the police didn't give a shit. Just because it was at school.



Unfortunately the police often do this, because it happened during school hours the police will more often or not just say it's the schools responsibility.




> If a woman is repeatedly attacked and emotionally destroyed by her husband, it's a big deal and he can go to jail. At school it's passed off as kids being kids, and you should just man up and deal with it. It's not fair for this massive hypocrisy to exist.



Agreed, a crime should be treated as a crime no matter where it happens.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Why? and bullshit, there is always a way out, they give up to easily, can;t take the heat so in a selfish act take their own life because "life's to hard" Being an adult and living an adult life is much fucking harder than being a kid. A child doesn't have rent or mortgage to worry about, a car to worry about, food to buy, bills to pay, debts to worry about etc etc etc.
> 
> If someone really wants something done about a problem then they peruse and keep pursuing until something does get done about it.


Alright. Since you won't go back and read it, I'll re-post the relevant part here. 



Ad Hoc said:


> My brother was bullied, bad. Not like this kid,  but he's got scars to show, he was beaten. He was singled out on his  first day of school and didn't have a chance to make friends. (He made  friends just fine in other situations, so it wasn't because he was just a  particular prick.) So, he didn't have that support. When my parents  talked to the school, they did nothing, because the bullies' families  were rich and we were poor. (To quote the principal, "Oh yes, Aaron's  bullies are from _good_ families, it's very strange." And then  they did nothing.) When my parents tried to contact the parents of the  bullies, they were blown off. This was back when the idea of taking  legal action on the matter was unheard of. Basically the only way to  stop it was it switch him to another school; some families don't even  have _that_ option.


-Multiple kids ganging up on one kid
-No friends to help due to being the new kid
-Going to school faculty doesn't help
-Going to bully's parents doesn't help

He didn't commit suicide but he did have to leave the school--which is not an option for every family, and chances are he was replaced by another victim that could have been just as helpless. Explain to me _EXACTLY_ how this was my brother's fault.



EDIT: Ninja'd, I see you've backed down a little with Ramsay's post. I'm still leaving this up.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 1, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Alright. Since you won't go back and read it, I'll re-post the relevant part here.
> 
> 
> -Multiple kids ganging up on one kid
> ...



Like I said earlier, each bullying case is different. In this case it wasn't your brothers fault.


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## Kyrodo (Oct 1, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Don't let the bullies win. If they see you're not willing to fight back in anyway (not just physically) they will just keep pushing on with bullying you.


False statement is false. Source: Personal experience. 

I ended up getting multiple fights with the same two bikers each day I walked home, after I finally shoved one into the bushes after shoved me down whenever they passed by a couple of times (it started with just yelling loudly whenever they passed trying to see if I jump, then they moved on to shoving me to the ground). They fought me every chance they got. Then I finally made the mistake of telling my parents about it and taking it up with the school and getting rides home. They still made passes at me whenever they saw me, mostly verbally, and my parents interrogated me about it for the next several months, making me feel very uncomfortable. 

Case and point, some bullies are far more persistent than others. They're not all pussies per say, considering one of them was in athletics and the other was in kick-boxing. If you're short like me, you make a viable target no matter what you do, at least until you learn how to camouflage yourself into another group, keep cool and calm, pretend to be oblivious sometimes, and make every effort to avoid having such a situation in the first place. In that specific situation, I should never have shoved them, and I should've asked for rides home instead of mentioning it and instead of letting things repeat and escalate up to that point. Of course I was pissed at the world then, so I wasn't thinking clearly. That was a time where my gut reaction was to cuss anyone out who tried to mess with me and fight if need be, but I never expected to have to do it over-and-over. I was never on the winning end of any of my fights, as my punches back then were about as good as throwing a paper ball. I didn't like fighting either.

I cannot blame the victim as not all situations are as simple as making a stand or telling the authorities, especially when there may be undesirable repercussions either way.


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## Onnes (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> It seems to me that bullying isn't the problem but the people not doing their god damn jobs to keep it from getting to criminal level.



So what part of bullying isn't criminal? There are laws against assault, theft, harassment, and threats of violence which would generally cover most of the common bullying scenarios.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 1, 2011)

Kyrodo said:


> False statement is false. Source: Personal experience.
> 
> I ended up getting multiple fights with the same two bikers each day I walked home, after I finally shoved one into the bushes after shoved me down whenever they passed by a couple of times (it started with just yelling loudly whenever they passed trying to see if I jump, then they moved on to shoving me to the ground). They fought me every chance they got. Then I finally made the mistake of telling my parents about it and taking it up with the school and getting rides home. They still made passes at me whenever they saw me, mostly verbally, and my parents interrogated me about it for the next several months, making me feel very uncomfortable.
> 
> ...



You can't sit there and actually state my statement is completely false when you have just said yourself "Some bullies are more persistent than others" so In fact, my statement isn't completely false. Again it brings me back to what I said earlier, each bullying case is different, what works for one case may not work for another case.


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## ramsay_baggins (Oct 1, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> You can't sit there and actually state my statement is completely false when you have just said yourself "Some bullies are more persistent than others" so In fact, my statement isn't completely false. Again it brings me back to what I said earlier, each bullying case is different, what works for one case may not work for another case.



Which is why, instead of passing laws which won't do anything, there needs to be a focus on training and educating teachers on recognising the signs of bullying and effectively dealing with it. This is the only thing which will help the people involved.


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

Onnes said:


> So what part of bullying isn't criminal? There are laws against assault, theft, harassment, and threats of violence which would generally cover most of the common bullying scenarios.


Ever heard of a misdemeanor?
Theft would be a misdemeanor, not necessarily criminal unless whatever it was is pricey. Then it shouldn't have been in school anyway :V
Being called names and shoved in the corridors aren't exactly emergency worthy.
If someone is being threatened of violence and/or death then that would be serious and teachers or counselors should be alerted. If the victim refuses to tell anyone under the grounds of "oh they wouldn't do anything anyway" then well that's their problem. If they DO say something then the responsibility falls completely on the authority.



ramsay_baggins said:


> Which is why, instead of passing laws  which won't do anything, there needs to be a focus on training and  educating teachers on recognising the signs of bullying and effectively  dealing with it. This is the only thing which will help the people  involved.



That will do just as much here. People will  whine and bitch about wasted tax dollars yet wonder why there's  shootings in schools and...blame teachers.


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## Kyrodo (Oct 1, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> You can't sit there and actually state my statement is completely false when you have just said yourself "Some bullies are more persistent than others" so In fact, my statement isn't completely false. Again it brings me back to what I said earlier, each bullying case is different, what works for one case may not work for another case.


Right, just responding to what I've read. ^^;


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> Ever heard of a misdemeanor?
> Theft would be a misdemeanor, not necessarily criminal unless whatever it was is pricey. Then it shouldn't have been in school anyway :V


Misdemeanors _are_ criminal acts, just criminal acts of lesser offense.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 1, 2011)

ramsay_baggins said:


> Which is why, instead of passing laws which won't do anything, there needs to be a focus on training and educating teachers on recognising the signs of bullying and effectively dealing with it. This is the only thing which will help the people involved.



Teachers should also take any reports of bullying seriously. 



Aleu said:


> Ever heard of a misdemeanor?
> Theft would be a misdemeanor, not necessarily criminal unless whatever it was is pricey. Then it shouldn't have been in school anyway :V
> Being called names and shoved in the corridors aren't exactly emergency worthy.
> If someone is being threatened of violence and/or death then that would be serious and teachers or counselors should be alerted. If the victim refuses to tell anyone under the grounds of "oh they wouldn't do anything anyway" then well that's their problem. If they DO say something then the responsibility falls completely on the authority.



Shoplifting would be what you call a misdemeanor, here we just call it "petty theft". I agree, name calling isn't a crime itself. However, here, if adults started yelling and calling each other names and were causing a general problem out in public the police would arrest them under section four, which is "Public order". So why should a similar thing in school be accepted if society does not accept it in public? The more I think about this the more I see Ramsay's point.



Kyrodo said:


> Right, just responding to what I've read. ^^;



Of course, I'm by no means saying my statement is entirely true, it just depends on the circumstances.



Ad Hoc said:


> Misdemeanors _are_ criminal acts, just criminal acts of lesser offense.



Yeah, it is, Just small crimes. I do believe something like vehicle theft would be a felony?


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Misdemeanors _are_ criminal acts, just criminal acts of lesser offense.


Still not as serious. Maybe serious offenses need to be considered rather than petty schoolyard name calling.



Randy-Darkshade said:


> Shoplifting would be what you call a misdemeanor, here we just call it  "petty theft". I agree, name calling isn't a crime itself. However,  here, if adults started yelling and calling each other names and were  causing a general problem out in public the police would arrest them  under section four, which is "Public order". So why should a similar  thing in school be accepted if society does not accept it in public? The  more I think about this the more I see Ramsay's point.


We don't arrest them here unless they're drunk or there is a weapon involved or if there's actual violence. If people are just yelling at each other, that's called an argument.


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## Onnes (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> Ever heard of a misdemeanor?
> Theft would be a misdemeanor, not necessarily criminal unless whatever it was is pricey. Then it shouldn't have been in school anyway :V



A misdemeanor is still a crime.



> Being called names and shoved in the corridors aren't exactly emergency worthy.



If you tried this with a random adult you'd wind up with a restraining order.

It should also be noted that bullying was found to be a factor in the majority of school shootings in the US.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> Still not as serious. Maybe serious offenses need to be considered rather than petty schoolyard name calling.


If someone commits theft somewhere outside of a school situation, we don't go, "Oh it's just a misdemeanor," and leave it at that. Why do it in the school yard?


EDIT:


Randy-Darkshade said:


> Yeah, it is, Just small crimes. I do  believe something like vehicle theft would be a felony?


Yes,  that's correct. The distinction isn't "misdemeanor vs. criminal," rather  it is "misdemeanor vs. felony," both of which exist on a spectrum of  crime. Where theft lies depends on the value of the thing stolen.  Neither should be tolerated just because children are the victims, though.


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

Onnes said:


> If you tried this with a random adult you'd wind up with a restraining order.
> 
> It should also be noted that bullying was found to be a factor in the majority of school shootings in the US.


You think that bullying is random? No, it's not. 

How many of those cases actually had people deal with it before it got to there? See, now, if it was handled there would be no need.



Ad Hoc said:


> If someone commits theft somewhere outside of a  school situation, we don't go, "Oh it's just a misdemeanor," and leave  it at that. Why do it in the school yard?



Because if you  don't want something stolen, don't bring it to school. Don't want you're  PSP stolen? Too bad, not supposed to bring it to school.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> Because if you  don't want something stolen, don't bring it to school. Don't want you're  PSP stolen? Too bad, not supposed to bring it to school.


Ah, hm. I'm pretty sure the same thing could be pitched to any victim of crime, though. Don't want your possessions stolen? Should have gotten a better security system. Don't want your car to get jacked? Shouldn't have taken a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood. (Or worse, been forced to live in a bad neighborhood due to economic constraints.) Exactly when when do we place responsibility on the person that, y'know, _actually committed theft_?


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Ah, hm. I'm pretty sure the same thing could be pitched to any victim of crime, though. Don't want your possessions stolen? Should have gotten a better security system. Don't want your car to get jacked? Shouldn't have taken a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood. (Or worse, been forced to live in a bad neighborhood due to economic constraints.) Exactly when when do we place responsibility on the person that, y'know, _actually committed theft_?



See the difference between school and all of the above is that when you're in school, you're on someone else's turf, not your own. Someone breaking into your house which is PRIVATE PROPERTY is different from taking one of your own possessions and stupidly trusting a school full of greedy brats to not steal it. Why not just take your DSi and put it in a public place them blame someone else for something that is YOUR responsibility? The victim has to be responsible too. Sorry, I just don't have any sympathy for people that whine that their shit was stolen in a place where it's against the rules for it to be there in the first place.


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## Kyrodo (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> See the difference between school and all of the above is that when you're in school, you're on someone else's turf, not your own. Someone breaking into your house which is PRIVATE PROPERTY is different from taking one of your own possessions and stupidly trusting a school full of greedy brats to not steal it. Why not just take your DSi and put it in a public place them blame someone else for something that is YOUR responsibility? The victim has to be responsible too. Sorry, I just don't have any sympathy for people that whine that their shit was stolen in a place where it's against the rules for it to be there in the first place.


I had my backpack stolen at school once... it had school supplies and class work. -.- It's not my fault either. I was on the benches watching a performance at the gym and somebody decided to take it while I wasn't looking. Never showed up in lost and found, ever.




Nothing valuable my ass. Had my graphing calculator and drafting pencils. I needed that shit for class, you stuck-up jerk


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> See the difference between school and all of the above is that when you're in school, you're on someone else's turf, not your own. Someone breaking into your house which is PRIVATE PROPERTY is different from taking one of your own possessions and stupidly trusting a school full of greedy brats to not steal it. Why not just take your DSi and put it in a public place them blame someone else for something that is YOUR responsibility? The victim has to be responsible too. Sorry, I just don't have any sympathy for people that whine that their shit was stolen in a place where it's against the rules for it to be there in the first place.


Well, what if someone mugs you in a public place? Is that acceptable because you're not on your turf? 

Also, not all things of value that are brought into schools are against the rules. Graphing calculators, for example, can run up over $100. Students can also have things like shoes, clothing, wallet, etc., stolen.


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

Kyrodo said:


> I had my backpack stolen at school once... it had school supplies and class work. -.- It's not my fault either. I was on the benches watching a performance at the gym and somebody decided to take it while I wasn't looking.


 Congrats, you lost nothing valuable.



Ad Hoc said:


> Well, what if someone mugs you in a public place? Is that acceptable because you're not on your turf?
> 
> Also, not all things of value that are brought into schools are against the rules. Graphing calculators, for example, can run up over $100. Students can also have things like shoes, clothing, wallet, etc., stolen.


I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about theft and not mugging.

Shoes are also not of value, nor clothing (though if someone steals your clothes, that's pretty sad and creepy). Wallet I can understand but that would more than likely fall into mugging which then yes action needs to be taken.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about theft and not mugging.
> 
> Shoes are also not of value, nor clothing (though if someone steals your clothes, that's pretty sad and creepy). Wallet I can understand but that would more than likely fall into mugging which then yes action needs to be taken.


Mugging is a form of theft. What if I had said pickpocketing instead?

Shoes and clothes can be valuable, depending. I see you live in Florida--in Wisconsin, a quality winter coat, plus hat and gloves (typically shoved into pockets when not worn, it's not hard to snatch them all in one go), can easily run you $100+. Wallet can be taken by pickpocketing. You also failed to address the cost of of a graphing calculator. School supplies in general can be very expensive, totaled up. A decent backpack alone can be quite pricey.


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## Onnes (Oct 1, 2011)

Aleu said:


> Shoes are also not of value, nor clothing (though if someone steals your clothes, that's pretty sad and creepy). Wallet I can understand but that would more than likely fall into mugging which then yes action needs to be taken.



Shoes and clothing are not of value? I cannot comprehend the logic being used here.

You seem to be arguing in favor of school as an essentially lawless social experiment involving individuals that lack the full cognitive faculties of an adult.


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## Rsrallygrl (Oct 1, 2011)

I think everyone has been through some form of bullying. I was in Air Force ROTC for four years. We were slandered for wearing air force uniforms, calling us ROTC Nazi's and blueberries. They had no idea that the course was about a combo of aerospace science mixed with life skills. Do I think a law would help, yes. What I think would help get to the route even more is the question though doing the bullying. What makes them do what they are doing, what are they thinking and why are they thinking its ok? There may be an underlying cause, abuse? neglect? Who knows.

Our school was all about being able to go to your teacher or counselor but here's a thought what about the parents? Why are parents not being advocates for their children? Now granted I realize not every child will come to their parents with an issue, but why are the parents not being proactive and checking in with teachers/school staff and not just asking about grades. Teachers are eyes and ears and they see things even when its not directly in the class room. I've worked in a school as faculty and if I saw something I called the kids out on it and not just looked the other way. Parents and school need to work together.


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Mugging is a form of theft. What if I had said pickpocketing instead?
> 
> Shoes and clothes can be valuable, depending. I see you live in Florida--in Wisconsin, a quality winter coat, plus hat and gloves (typically shoved into pockets when not worn, it's not hard to snatch them all in one go), can easily run you $100+. Wallet can be taken by pickpocketing. You also failed to address the cost of of a graphing calculator. School supplies in general can be very expensive, totaled up. A decent backpack alone can be quite pricey.


A mugging is a form of theft but not every case of theft is a mugging. Said person having their stuff stolen actually needs to physically BE there in order for it to be counted as a mugging. Basically not all X is Y. And personally, I don't know of anyone that does pickpocket or even had something pickpocketed. Now you're just being nitpicky.

Shoes and clothes valuable? Since when? Do you have only one pair of something? Also, if you look in the right places, you can get a backpack for cheap if not free. Graphing calculators, from when I went to school, if you did not have one, they let you borrow from the class. I don't know if they do that there but they do here.



Onnes said:


> Shoes and clothing are not of value? I cannot comprehend the logic being used here.
> 
> You seem to be arguing in favor of school as an essentially lawless social experiment involving individuals that lack the full cognitive faculties of an adult.


Words in my mouth. Don't do it.
Did I NOT say that people need to report shit? And that teachers need to actually do their job when stuff IS reported?



Rsrallygrl said:


> I think everyone has been through some form of bullying. I was in Air Force ROTC for four years. We were slandered for wearing air force uniforms, calling us ROTC Nazi's and blueberries. They had no idea that the course was about a combo of aerospace science mixed with life skills. Do I think a law would help, yes. What I think would help get to the route even more is the question though doing the bullying. What makes them do what they are doing, what are they thinking and why are they thinking its ok? There may be an underlying cause, abuse? neglect? Who knows.
> 
> Our school was all about being able to go to your teacher or counselor but here's a thought what about the parents? Why are parents not being advocates for their children? Now granted I realize not every child will come to their parents with an issue, but why are the parents not being proactive and checking in with teachers/school staff and not just asking about grades. Teachers are eyes and ears and they see things even when its not directly in the class room. I've worked in a school as faculty and if I saw something I called the kids out on it and not just looked the other way. Parents and school need to work together.



You take offense to ROTC Nazi and blueberry? Damn that's some pretty thin skin. 
How in the hell would a law help? THere's already laws outside of school and something called a Code of Conduct IN school. Laws aren't going to help. Schools enforcing their rules will. You can't just throw laws out there and expect people to follow them. That's not how life works. You sure you developed life skills?

Children also don't go to their parents because most parents barely parent their children nowadays. They only care about grades and if little Johnny is being a good Christian and staying away from those awful atheists.


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## Gavrill (Oct 1, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> What? There is no "place" for bullying.


Uh yeah kinda my point here
which is why it shouldn't be glazed over
because it shouldn't be happening at all


> Agreed.


and yet...


> Don't let the bullies win. If they see you're not willing to fight back in anyway (not just physically) they will just keep pushing on with bullying you.


Uh, NO. I am _not _going to fight people with switchblades and in gangs. Or even provoke them in the LEAST BIT. That is fucking suicidal. 



> Agreed, schools should do their jobs.


But they don't. So bullying is near-impossible to report. Which isn't the victim's fault. :T



Aleu said:


> Shoes and clothes valuable? Since when? Do you have only one pair of something? Also, if you look in the right places, you can get a backpack for cheap if not free. Graphing calculators, from when I went to school, if you did not have one, they let you borrow from the class. I don't know if they do that there but they do here.


Have you never been poor? A pair of new shoes for a kid in a poor household from where I lived in Miami is like a fucking gold-plated video game system in comparison to most households. When you're living paycheck to paycheck, clothes are VERY valuable.


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## Neuron (Oct 1, 2011)

You can't regulate it because it's complicated human behavior, you can't punish it with the penalty of law because they're minors, and most people won't report bullying for fear of being a tattle tale.

The problem that needs to be directly addressed is the attitude that causes the bullying. Teasing is a part of life and it's also good for helping kids assimilate into groups. What needs to be understood is the big difference between harmless teasing and damaging bullying. 

Kids get bullied generally because of differences. I don't advocate being OMG POLITICALLY CORRECT but I feel like the education system could do more to teach these lessons.

Everyone is different, personality and not popularity is what counts. Throughout all my years in school I've felt the teachers just went along with the popularity > personality dillema that leads to a lot of bullying, when rather they need to connect with the younger generation and teach them some wisdom about cultivating a personality, not a cult. If these attitudes started to gradually permeate the education system I feel maybe kids might realize that the quality and quantity of friends is important and that bullying does nothing to help them.

We need to also address bullying by means of ostracizing. Kid gets bullied? Bully gets ostracized, not admired. That's a lot of the problem too is trying to be "hard" and "tough" and teachers not helping them realize that these things will be utterly meaningless in the real world.


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## Aleu (Oct 1, 2011)

Gavrill said:


> Have you never been poor? A pair of new shoes for a kid in a poor household from where I lived in Miami is like a fucking gold-plated video game system in comparison to most households. When you're living paycheck to paycheck, clothes are VERY valuable.


Yes, I have been poor. In fact, I've never been rich. But I've also never felt the need to buy a new pair of anything every year. I don't think I have even bought a pair of clothes in years. And those were for work, not just wearing around the house. I have been living from paycheck to paycheck for a long, long time and I've not felt the need to buy casual wear.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> A mugging is a form of theft but not every case of theft is a mugging. Said person having their stuff stolen actually needs to physically BE there in order for it to be counted as a mugging. Basically not all X is Y. And personally, I don't know of anyone that does pickpocket or even had something pickpocketed. Now you're just being nitpicky.


Okay, so mugging is a form of theft. I'm glad we've agreed on that. To go back to my original question, "Well, what if someone mugs you in a public place? Is that acceptable because you're not on your turf?"

I'm not being picky. My point is that theft is theft, regardless of location. The person to be held accountable is the person who committed the theft. As for pickpocketing, both my father and brother have been pickpocketed. 



Aleu said:


> Shoes and clothes valuable? Since when? Do you have only one pair of something? Also, if you look in the right places, you can get a backpack for cheap if not free. Graphing calculators, from when I went to school, if you did not have one, they let you borrow from the class. I don't know if they do that there but they do here.


You quite cleanly ignored the ". . . in Wisconsin, a quality winter coat, plus hat and gloves (typically  shoved into pockets when not worn, it's not hard to snatch them all in  one go), can easily run you $100+." part. It doesn't matter how many you have--$100+ is $100+. You also ignored the part about the wallet. As for the graphing calculator, no, that is basically unheard of in my area. A teacher may let you borrow theirs if you forget yours, but even so you're still screwed for homework. I can concede to the backpack.


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## Fiesta_Jack (Oct 2, 2011)

Okay, so I actually intend to be a teacher in a few years. Honestly, what could I possibly do, if I found out a student of mine was being bullied? Everyone keeps saying the staff needs to do their job, but there's really nothing in a teacher's power that can really help a kid. The best I can do is give the student some advice about being strong, and not letting them get to him/her. BECAUSE THAT'S THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM.

Would you rather teachers be able to citizen's arrest a 12 year-old? Bring police in to ship the bullies off to Juvenile hall? Because we know how wonderful and effective correctional facilities are, amirite? Really, honestly, the only solution is for kids to develop thicker skin. It's been how *millions, if not billions *of kids have dealt with bullying, and it continues to be the only effective solution to the problem.


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## ramsay_baggins (Oct 2, 2011)

Fiesta, here is a quote from this blog.



> Any teachers or administrators who claim ignorance or an inability to address this problem are lying through their teeth. I spent several years as a high school teacher and a dean, and know for a fact that it is nonsense to claim this problem is difficult to locate in a school environment. On my first day, I was able to spot which students were "in" and which were "out," and was immediately able to take steps to thwart bullying whenever it appeared within my sight or knowledge.
> 
> One of my proudest accomplishments as a teacher and administrator, in fact, came during my second year in the classroom. Like any group of students, my crew was divided between the "in" kids and the "out" kids. The "in" kids wore the right clothes, had the right looks and knew how to play the high school social game. The "out" kids were not as fashionable, not as physically developed and tended to get the best grades. Through slow and steady pressures, counseling conversations and meetings with parents, I was able to transform the social dynamic that separated "in" from "out." By the end of the year, my "out" kids were the most popular ones in class, and my "in" kids thought hitting the books and getting good grades were the keys to the coolness kingdom. This pattern held until the day those kids graduated.
> 
> Disrupting the patterns and social constructs that lead to bullying can be done. I know. I did it.



Challenge the kids, encourage those who you think may be being bullied, engage the kids well in learning so it's not seen as geeky or nerdy. Most importantly, _talk to the kids_ you think may be being bullied. Even having an adult willing to listen and _believe_ what they're saying can make such a _huge_ difference for a kid who feels ostracised and alone in, what is for them, a hostile place. Depending on what age the kids you're gonna be teaching are, make sure you stress that being different is a _good_ quality, and that being the popular jock type who thinks learning is stupid and doesn't put the effort in is going to suffer for it when they leave school.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 2, 2011)

Fiesta_Jack said:


> Okay, so I actually intend to be a teacher in a few years. Honestly, what could I possibly do, if I found out a student of mine was being bullied? Everyone keeps saying the staff needs to do their job, but there's really nothing in a teacher's power that can really help a kid. The best I can do is give the student some advice about being strong, and not letting them get to him/her. BECAUSE THAT'S THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM.
> 
> Would you rather teachers be able to citizen's arrest a 12 year-old? Bring police in to ship the bullies off to Juvenile hall? Because we know how wonderful and effective correctional facilities are, amirite? Really, honestly, the only solution is for kids to develop thicker skin. It's been how *millions, if not billions *of kids have dealt with bullying, and it continues to be the only effective solution to the problem.


Well how old are your prospective students? If they're elementary/middle school, you're making it sound a lot harder than it is. Basically you just come down on them, hard. I taught at an after-school martial arts program for five years, until my joints started going bad. Because of the nature of what we were teaching, we had an absolute zero-tolerance policy for bullying, inside or outside the program. Students that stepped out of line got called out for it. Usually all it took was a, "Knock it off!" and a mean look. Bullies are cowards, especially the young ones. It doesn't take much. (EDIT: For clarification, this is assuming you catch them in the act.) 

I'm going to digress for a second to tell you about the first couple of times I had to do that. It was disheartening as shit. Why? They stopped--and both of them would look at me like I'd grown a third eye. I imagine they'd seen a thousand PSAs on the subject, but I don't think many of these kids had ever had real-life experience with there being a consequence for these actions. The idea of they or their aggressors being held accountable was totally foreign. If you think about it, that's as in-line with real life with the alternative. Being a spineless wimp isn't going to get you far, but in all but a few walks of life, neither will being an asshole--and these kids were shocked to find that there could be consequences for the latter.

Now, you're going to say that we're just teaching the bullied kid to rely on adults instead of stand up for themselves, but you know what actually happened? They got a safe space where their confidence could grow, and they got the idea that what was happening to them was genuinely wrong and they weren't the only ones that thought so. Most of them started standing up for themselves, in the program and outside of it. 

Now sometimes we did get students that were more, ah, bull-headed about bullying, and weren't deterred just by that. Sometimes we had to sit down and talk with the kid about. Sometimes we had to get in contact with their parents. Occasionally we had to get the bullied kid involved if there was some kind of particular enmity between them. Sometimes it's something psychological--we had a repeat offender, who it turned out came from a background of abuse, and struggled with rage problems. He's still in the program (I'm still in contact with the main teacher) and slowly getting better--do you think that if no one had interfered and told him he needed to change his behavior, that he would have a chance at a better life? Counseling is great, but being held accountable for your actions in real life is a better learning tool. Best to start young.

We had another tool that you're going to have a hard time replicating, but you're a smart guy and you have a few years to figure it out so I have faith that you'll manage. Essentially, we had a very clear and concise reward and punishment system. Ours mostly revolved around the belt system. Kid steps out of line, their promotion get delayed by X amount of time, even if their physical skill is up to par. Obviously you can't implement something like that exactly, but think about it. A clear and concise reward/punishment system is a great tool even aside from bullying, it really helped us get students to pay attention, work harder, etc., and generally behave better in the classroom. Teacher-to-teacher, I highly suggest figuring something like that out even aside from this particular issue, it will help you tremendously. 

Now, we had a zero-tolerance policy for bullying because of what we were teaching. These kids were learning a martial art. If the bullying escalated at all, we could have been dealing with serious injuries and possibly deaths. So, we weeded it out before it had a chance to root. If you are so determined that a bit of name calling and rough housing is good for a kid--and I might agree with you--fine, don't come down on that. But, *draw a line in the sand. Don't be like Gav's teachers. Don't be like my brother's teachers, or this guy's teachers.* It _does_ go well over the line. And trust me, as detached as you feel about it now, having the suicide of your own student hanging over your head isn't going to do you much good. Finding out that one of them went to jail because they never figured out that assaulting/harassing people can put them there, isn't going to do you much good. If you have love for your job, you will have love for your students. I haven't taught in over a year and I still call the program head to keep tabs on my old students, because I care about them and think of them often. 

Now, most of this is written with elementary/middle school students in mind, most of the high school kid that I taught were long-time students that had joined the program at a younger age. If you plan on teaching on high school, that's a different beast, some of this may apply and some may not. You're just going to have to educate yourself.


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## Aleu (Oct 2, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Okay, so mugging is a form of theft. I'm glad we've agreed on that. To go back to my original question, "Well, what if someone mugs you in a public place? Is that acceptable because you're not on your turf?"
> 
> I'm not being picky. My point is that theft is theft, regardless of location. The person to be held accountable is the person who committed the theft. As for pickpocketing, both my father and brother have been pickpocketed.


Yes it's theft but not necessarily bullying. I'm not saying it's okay but if someone brings something expensive to school (most of the cases I've heard, it shouldn't have been there anyway) then they better keep a damn good eye on it.




Ad Hoc said:


> You quite cleanly ignored the ". . . in Wisconsin, a quality winter coat, plus hat and gloves (typically  shoved into pockets when not worn, it's not hard to snatch them all in  one go), can easily run you $100+." part. It doesn't matter how many you have--$100+ is $100+. You also ignored the part about the wallet. As for the graphing calculator, no, that is basically unheard of in my area. A teacher may let you borrow theirs if you forget yours, but even so you're still screwed for homework. I can concede to the backpack.


Why should I care about what happens in Wisconsin? Also, do you not have Goodwill? Salvation Army? You can get some decent stuff for cheap if you don't go out for designer clothes. You also won't be screwed from homework unless you have no friends or all of your friends have consequently got theirs stolen too.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 2, 2011)

Gavrill said:


> Uh, NO. I am _not _going to fight people with switchblades and in gangs. Or even provoke them in the LEAST BIT. That is fucking suicidal.



Where did I say in my post to use violence? What is it with you Americans thinking everyone means solve it with violence? jesus christ man I never said beat the shit out of them or attack them with switch blades. Also, you don't need to provoke a bully for them to bully you.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> Yes it's theft but not necessarily bullying. I'm not saying it's okay but if someone brings something expensive to school (most of the cases I've heard, it shouldn't have been there anyway) then they better keep a damn good eye on it.
> 
> Why should I care about what happens in Wisconsin? Also, do you not have Goodwill? Salvation Army? You can get some decent stuff for cheap if you don't go out for designer clothes. You also won't be screwed from homework unless you have no friends or all of your friends have consequently got theirs stolen too.


The point isn't that it's a form of bullying, it's that it's illegal and has consequences in every place but schools, where for some reason the victim instead of the perpetrator is blame. I'm not suggesting that we put children in jail, but that's ridiculous. 

Believe it or not, this is an issue that is not confined to Florida. It's not just national, but international. You cannot use your own situation as a blanket for all situations. (I'm using my own situation to demonstrate why that's folly.) As for the Salvation Army/Goodwill, yes those exist, and many poor families use them. However, if nobody bought new clothing, eventually there would be no used clothing left. That is not a solution. Also, $100+ is $100+ regardless of the family's financial situation. With very rare exception, a thief should not be held less accountable because their victim is poor, middle class, or rich. As for the calculator, not every person can rely on that.


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## Aleu (Oct 2, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> The point isn't that it's a form of bullying, it's that it's illegal and has consequences in every place but schools. I'm not suggesting that we put children in jail, but that's ridiculous.
> 
> Believe it or not, this is an issue that is not confined to Florida. It's not just national, but international. You cannot use your own situation as a blanket for all situations. (I'm using my own situation to demonstrate why that's folly.) As for the Salvation Army/Goodwill, yes those exist, and many poor families use them. However, if nobody bought new clothing, eventually there would be no used clothing left. That is not a solution. Also, $100+ is $100+ regardless of the family's financial situation. With very rare exception, a thief should not be held less accountable because their victim is poor, middle class, or rich. As for the calculator, not every person can rely on that.


No shit. The point is BULLYING, not thieving. Actually, you have a Code of Conduct booklet? Or do you even read it? Yes, this is relevant. 

Okay can we stop with the "If everybody/nobody did X" thing? It's stupid. Not everyone is going to stop buying new clothes. So, yes, Goodwill IS a solution if you're bitching and complaining about $100 for clothing.


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## Aktosh (Oct 2, 2011)

Bullying will always be here. No one will ever stop it. It's part of being young.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> No shit. The point is BULLYING, not thieving. Actually, you have a Code of Conduct booklet? Or do you even read it? Yes, this is relevant.
> 
> Okay can we stop with the "If everybody/nobody did X" thing? It's stupid. Not everyone is going to stop buying new clothes. So, yes, Goodwill IS a solution if you're bitching and complaining about $100 for clothing.


I don't think you're reading the thread. The point that Onnes and I were making was that much of bullying would in fact be illegal in "real life." You contended the point and that's how we got here. As for the handbook, quite a few posters on this thread seem to be of the opinion that letting bullies get away with these acts is a good life lesson for the victims. 

I don't we did the "everybody/noboby" thing even once before that post. But, my point is that $100+ is $100+ and thieves should be held accountable, whether they steal in a school situation or elsewhere, and furthermore regardless of the financial situation of the victim.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 2, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> I don't think you're reading the thread. The point that Onnes and I were making was that much of bullying would in fact be illegal in "real life." You contended the point and that's how we got here. As for the handbook, quite a few posters on this thread seem to be of the opinion that letting bullies get away with these acts is a good life lesson for the victims.



Isn't it classed as harassment in the work place?



> I don't we did the "everybody/noboby" thing even once before that post. But, my point is that $100+ is $100+ and thieves should be held accountable, whether they steal in a school situation or elsewhere, and furthermore regardless of the financial situation of the victim.



Aye, just because a crime happens in school doesn't mean it should be exempt from the law, a crime is a crime no matter where it is committed.


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## Aleu (Oct 2, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> I don't think you're reading the thread. The point that Onnes and I were making was that much of bullying would in fact be illegal in "real life." You contended the point and that's how we got here. As for the handbook, quite a few posters on this thread seem to be of the opinion that letting bullies get away with these acts is a good life lesson for the victims.
> 
> I don't we did the "everybody/noboby" thing even once before that post. But, my point is that $100+ is $100+ and thieves should be held accountable, whether they steal in a school situation or elsewhere, and furthermore regardless of the financial situation of the victim.



Okay, life lessons =/= letting them get away with it. You're assuming way too much. Bullying IS a life lesson. It's a lesson that shit happens and you need to deal with it when it comes to you. No one is going to permanently stop bullying. It's everywhere. Some more subtle, some more obvious.

And you DID do the "If everyone/nobody did" argument. YOU SAID 





> However, if nobody bought new clothing, eventually there would be no used clothing left.



NEVER have I said "let them get away with it". I said "It should be dealt with". My personal view is that it SHOULD be by the victim. Have them grow a spine and some balls or something. If they don't deal with it, then they shouldn't whine that bullies aren't "getting what they deserve" because they did NOTHING.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> Okay, life lessons =/= letting them get away with it. You're assuming way too much. Bullying IS a life lesson. It's a lesson that shit happens and you need to deal with it when it comes to you. No one is going to permanently stop bullying. It's everywhere. Some more subtle, some more obvious.
> 
> And you DID do the "If everyone/nobody did" argument. YOU SAID
> 
> NEVER have I said "let them get away with it". I said "It should be dealt with". My personal view is that it SHOULD be by the victim. Have them grow a spine and some balls or something. If they don't deal with it, then they shouldn't whine that bullies aren't "getting what they deserve" because they did NOTHING.



Just because bullying happens, doesn't make it right. By your logic we could say that shoplifting, is just a life lesson, arson, is just a life lesson, etc etc. Just because bad things happen doesn't make it right and it certainly does not mean nothing should be done about it.


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## Aleu (Oct 2, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Just because bullying happens, doesn't make it right. By your logic we could say that shoplifting, is just a life lesson, arson, is just a life lesson, etc etc. Just because bad things happen doesn't make it right and it certainly does not mean nothing should be done about it.



When did I say it was right and when did I say nothing should be done about it?

God dammit I hate all of you.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> When did I say it was right and when did I say nothing should be done about it?
> 
> God dammit I hate all of you.



Ask the same people who assumed I was talking about using violence to deal with bullies. :/


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## Aleu (Oct 2, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Ask the same people who assumed I was talking about using violence to deal with bullies. :/



What the fuck does that have to do with anything?


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## Hateful Bitch (Oct 2, 2011)

bullying is a hate crime

all dogs go to heaven
all bullies go to jail


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> And you DID do the "If everyone/nobody did" argument. YOU SAID


Well, by "that post" I meant, "that post you were referring to." My apologies that it wasn't clear enough for you.



Aleu said:


> NEVER have I said "let them get away with it". I said "It should be dealt with".


 I'm glad we agree.



Aleu said:


> My personal view is that it SHOULD be by the victim. Have them grow a  spine and some balls or something. If they don't deal with it, then they  shouldn't whine that bullies aren't "getting what they deserve" because  they did NOTHING.


I think we've been over this again and again, that victim-blaming is fallacious, as sometimes the victim has exhausted their options and truly can't do anything. See: My brother, Gavrill, Ramsay's friends, this guy. Which is why adults need to be more willing to step in, and there needs to be a general cultural shift on the matter. (Not necessarily to eliminate it completely, but to recognize when it crosses the line, and to help victims that are truly helpless.)


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> What the fuck does that have to do with anything?



Calm down woman. :/ Deep breaths now, breath in............and out.

Was just pointing out people make mistakes when reading posts, it happens. People did it three times in this thread with me.


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## Hateful Bitch (Oct 2, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Calm down woman. :/ Deep breaths now, breath in............and out.


patronising


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 2, 2011)

Hateful Bitch said:


> patronising



I was being facetious. She swore at me.


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## Hateful Bitch (Oct 2, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I was being facetious. She swore at me.


such anger
a ready lust for vengeance
this person is angry at me! I'll solve the matter by getting angry!!
dumb

say you're sorry
take it back take it back take it back take it back


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## Aleu (Oct 2, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> I think we've been over this again and again, that victim-blaming is fallacious, as sometimes the victim has exhausted their options and truly can't do anything. See: My brother, Gavrill, Ramsay's friends, this guy. Which is why adults need to be more willing to step in, and there needs to be a general cultural shift on the matter. (Not necessarily to eliminate it completely, but to recognize when it crosses the line, and to help victims that are truly helpless.)


I'm referring to when victims DON'T, I repeat, *DO NOT* do anything to help themselves. I am NOT PUTTING BLAME ON THE VICTIM. I'm saying if they refuse to seek help then they need to either man up and do so or shut up and stop complaining. If they don't report it then HOW is anyone supposed to do anything about it?

If the teachers are being told then it's not really a bully problem but a problem of the school not handling their students and uphold their rules like they SHOULD be doing. If teachers actually started punishing then it wouldn't be so much of a problem as much as an "it exists but no one is going to suicide from it".



Randy-Darkshade said:


> I was being facetious. She swore at me.


Like I can tell?


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> I'm referring to when victims DON'T, I repeat, *DO NOT* do anything to help themselves. I am NOT PUTTING BLAME ON THE VICTIM. I'm saying if they refuse to seek help then they need to either man up and do so or shut up and stop complaining. If they don't report it then HOW is anyone supposed to do anything about it?
> 
> If the teachers are being told then it's not really a bully problem but a problem of the school not handling their students and uphold their rules like they SHOULD be doing. If teachers actually started punishing then it wouldn't be so much of a problem as much as an "it exists but no one is going to suicide from it".


Well, I suppose we functionally agree, then.

EDIT: Although, I wouldn't necessarily blame a bully victim that's too scared to speak up any more than I would blame a beaten housewife that's too scared to speak up. But I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.


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## ryanleblanc (Oct 2, 2011)

^ I agree with this train of thought. Sometimes a bullying victim is too scared to get help, and in such a case, we can't go yelling at the kid for not helping himself.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 2, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Well, I suppose we functionally agree, then.
> 
> EDIT: Although, I wouldn't necessarily blame a bully victim that's too scared to speak up any more than I would blame a beaten housewife that's too scared to speak up. But I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.



Depends how long it's been going on for and how bad any mental damage is. There is really far to many factors to take into account to give a certain answer.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 2, 2011)

ryanleblanc said:


> ^ I agree with this train of thought. Sometimes a bullying victim is too scared to get help, and in such a case, we can't go yelling at the kid for not helping himself.



This is why I said a lot of factors have to be taken into account. None of us can sit here and just say "This is how bullying should be dealt with" because each victim is different, each case is different, each bully is different.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 2, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Depends how long it's been going on for and how bad any mental damage is. There is really far to many factors to take into account to give a certain answer.


Well, it would be my assumption that any child that was too scared would already have suffered quite a bit of mental damage, though perhaps not from the bullying itself. (For example, a child that is irrationally shy not because of bullying, but because of abuse in the home, or a mental disorder.) I suppose there could be exceptions, however. 



Randy-Darkshade said:


> This is why I said a lot of factors have   to be taken into account. None of us can sit here and just say "This is   how bullying should be dealt with" because each victim is different,   each case is different, each bully is different.


I can agree with this.



That aside, I want to get something out of the way.

Someone is going to say, "Ad Hoc, you can't compare bullied kids to beaten wives, it's not the same degree of fear and pain."

To which I will say, "But it can be, or at least close. We've discussed it again and again. My brother, Ramsay's friends, Gavrill, etc.,"

To which they will say, "But if it gets that far, it's the victim's fault for not speaking up earlier."

To which I will say, "The same argument still holds. No rational person says to a spousal abuse victim, 'You should have left when they started showing X warning sign!' and then let them suffer. People, especially children, make mistakes and, with very rare exception, that leaves them at no less right to compassion. Certainly they should be educated about their mistake, but not abandoned or further attacked for it. Furthermore, again with very rare exception, whatever defenses a person may fail to put to up, responsibility always lies with the aggressor who chooses to take advantage of that lack of defense."

And then maybe we argue on a tangential point for a few pages.


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## Aleu (Oct 2, 2011)

ryanleblanc said:


> ^ I agree with this train of thought. Sometimes a bullying victim is too scared to get help, and in such a case, we can't go yelling at the kid for not helping himself.



All the better for him to learn from it in case he still refuses help.


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## Fiesta_Jack (Oct 2, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Well how old are your prospective students? If they're elementary/middle school, you're making it sound a lot harder than it is.



High school is what I'm going for. While I really understand what you guys are saying, I'm still rather adamant in my opinion that there is no better way to deal with bullying, other than through the strength of the victim. 

Most cases, I can contact parents of bullies, but, as most people can already guess, many bullies come from broken homes. Telling their parents can actually make things much worse for everyone involved. I can suggest suspension, etc., but again, this just leads to patterns of dysfunction later in life. I can give them a "stern talking to", but that's kind of a joke, in disciplinary terms. All this is not even mentioning the tendency of bullying to get worse when the bullies believe he/she went for help. Victim empowerment is the best response available to deal with these situations, and I think it can make victims much stronger in life. Knowing you can take the high road and just tough it out, instead of relying on others to punish your enemies sounds like a good way to build strong kids to me.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 2, 2011)

Fiesta_Jack said:


> High school is what I'm going for. While I really understand what you guys are saying, I'm still rather adamant in my opinion that there is no better way to deal with bullying, other than through the strength of the victim.
> 
> Most cases, I can contact parents of bullies, but, as most people can already guess, many bullies come from broken homes. Telling their parents can actually make things much worse for everyone involved. I can suggest suspension, etc., but again, this just leads to patterns of dysfunction later in life. I can give them a "stern talking to", but that's kind of a joke, in disciplinary terms. All this is not even mentioning the tendency of bullying to get worse when the bullies believe he/she went for help. Victim empowerment is the best response available to deal with these situations, and I think it can make victims much stronger in life. Knowing you can take the high road and just tough it out, instead of relying on others to punish your enemies sounds like a good way to build strong kids to me.


Well, I really wonder if you've read and seriously considered the rest of my post, beyond the small part that you quoted, as I touched on much of that. I taught for five years with a very strong eye for bullying prevention, and that, for the most part, was not my experience. (Granted, that experience was mostly with younger kids, but I imagine some is applicable.) But, I have nothing more to say on the subject right now, so I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

EDIT: To be clear, I do agree that building victims up is a good strategy. I don't agree that the sink or swim method is necessarily for best, however, and do believe that addressing bullying directly can be very beneficial.


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## Waffles (Oct 2, 2011)

Aleu said:


> All the better for him to learn from it in case he still refuses help.



Thaaaaat is dumb.
"You don't want to report someone you're deathly afraid of? Oh, you deserved it then."
I remember being bullied in first grade. When there's 2-3 much bigger kids making fun of you, knowing that if you -DO- report them something could happen to you later, what do you do? Sometimes, just learning to cope is the way. Sometimes, you need to report. Like it's been said, each case is different.


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## Vega (Oct 2, 2011)

I was bullied from 2nd grade to 8th grade by several people, had no school friends at all during that time, I was even bullied by my sister at that time too.  I was called a freak, retard, useless, stupid, fag, people said I'd never achieve anything, I was pushed, kids stole my things, threw stuff at me, and was beat up a few times when I tried standing up for myself.  I was severely depressed and thought about suicide but I made it at the cost of having almost no social life, low self-esteem, and little motivation to do anything.  I've been slowly getting better these past few years making SOME real life friends and everything.  But since I've moved to another city I've been seeing them less and less. 

I'm dissapointed that there hasn't been a helpful solution to end bullying by now.


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## Volkodav (Oct 2, 2011)

Vega said:


> I was bullied from 2nd grade to 8th grade by several people, had no school friends at all during that time, I was even bullied by my sister at that time too.  I was called a freak, retard, useless, stupid, fag, people said I'd never achieve anything, I was pushed, kids stole my things, threw stuff at me, and was beat up a few times when I tried standing up for myself.  I was severely depressed and thought about suicide but I made it at the cost of having almost no social life, low self-esteem, and little motivation to do anything.  I've been slowly getting better these past few years making SOME real life friends and everything.  But since I've moved to another city I've been seeing them less and less.
> 
> I'm dissapointed that there hasn't been a helpful solution to end bullying by now.


there aint never gonna be no solution to end bullying
the weak don't survive
thats why i stopped being a quiet scared kid in gradeschool and now im an obnoxious douche that likes to hit people


i aint scared of nobody, so if you got anything to say to me you can say it to my motherfuckin face or hit me up on my motherfuckin myspace
i aint scared
and this lil bitch will fuckin kill yo ass ni guh
so if you have anything to say you can say it to me
and if you wanna bump lets go cause i aint scared of your mothafuckin ass
aight bitch lata


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## Vega (Oct 3, 2011)

Commie Bat said:


> For anyone who said they were bullied, how bad did it really get?


There was a period where I rarely ate and looked anorexic, began putting myself down, wished I was never born, and thought of suicide.


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## Volkodav (Oct 3, 2011)

Vega said:


> I was called a freak, retard, useless, stupid, fag, people said I'd never achieve anything


Hey wow that sounds like me
Except now I eventually snap and beat the shit out of the person


You're next, dad
Yeah I see you there layin on the couch
want some coffee? I hope you like it HOT


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## Rilvor (Oct 3, 2011)

Commie Bat said:


> Anyone here other than me; has had to go to the hospital and talk to the police about bullying?
> For anyone who said they were bullied, how bad did it really get?


 
Interestingly, in my case a verbal bully was worse than a physical one.

To elaborate; A physical bully only ever hit me once, and after that incident never spoke to me again.

But a verbal bully may go on for much longer and is much more bothersome. There is no surefire way to stop verbal bullying (In my case, I threatened to hand-sew her mouth shut during class. Interestingly, there was no retribution for this from the teacher and it stopped after that).

My examples are hardly any solid case on bullying, but my experiences do lead me to believe some bullying can be stopped by standing up for oneself. But we all know this is not the case with them all. So I wish to repeat earlier words that there is no handbook for bullying, each case is different and thus a law is ultimately ineffectual.


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## Vega (Oct 3, 2011)

Commie Bat said:


> They has fucking terrible, and I'm sorry it came to this.



Well, that period has long past and I'm trying to improve.


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## Sarcastic Coffeecup (Oct 3, 2011)

Ive been pretty much verbally bullied. Everyone mocked me for no reason and i got left out too many times


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## Kyrodo (Oct 3, 2011)

My most major case was the bikers mentioned earlier. There were two other major incidents, setting aside all the minor ones. 

Some  guy in PE in 8th grade who made physical strikes against me and laughed  at me at any chance he got. Apparently I wasn't his only victim. He  cornered and fought a former PE partner of mine with some other groupies  alongside him. A big guy named Deon tried to save him and picked him  up. They attacked him and he dropped the guy, who ended up going into a  seizure. Everyone was called out after lunch to the PE area. There was  an ambulance and we saw somebody being carried to it. Deon and the bully  were both expelled, and I never saw the victim come back. From what I  heard, he'd been paralyzed. I know not how severe or anything else about  it.

Another case, somebody in drafting class in 9th grade.  Somebody named Jared who sat right next to me. Kept blatantly stealing  my supplies and making sure I could not complete my assignments. Also  made minor physical passes at me whenever he could get away with it.  Whenever I told on him, he denied everything. When he was keeping my  ruler away from my grasp, and knowing the teacher wouldn't do anything, I  got pissed and ended up stabbing him in the arm with a 0.7 mm  mechanical pencil and drew blood. He wiped it over my text book. Me and a friend nearby decided to switch seats for the rest of the year.

9th  grade still. PE again. Combination of verbal and physical bullying by  some guy named Sergio. Fought me in the track area a couple of times if  he could get away with it. Stole my swimming goggles and my PE lock. I  told the school and got him canned. I found my lock purely by chance in  the trash can near the locker room. He got expelled for some other  incident I have no knowledge of.

I dealt with a lot of other bullies too... getting my desk kicked, having paper balls thrown at me, getting into fights with some of my pseudofriends, verbal fights, etc... mostly silly stuff. Of course, 9th grade was just  horrible overall. This bullying business was happening alongside many  minor as well as several major events in my life that were not pleasing  at all. I was about to go into too much depth on this, so here's the  shortened version. This includes my mom being sent to the mental  hospital four times in a row, my parents being very close to divorcing,  and me and my sister being pulled into a foster home for half a week  after a teacher called out on my sister after she had an accidental  overdose of her ADD medication. What's funny is, the series of  horribleness started at the beginning of 9th and ended abruptly as soon as summer vacation started. This year was where my once blank personality started its development. Anyway,  getting off track. Afterwards, aside from the biker thing in 10th, there  was an exponential reduction in how much bullying I had to go through.  My senior year was completely bully free, mostly because I gained  avoidance tactics and an optimistic laid-back attitude. A lot of people didn't  believe I was a senior though, so I would lie and say I was a junior  instead.


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## ramsay_baggins (Oct 3, 2011)

I was verbally and emotionally bullied from P1 (4) all the way up to when I stopped giving a shit because I'd made friends around 16/17.

I won't go into many details, but one girl in Primary School was beyond nasty. Everyone in the school used to line up in the playground at the end of lunch and break, and at the start of school. Everyone. She managed to get the whole class to join in on a thing where the person standing infront/behind me would run to the back of the line until that line ended at the bottom of the playground and I was left standing at the top. Doesn't sound like much, but the entire school saw it happen every day, 3 times a day.

The two worst times were the paragraph below and when I was around 14 when my parents were getting divorced. I was one of the first people in the year it happened to. The amount of verbal abuse I got from the kids in my year was awful, about how my parents hated me, it was all my fault, how they're glad my dad was getting away from me and how hilarious it was that my parents didn't love each other. I was already dealing with the pain at home, and I broke down a few times in class, especially because in Home Ec we were being taught how any family where the parents weren't married was a 'broken home' and fucks up the children etc. Ugh.

Then, between 15 and 17 my sister was deathly ill with anorexia. After school we used to go up to the hospital to see her, and essentially we were told that she was going to die. She was 5ft6 and 80lbs. Eventually she managed to get transferred to a specialist unit, but it took about 2 or 3 months for the health service to raise the money (Â£1m). So, on top of watching my sister essentially die, and my mum and dad have to deal with it, the kids at school found out. They decided that it was greatest thing ever, and how I deserved it because I made my parents split up, and how they hoped she died, about how it was all my fault. I made her anorexic because I was fat and she found me repulsive and didn't want to be like me, etc etc. I fell really badly into depression once she recovered and started self-harming. When she got back from the unit we had to deal with keeping up her eating routine, making sure she didn't purge, and the house was tense all the time. My mum was having a really bad time trying to look after Jen and deal with the divorce, and my dad had moved in with a new woman.

Those two periods were the worst it got. Everything else affected me, but actually wishing my sister would die to my face? Totally fucked up. Totally fucked up.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 3, 2011)

Well, I guess I'll tell my story too, since that's where we are. 

I was never bullied that bad--that was my brother. Mostly I was just ostracized. The other kids in my class didn't want a thing to do with me. If I tried to interact with them, they'd insult me and push at me until I went quiet or went away. It wasn't that typical for them to pursue me if I just kept to myself, though, so it was only ever particularly hurtful when I couldn't get away for some reason. (Class project, etc.,) So, most of the time I just stayed in the far corner of the playground or something. Some time in 5th grade I decided I was going to try my damndest to fix it, and tried to play in all the kickball games and so on, and it never got better. Left the year after, and haven't had bullying issues since.

My assumption is that early on, I just kind of looked weird. I was the only kid with curly hair, and didn't really know how to maintain it when I was a 1st grader, so it was always kind of wild looking. The other problem was that it was a private Catholic school with very small class sizes. (My class started at 20 and dwindled to 7 by the time I left in 6th grade.) Even after we got older and more mature, and I figured out how to take care of myself, there was no crowd to blend in with, there was no other clique to try my luck with, just these dozen or so kids that had always hated me and damned if they were going to change their ways now. Lastly, the school faculty wouldn't or couldn't help me. I would sometimes ask from teachers, and my ma complained to the principal, and nothing really came of it. A cynical part of me assumes that it was because our family was very poor at the time and never made donations. 

It would have been a pretty lonely time if I hadn't been friends with a heap of neighborhood kids. That's the main reason I don't just blame myself totally, is that I was fine with kids that weren't from that school. Still a little introverted, but not a failure. Calvin and Domi and Amy and Laura and Johnny and Lex and Dani and Sam and the lot all loved me, so it was something about that school in particular. I don't know for sure. 

Occasionally it did get worse though. There were a few kids in the class ahead of mine that also had a hate-on for me, but they were a little more pro-active. They'd smack me around a bit and were particularly fond of trapping me behind the dumpster, which was always swarming with hornets. I stood stock still, hardly even breathed, so I never did get stung--but that part really bothers me to think about. The way the playground was laid out, there's no way that the chaperone didn't see, yet she did nothing. It only happened a few times, though. 

So, all in all, not really that bad, and I did have friends to go home to afterward. I fail to see how any of it helped me. Mostly I learned how to run away and how to never trust authority figures to look out for you, lessons I would largely unlearn later in life. On the other hand, it also didn't really lead to any dramatic scars or something, at least nothing that I didn't also unlearn later. I did develop a great deal of compassion for outcasts, though.


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## Rsrallygrl (Oct 3, 2011)

Aleu said:


> You take offense to ROTC Nazi and blueberry? Damn that's some pretty thin skin.



When you are 16 and you have 60% of your friends who are Jewish to be compared to a Nazi and what they did/stood for was very offensive. To have it the repeatedly shoved in your face, harassed on the bus,written on walls and such it really gets to you. Looking back yeah I was think skinned and it definitively made me tougher a person. However not every child learns toughness like that.20/20 hindsight. Kids may try to come off cocky and know it all,  but its a front to prevent people from seeing how they really feel.


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## Ozriel (Oct 3, 2011)

I was bullied in my youth for a period of time up until 6th grade. I was always seen as that "Scraggily skinny girl" that didn't have good clothes and ate strange things because at the time, my mom had put my sister and I on a Vegetarian diet up until middle school. I would have to worry about the girls at school waiting on the corner to beat me up, and at the same time, I was ostracized from the class. I was always forced to sit in the back row, had to deal with constant kids spitting in my chair, throwing snot rags at me and stealing my supplies and books, writing profanities on my homework and submitting it to the teacher, and tossing my lunches into the garbage and teasing me during lunch when I had nothing to eat. If I told on them, I'd get beaten up. The worse a person could do is taking it into their own hands....which I did when I had gotten fed up with it. When my mother told me to ignore them, I did...but it made it worse because the head of the girls was attention starved. That peroid sucked.

It stopped them from harassing me, but I was looked on as worse than the bullies that beat me up almost every day for the school year. I bottled the main girl that started it all in anger. 
Regrets? No,. Proud of it? No.

You can add in uniforms, do whatever zero-tolerance bullshit policy in the school to prevent it. Will it work? No. 
Kids are cruel, that's the sad fact of the matter and bullying will exist. You take out one thing that prevents them from picking on another kid, they'll find ways. 
The myth about kids growing up in a troubled household is only partially true. Some are either spoiled and want to be punished, bad household issues due to bad parenting...or just get off on it because it feels good and knowing that you can have power over them.

It would be nice to live in a contempt society of hugboxes and rainbow piss vomit, where everyone can love their fellow man, but that utopian world does not exist.


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## Ozriel (Oct 3, 2011)

Commie Bat said:


> Though we all can agree that most kids, especially in the later years, are filled with nothing more than piss and vinegar.




In highschool at least, but it is somewhat subtle. Middle school can be the worse...but then again, it's my bias and what I've seen of Middle schoolers.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 3, 2011)

Zeke Shadowfyre said:


> You can add in uniforms, do whatever  zero-tolerance bullshit policy in the school to prevent it. Will it  work? No.


I disagree, having personally overseen a program  where bullying was nearly eliminated. Total elimination is likely impossible, I suppose you are correct there, but control and reduction is very realistic. 



Zeke Shadowfyre said:


> The myth about kids growing up in a troubled household is only partially true. Some are either spoiled and want to be punished, bad household issues due to bad parenting...or just get off on it because it feels good and knowing that you can have power over them.


This is completely true. Some bullies do what they do because of a bad background; many more do so out of peer pressure and cowardice. Kids from bad backgrounds are also equally likely to be bullied as they are to be bullies.


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## Volkodav (Oct 3, 2011)

One time my brother came up to my room while I was sleeping, started shit with me and spit on my jacket.
I kicked that fucker down the stairs. He never did that again

As long as you are physically stronger/sneakier/smarter than the other person, violence does solve shit.
I remember my brother once got in my way after starting shit, so I punched him in the stomach and he wouldn't enter the same room as me for about a month


Proud of it? Yes
Regrets? Nope


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## Ozriel (Oct 4, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> I disagree, having personally overseen a program  where bullying was nearly eliminated. Total elimination is likely impossible, I suppose you are correct there, but control and reduction is very realistic.



Where I am, it doesn't work well. You take away one thing, they will find something. It would be nice if they did then I wouldn't have to handle most of the bully bullshit that wanders into the library. 



> This is completely true. Some bullies do what they do because of a bad background; many more do so out of peer pressure and cowardice. Kids from bad backgrounds are also equally likely to be bullied as they are to be bullies.



In one school I went to where I got a free ride scholarship because I was a minority, the rich kids used to pick on the kids that weren't exactly rich. There weren't that many black people there, or Asians...or Latinos. Actually no latinos at all. One Asian out of the whole student body. 

My sister and I were generally sought out due to our class status and skin color. necessarily from bad backgrounds. You could have the "best" parents in the world and you could still turn out to be a brat, maybe because of your own social standards on the Student Body ladder.



Clayton said:


> One time my brother came up to my room while I was sleeping, started shit with me and spit on my jacket.
> I kicked that fucker down the stairs. He never did that again
> 
> As long as you are physically stronger/sneakier/smarter than the other person, violence does solve shit.
> ...



Colt 40 bottles work better. :V


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## Unsilenced (Oct 4, 2011)

Bullying =/= great life lessons. 

Depending on the situation there are more than a few ways to deal with being bullied, and not all that are effective are necessarily constructive...


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## cjkrythos (Oct 4, 2011)

Unsilenced said:


> The law is not a magical shield that just stops shit from happening. Sorry. It's not. Schools already have rules against most forms of bullying and all that laws could do would be to increase the consequences. If that was all it took to stop shit from happening we'd have public executions for everything and a crime-free utopia, but it's not.
> 
> Also, do you have any idea what it means to have a law passed by congress? Any idea? <br>
> 
> ...



agreed. Its like everyone thinks laws will protect you from everything. Its actually kinda pathetic how naive our nation has become. Laws will not stop something from happening, they will only make people want to hide the problem more than it already is. The only way a kid can stop bullying, is to stand up to the bully. Its a sad truth. A bully knows he can get away with what he does because the persom being bullied never does anything. hes embarrassed, so he doesnt ask for help, and when he does, the bully just lies about it or doesnt care about being put in detention or being grounded. His parents probably dont pay enough attention to punish him properly, so the only one present who cares enough to hand out said punishment, is the victims. This, unfortunately, means that the only effective way to get a bully to stop is to wait till he lands the first punch, and then kick his butt. I was about 100 lbs in high school, and I had more than my fair share of bullies. I've also only lost one major fight, but even though I lost and ended up with a concussion, I put the fear of god into the kid. he is still afraid of me, even to this day, and I hold no anger to him anymore. It was the fact that I was the first person to stand up to him. Me, 100 lbs of boney crap and he had the size and muscle of kingpin, yet I managed to land more than a few punches, one of which was right in the face(had to jump a bit to get that one XD), but I did it. I proved it could be done, and before you knew it, everyone was standing up to him. Same with the other 3 bullies I knocked down a peg. One in middle school was assaulted by kids that went to the elementary school down the street on his way to school. His friends who used to cheer him on started laughing at him after that and used to tell the story to everyone. 

Also, other kids who might bully a kid because he is seen as weak, will change their minds when they hear he stood up for himself. It was the same for me. Suddenly everyone knew who i was, even if I didn't know any of them and I never had to get into another fight throughout high school. Granted, I was also friends with more than a few people considered by the rest of the school to be certifiable psychopaths. Pulbic(and private schools too) school students look for every way to make themselves feel better so they can seem more popular. This commonly means harrassing others to make themselves feel cooler and thus, formed the cliques. The only kids who became popular without harming anyone were the stoners and the kids who started fads and maintained them throughout the fad. One of our stoners started a "hackie sack" fad and we soon had dozens of kids playing in and out of the school grounds. Despite being one of the kids who got made fun of hundreds of times in elementary school as "the mucus machine", he easily reestablished himself in high school as one of the coolest kids in the entire school. 

The only downside to defending yourself against a bully is having the school system crack down on you for fighting. The only way to get back up from this is to involve your parents, and hope they don't have their heads up their A**es. Mine, thankfully, stood up for me where I could not. &nbsp;Adults will only listen to adults and the schools dont really care about the individual anymore. &nbsp;They find it easier to just ban both students permanently from school and move onto other issues. These problems would go away a lot easier if each case of fighting were reviewed in a serious manner and let kids actually kick the crap out of each other like they should. Unfortunately intelligent solutions were never one of society's strong suites.


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## Volkodav (Oct 4, 2011)

Commie Bat said:


> Sort of solves it.  Usually it just makes the situation worse, and they typically bring more people next time.  Thus causing more shit to happen; only to be solved by what?  More violence.
> Though that was your brother on a one on one; so the end result doesn't surprise me.


 
That's why you take out the strongest/"leader" in a group of people.
aint nobody gonna fuck with you if you take out the head guy


except black girls
theyll fight anybody.

[yt]t0vHdU7VRKA[/yt]


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## Ozriel (Oct 4, 2011)

Clayton said:


> That's why you take out the strongest/"leader" in a group of people.
> aint nobody gonna fuck with you if you take out the head guy
> 
> 
> ...




Correction, "Ghetto" black girls. 
There's one at work that has been picking a fight with me.


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## Volkodav (Oct 4, 2011)

Zeke Shadowfyre said:


> Correction, "Ghetto" black girls.
> There's one at work that has been picking a fight with me.


Yeah sorry, the ghetto** ones will pick fights with anybody


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 4, 2011)

Zeke Shadowfyre said:


> Where I am, it doesn't work well. You take away one thing, they will find something. It would be nice if they did then I wouldn't have to handle most of the bully bullshit that wanders into the library.


No, you don't just take away one thing, you need a consistently enforced system for it, and the younger it's implemented, the better. From the sound of your story, your teachers were actually ignoring what was happening to you, which tells me that there either was no protocol for bullying or it wasn't being enforced well at all. Of course little gestures here and there weren't going to work--spotty enforcement can be worse than no enforcement. 

Although, I can see where for some schools it would be the least of the school's problems, and the issue would necessarily get little attention. Such things are unfortunate, but I suppose require acknowledgment.


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## Bambi (Oct 5, 2011)

Bullying is a front of confidence, supported with a fear of self.


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## Digitalpotato (Oct 5, 2011)

Clayton said:


> That's why you take out the strongest/"leader" in a group of people.
> aint nobody gonna fuck with you if you take out the head guy



Unless the rest of the group decides that they can still fuck with you because you can beat someone up one on one...but if someone does something like grab your arms while the others line up and punch you or gang up on you..


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 5, 2011)

Digitalpotato said:


> Unless the rest of the group decides that they can still fuck with you because you can beat someone up one on one...but if someone does something like grab your arms while the others line up and punch you or gang up on you..



It's situation is different. One of my best friends irl kept getting picked on by all the local chavs, he got into a few fights with them. Then one night a chav all the other chavs looked up to as being the toughest stepped up to my friend, my friend dropped him like a sack of spuds. He never got any trouble after that. 

But like I said, different situations will vary, what works for one person at one location, may not work for someone else who's somewhere else.


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## Digitalpotato (Oct 6, 2011)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> It's situation is different. One of my best friends irl kept getting picked on by all the local chavs, he got into a few fights with them. Then one night a chav all the other chavs looked up to as being the toughest stepped up to my friend, my friend dropped him like a sack of spuds. He never got any trouble after that.
> 
> But like I said, different situations will vary, what works for one person at one location, may not work for someone else who's somewhere else.




You're pretty damn lucky, you know that? :< Every time that happened out here, they just came back with a weapon or something to give them a bigger advantage.


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## Volkodav (Oct 6, 2011)

Bambi said:


> Bullying is a front of confidence, supported with a fear of self.


 You gotta be pretty damn bad ass to be afraid of yourself



Digitalpotato said:


> Unless the rest of the group decides that they can still fuck with you because you can beat someone up one on one...but if someone does something like grab your arms while the others line up and punch you or gang up on you..


 
You watch too many movies
Fights =/= guy walks up behind another guy and grabs his arms and then the big tough bully who wears a vest beats him upa nd punches him in the stomach


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## Digitalpotato (Oct 10, 2011)

Clayton said:


> You watch too many movies
> Fights =/= guy walks up behind another guy and grabs his arms and then the big tough bully who wears a vest beats him upa nd punches him in the stomach



You've never been out here, have you?


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## Term_the_Schmuck (Oct 10, 2011)

Zeke Shadowfyre said:


> Correction, "Ghetto" black girls.
> There's one at work that has been picking a fight with me.



Keep that pimp hand strong, Zeke.


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## Vaelarsa (Oct 10, 2011)

I used to get "bullied"_ (I don't even know if it's considered "bullying," because I was more teased and harassed and stolen from, not really beat up.)_.

I think it just built character.
I stopped letting my self-esteem be impacted by the opinions of others over my own.
I stopped being as shy and wanting to please everyone.
I learned how to protect myself and my shit.
 I learned to put up with shit I don't like without it being _"OMGZ THE END OF THE WURLD!!!"_

So I don't know.
I think a bit of teasing and putting up with assholes is good for development in a child's life. But that's only to a certain extent.


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## Ozriel (Oct 10, 2011)

Term_the_Schmuck said:


> Keep that pimp hand strong, Zeke.


 
My pimp hand has been known to crack teeth, and so I shall keep it strong.


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## FireFeathers (Oct 11, 2011)

TECHNOLOGY* IS *TO BLAME. THE CAMERA FLASH STEALS YOUR SOUL!


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## Deo (Oct 11, 2011)

My father used to tell me "Might makes right" and "The strong eat; the weak are meat." To an extent I still believe in both. Witihin reason of course. A stong economy is powered by people striving to get what they want, your goals are reached by will and determination, you have to be strong to succeed.


I was bullied, I was a bully. I honestly think a little roughing up of kids does them good and makes them humbler. Teaches a few lessons in it as well building some character. Sorry to rain on all the parades of everyone having a "I was bullied" pitywankfest.


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## Volkodav (Oct 11, 2011)

Deo said:


> My father used to tell me "Might makes right" and "The strong eat; the weak are meat." To an extent I still believe in both. Witihin reason of course. A stong economy is powered by people striving to get what they want, your goals are reached by will and determination, you have to be strong to succeed.
> 
> 
> I was bullied, I was a bully. I honestly think a little roughing up of kids does them good and makes them humbler. Teaches a few lessons in it as well building some character. Sorry to rain on all the parades of everyone having a "I was bullied" pitywankfest.


If you punch a steak repeatedly, it doesn't make the steak a rack of ribs, it just toughens the steak up into shoe-leather.
I don't really believe it teaches lessons, unless by "lessons" you mean "it's not okay to dress like ___", "it's not okay to be gay" and "haha, you sit by yourself, let me alienate you even further"


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 11, 2011)

Deo said:


> My father used to tell me "Might makes right" and "The strong eat; the weak are meat." To an extent I still believe in both. Witihin reason of course. A stong economy is powered by people striving to get what they want, your goals are reached by will and determination, you have to be strong to succeed.
> 
> 
> I was bullied, I was a bully. I honestly think a little roughing up of kids does them good and makes them humbler. Teaches a few lessons in it as well building some character. Sorry to rain on all the parades of everyone having a "I was bullied" pitywankfest.


To an extent I would agree. The problem is, you go too far down that road and you end up with horror stories. I cannot accept that it did my brother any good to be beaten and alienated daily while adults looked on--truly, his life was a complete wreck until the past year or so. Gavrill dropping out for fear of being attacking by 20 older boys and killed, while adults treated it like it was a non-issue because it was "just bullying," did Gav no good at all. Ramsay's teachers, and the _local police_, turning their heads when her friend was being sexually assaulted because it was "just bullying," did no one any good at all. What happened to this guy, did no good at all.

Now, I made that point a few times before, and the response was always, "Well that doesn't count, that's not the bullying I'm talking about," or something along those lines. The problem is, every one of those cases happened because the adults in charge _did  _think it was "just bullying" and that the child should just deal with it themselves. Every one of those situations was allowed to happen because there was some adult saying that might makes right, if the _child_ can't deal with it (being beaten daily, having their life threatened, being raped--things that their aggressors would go to jail for in "real life"), then so be it. Every one of those cases was perpetuated by teachers, school faculty, parents, and other adults that didn't think bullying could ever be a real issue. 

I can agree that a bit of mild bullying could be good for most kids. That fact is, though, it can and does reach truly abusive and heinous levels, and adults that stick their fingers in their ears and repeat their "it's just bullying it's good for you" mantra are perpetuating a system that can destroy a child. If a person says, "Bullying is good for you," but fails to draw a line, fails to acknowledge that it _can_ cross a line, well. That's very worrying. 

Now I was never bullied that bad--never hurt me that bad, but didn't really do me any good either, mostly it taught me lessons that I unlearned later anyway. But I digress, it was my brother's experience, to be bullied over the line like that. But go back and read Ramsay's story, or Gav's, and read about their pain, and then dismiss it as a pitywankfest, instead of a telling account about why this issue is more serious than people realize. I'm glad for you, that your experience helped you. However, while you can apply that to a lot of situations, you can't apply it to all of them.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Oct 11, 2011)

I just saw this video on YT! Relevant content, gotta love foamy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZCUJEWuyow&feature=feedu


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## Heimdal (Oct 11, 2011)

Deo's point stands strong, in my opinion.

I wouldn't consider extreme cases of harassment and assault mere "bullying". This is illegal activity being excused away by the adults looking in at it. If any particular bullying problem can't be solved with some good confidence, and/or a solid punch, I'd have a tough time calling it bullying at all. You might as well be walking down a shady downtown street at midnight; if being mugged is equally damaging, then why the different terminology?

I honestly think the terminology is messed up, and makes everything more convoluted to the aggressor's benefit. As long as "_Johnny pushes Jimmy and laughs"_ and "_Johnny gang-beats Jimmy"_ are both considered bullying, there is a problem. There is a wide difference, and calling them the same thing is just going to give the worse one more excuses to cling to if a punishment ever comes.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 11, 2011)

Heimdal said:


> Deo's point stands strong, in my opinion.


The point that mild bullying can do some good to a child is not one I necessarily disagree with.



Heimdal said:


> I wouldn't consider extreme cases of harassment and assault mere "bullying". This is illegal activity being excused away by the adults looking in at it. If any particular bullying problem can't be solved with some good confidence, and/or a solid punch, I'd have a tough time calling it bullying at all. You might as well be walking down a shady downtown street at midnight; if being mugged is equally damaging, then why the different terminology?
> 
> I honestly think the terminology is messed up, and makes everything more convoluted to the aggressor's benefit. As long as "_Johnny pushes Jimmy and laughs"_ and "_Johnny gang-beats Jimmy"_ are both considered bullying, there is a problem. There is a wide difference, and calling them the same thing is just going to give the worse one more excuses to cling to if a punishment ever comes.


I suppose I can agree with this, but you're wording it in a strange way, like it's the fault of the people who do think it's an issue who are at fault for these aggressions going unexamined. It's not the people who are saying, "Bullying is a bigger issue than you think, it can cross a line, it's something we need to look at," who are allowing these things to happen. It's the people that sit there with their fingers in their ears and go on and on about how bullying can only build character, that the children should just tough it out, who allow things to cross the line. The people that let my brother be beaten, let Gav's life get threatened, let Ramsay's friends get raped--they were not the sort to take bullying seriously, they had decided that bullying was always harmless, and that they were going to ignore it even if it was far, far out of hand. Mild bullying itself not a terrible problem, but unchecked, it can lead to far worse things. 

Now, I'm not saying that Deo would turn away and let someone get beaten or raped, she's shown herself to be a very morally upright person, and I have a great deal of respect for her. But this insistence that it's only ever a good thing, without any caveat about its ability to cross to line and turn into something horrific, is only contributing the cultural norms that allowed those horror stories to happen. I'm not suggesting that we try to abolish bullying completely, and I don't particularly think that legislation will help, but as a culture we need to realize that it needs to be kept in check, we need to acknowledge that it can cross the line. It _does not_ go without saying. My brother and Gavrill and Ramsay and this guy can tell you that. Each one of them went though what they went through, in great part, because an adult dismissed the issue as harmless, character-building bullying, and refused to consider it further.


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## Heimdal (Oct 11, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> I suppose I can agree with this, but you're wording it in a strange way, like it's the fault of the people who do think it's an issue who are at fault for these aggressions going unexamined. It's not the people who are saying, "Bullying is a bigger issue than you think, it can cross a line, it's something we need to look at," who are allowing these things to happen. It's the people that sit there with their fingers in their ears and go on and on about how bullying can only build character, that the children should just tough it out, who allow things to cross the line. The people that let my brother be beaten, let Gav's life get threatened, let Ramsay's friends get raped--they were not the sort to take bullying seriously, they had decided that bullying was always harmless, and that they were going to ignore it even if it was far, far out of hand. Mild bullying itself not a terrible problem, but unchecked, it can lead to far worse things.
> 
> Now, I'm not saying that Deo would turn away and let someone get beaten or raped, she's shown herself to be a very morally upright person, and I have a great deal of respect for her. But this insistence that it's only ever a good thing, without any caveat about its ability to cross to line and turn into something horrific, is only contributing the cultural norms that allowed those horror stories to happen. I'm not suggesting that we try to abolish bullying completely, and I don't particularly think that legislation will help, but as a culture we need to realize that it needs to be kept in check, we need to acknowledge that it can cross the line. It _does not_ go without saying. My brother and Gavrill and Ramsay and this guy can tell you that.



I agree with this, but I am faulting the people concerned over bullying for as much of it. The people with fingers in their ears aren't thinking of the extremes when everyone is complaining about "bullying". If those cases are referred along the lines of "criminal activity", which it pretty much is, the reaction would be totally different.

Kids shouldn't be kept in a padded box, but they need to be protected from serious harm. It's ridiculous that both sides of adults generally look at the schoolyard and do not/cannot determine the difference.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 11, 2011)

Heimdal said:


> I agree with this, but I am faulting the people concerned over bullying for as much of it. The people with fingers in their ears aren't thinking of the extremes when everyone is complaining about "bullying". If those cases are referred along the lines of "criminal activity", which it pretty much is, the reaction would be totally different.


The thing is, they think of it so little, that they don't realize when it's happening, and do nothing about it. See: My brother, Gavrill, Ramsay's friend, etc., That is why this issue needs to be discussed and needs to be taken more seriously. That is what Onnes and Ramsay and the others and I are talking about.



Heimdal said:


> Kids shouldn't be kept in a padded box, but they need to be protected from serious harm. It's ridiculous that both sides of adults generally look at the schoolyard and do not/cannot determine the difference.


I have mentioned the difference a number of times, several times in the post you quoted alone. Several others who are on the same side of the discussion and I am have made similar distinctions. (Ramsay went into it at great length on her first post on the thread, way back on page 1. I do wish that post had not been so badly ignored, I don't think it's gotten a lick of acknowledgement until now.) But perhaps you were not referring to us. 

I can see that we agree on the issue for the most part, though.


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## CannotWait (Oct 11, 2011)

Children who are worried about bullying should receive regular doses of steroids and amphetamines by the school nurse.  If the bullying ever gets too bad, give the victim a pocket knife and shot of adrenaline. They won't be bullied again.


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## Volkodav (Oct 11, 2011)

CannotWait said:


> Children who are worried about bullying should receive regular doses of steroids and amphetamines by the school nurse.  If the bullying ever gets too bad, give the victim a pocket knife and shot of adrenaline. They won't be bullied again.


Fuck yeah, Columbine! That'll show em.
That's what bullying creates


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## Heimdal (Oct 11, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> The thing is, they think of it so little, that they don't realize when it's happening, and do nothing about it. See: My brother, Gavrill, Ramsay's friend, etc., That is why this issue needs to be discussed and needs to be taken more seriously. That is what Onnes and Ramsay and the others and I are talking about.
> 
> 
> I have mentioned the difference a number of times, several times in the post you quoted alone. Several others who are on the same side of the discussion and I am have made similar distinctions. (Ramsay went into it at great length on her first post on the thread, way back on page 1.) But perhaps you were not referring to me.
> ...



No, I'm not referring to anyone here, just the general adult populace. Also I am just bitching about terminology. The whole official Anti-bully fight is lead by people saying that bullying is bad, but a lot of the people they are left to convince were probably minor bullies themselves, or had completely manageable experiences with bullies when they were young. They would probably think of "severe bullying" as some kid taking things too far by sheer accident. The problem is way more than that, and it ought to be differentiated completely. If they changed the terminology, they'd change the fight.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 11, 2011)

Heimdal said:


> No, I'm not referring to anyone here, just the general adult populace. Also I am just bitching about terminology. The whole official Anti-bully fight is lead by people saying that bullying is bad, but a lot of the people they are left to convince were probably minor bullies themselves, or had completely manageable experiences with bullies when they were young. They would probably think of "severe bullying" as some kid taking things too far by sheer accident. The problem is way more than that, and it ought to be differentiated completely. If they changed the terminology, they'd change the fight.


Mm, that's fair, I suppose. I could agree with that. Still, while I hate to sound like the guy pointing fingers and screaming about who's fault it is, I do think the responsibility for these situations rests more on the shoulder of adults who are so blindly pro-bullying that they don't see when things get out of hand right in front of their faces. I find it hard to believe that it is the wording used by advocates such as myself that they are so unable to make the distinction, which they do with some frequency; that it is an error on my part when it happens right in front of them and they still do nothing, with the justification that "bullying builds character" or what have you. (I've listed the examples enough times that I think it'd make me sick to type it out out again.)


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## Volkodav (Oct 11, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Mm, that's fair, I suppose. I could agree with that. Still, while I hate to sound like the guy pointing fingers and screaming about who's fault it is, I do think the responsibility for these situations rests more on the shoulder of adults who are so blindly pro-bullying that they don't see when things get out of hand right in front of their faces. (I've listed the examples enough times that I think it'd make me sick to type it out out again.)


What about the parents who are anti-bullying but don't notice the signs of a bully in their kid?


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 11, 2011)

Clayton said:


> What about the parents who are anti-bullying but don't notice the signs of a bully in their kid?


Well, they should be more aware of their family, or someone should point it out to them, I guess. If they've got a vicious (or criminal) bully of a kid and haven't noticed it or are in denial or something, then I suppose they are indirectly responsible one way or another, but mostly I'm talking about adults like the faculty of schools like my brother and Gavrill and Ramsay went to, where it was happening right in front of them (or reported directly to them) and they weren't doing anything about it because it was "just bullying."


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## Onnes (Oct 11, 2011)

There are two issues inherent in having an acceptable level of bullying. First, who defines what is acceptable? Clearly some adults are perfectly happy to watch kids be driven to suicide without lifting a finger. But moving away from the extreme while remaining cynical, what of those adults who were once themselves bullies, would they have a tendency to find bullying comparable to their previous behavior perfectly acceptable? Also, if a child complains about bullying, is that complaint ignored if the bullying is judged to be within the acceptable limit?

EDIT: Aside from deciding what is actually acceptable, you then have to deal with escalation into the unacceptable. By labeling such behavior as acceptable in the first place you leave the path wide open for it to transform into more extreme harassment. Such an approval also makes it more difficult to crack down on unacceptable behavior, since in many cases it will only be a matter of severity.

Generally speaking, I believe we should aim for school environments that are both tolerable for all students involved and also conducive to learning. It is hard enough to get many kids engaged in their education in the best of circumstances, and this situation becomes even worse when harassment and other negative behaviors are commonplace during school hours. I'm not sure why patterns of behavior which are considered damaging and undesirable in adult interactions suddenly become necessary and productive when they appear among schoolchildren.


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## Volkodav (Oct 11, 2011)

Onnes said:


> Also, if a child complains about bullying, is that complaint ignored if the bullying is judged to be within the acceptable limit?


Schools take bullying very seriously. Unless it's a shitty school and just so happens to be in the USA no surprise hurrrr

Come to think of it, this is "the worst massacre in Canadian history"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_Polytechnique_massacre

Canada > USA when it comes to bullying, no offense.

[yt]bTq7tbjILHc[/yt]

I believe the reason why bullying is so rampant in the states is because the states is sue-happy. If their child doesn't get injured, they don't get $$ for suing the parent or school.
Children in america are cheques. Living, breathing cheques.


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## Unsilenced (Oct 11, 2011)

Clayton said:


> I believe the reason why bullying is so rampant in the states is because the states is sue-happy. If their child doesn't get injured, they don't get $$ for suing the parent or school.
> Children in america are cheques. Living, breathing cheques.



Whatthefuckamireading.jpg

This does not even _approach _logic.


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## Volkodav (Oct 11, 2011)

Unsilenced said:


> Whatthefuckamireading.jpg
> 
> This does not even _approach _logic.


its da troofs

also, women who have babies just for the welfare cheques. those piss me off  but i bet they happen in canada too


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## Dj_whoohoo (Oct 11, 2011)

Bullying is not something you can just stop all together. No matter what, I've been on both sides of bullying. I was a bully and I got bullied. Thats when I just got all caps rage and fought this one guy. One hit ko, since it was self defense I stood in that school and always been quiet after that. Now some people who see me coming are sometimes intimidated but I'm friendly. 

But back to the topic, even if there is a law. There will be criminals who do it on the sly. Bullying like a disease with no cure. You can't stop it.
The way I see you can fix it is have kids who were observed by teachers who were suspected to have been bullied take self defense classes.
Then we won't lose another potential genius to bullying.


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## Digitalpotato (Oct 11, 2011)

Clayton said:


> I believe the reason why bullying is so rampant in the states is because the states is sue-happy. If their child doesn't get injured, they don't get $$ for suing the parent or school.
> Children in america are cheques. Living, breathing cheques.



It's more because they can *get away* with it.

I'd seriously love to see people stand up to a bully and they actually leave them alone - out here, they would just come back with more ammo on their side. The only people who actually got left alone were people who had rumours of parents with access to ammunition.


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## Volkodav (Oct 11, 2011)

Digitalpotato said:


> It's more because they can *get away* with it.
> 
> I'd seriously love to see people stand up to a bully and they actually leave them alone - out here, they would just come back with more ammo on their side. The only people who actually got left alone were people who had rumours of parents with access to ammunition.


thats funny
bullies wont leave you alone if you stand up to them

gradeschool was bad for me because i was a wee lad but then in highschool when i was an emo bitch i wore sweaters all the tim even in the summer
the bullying didnt happen then. probably because they thought i had like a big vest covered in weapons under my sweater or something


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## Unsilenced (Oct 11, 2011)

There's something to be said for being a sketchy sonofabitch. Through high school I consistently wore black all the time and paced back and forth in front of the school for as much as an hour every day (I had an empty period.) 

It wasn't intentional, but apparently I scared a few people like that, including a guy who was... less than nice to me. 

 Beware the quiet ones. :v


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## Xenke (Oct 12, 2011)

When I was little, I bullied some kids solely because of their shoes.

When you're young, brown shoes are, like, the most hilariously ugly thing ever. It needs to be mocked relentlessly.

Also I bullied some people who had funny names, but that's probably because I myself suffered from perpetual comments on my own. So it's like, making fun of someone else to make myself feel better. I love my name now though, I actually like it when someone acknowledges it and makes a comment. It's not like I haven't heard them all.

The thing is, no one tried to stop me then. Even in a Montesorri school (arguably more attention is paid to students in Montesorri, though I've personally been in school which failed miserably in this aspect), the teachers were quite passive to this behavior. They sure as hell didn't encourage it, but they did nothing to stop it. Seriously, if any teacher had busted me for it, it would have ended. But then again, if they had, I wouldn't have felt the eventual responsibility for making these poor classmates sad, which ultimately stopped the behavior all together.

My posts have been rambly lately, weird.


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## Heimdal (Oct 12, 2011)

Onnes said:


> I'm not sure why patterns of behavior which are considered damaging and undesirable in adult interactions suddenly become necessary and productive when they appear among schoolchildren.



Bullying does very much exist in adult life, it's just usually more refined. Bullying is pretty much just a power/dominance thing, isn't it? It's not all necessarily damaging and undesirable, as people get hired for some of those same traits a lot of times. The point is, it doesn't end completely when they finish high school, there's just a lot more ways to deal with it after that point. Dealing with people who throw around their egos and social power is something kids need to learn, not because adults are sadistically amused, but because as adults we have to deal with it all the time ourselves.

Bullying exists because we are social animals. It's part of our nature, and there's nothing we can do about that. What we can do is put a cap on how far we let it go.


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## Deo (Oct 12, 2011)

Heimdal said:


> Deo's point stands strong, in my opinion.
> 
> I wouldn't consider extreme cases of harassment and assault mere "bullying". This is illegal activity being excused away by the adults looking in at it. If any particular bullying problem can't be solved with some good confidence, and/or a solid punch, I'd have a tough time calling it bullying at all. You might as well be walking down a shady downtown street at midnight; if being mugged is equally damaging, then why the different terminology?
> 
> I honestly think the terminology is messed up, and makes everything more convoluted to the aggressor's benefit. As long as "_Johnny pushes Jimmy and laughs"_ and "_Johnny gang-beats Jimmy"_ are both considered bullying, there is a problem. There is a wide difference, and calling them the same thing is just going to give the worse one more excuses to cling to if a punishment ever comes.



This. Anything that lasts for long periods of time and is beyond the time of school (like around the clock harrassment) or physical attacks requiring a hospital visit I would not consider bullying. I'd put such under stalking (for the excessive, long term, constant harrassment) and assult which are both illegal.


However a few punches, or getting the snot pummeled out of someone never really did them too much harm in my book. Made a person more humble, ya know? Taught you to stick up for yourself. Take what you want from the world. Be assertive. All of which are good lessons for kids. I still have some pride over some of the fights I got into, and sure it hurt like hell at the time, but it left you a good story later and a lesson learned (even if it was a lesson like "concrete is hard"). I'm not one to take bullying lightly, don't any of you for a second think that just because *I was a bully *means that I have no empathy for "victims". I've had my nose broken nine fucking times. More concussions than is safe, and bones broken. Hell, my dad made me walk on my broken foot for a month. And you know what? I'm good. Decent citizen, somewhat of a samaritan, honest, ethical. It built character.


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## Volkodav (Oct 12, 2011)

Xenke said:


> When I was little, I bullied some kids solely because of their shoes.
> 
> When you're young, brown shoes are, like, the most hilariously ugly thing ever. It needs to be mocked relentlessly.
> 
> ...


Tell us your retarded name


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## Xenke (Oct 12, 2011)

Clayton said:


> Tell us your retarded name



Hellnaw, it'll pretty much lead you directly to my IRL identity, and that would be so not cool.

Only people in the friend circle get to know my name. And despite the fact that I said "we're all friends here" in another thread, we're not _that_ good of friends.

Also, I'm too paranoid for that. :B


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## Deo (Oct 12, 2011)

I am also curious about the retarded name I promise to only pester you about it slightly on random occasions, but not often.


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## Aleu (Oct 12, 2011)

Waffles said:


> Thaaaaat is dumb.
> "You don't want to report someone you're deathly afraid of? Oh, you deserved it then."
> I remember being bullied in first grade. When there's 2-3 much bigger kids making fun of you, knowing that if you -DO- report them something could happen to you later, what do you do? Sometimes, just learning to cope is the way. Sometimes, you need to report. Like it's been said, each case is different.



I'm just saying if a kid is constantly whining about being beaten up then not doing anything about it then why should they expect someone to come to their rescue if no one knows what the hell is going on?
"Oh poor me, someone keeps stealing my money/pushing me around. But i'm not going to say anything."
*facepalm*




Rsrallygrl said:


> When you are 16 and you have 60% of your friends who are Jewish to be compared to a Nazi and what they did/stood for was very offensive. To have it the repeatedly shoved in your face, harassed on the bus,written on walls and such it really gets to you. Looking back yeah I was think skinned and it definitively made me tougher a person. However not every child learns toughness like that.20/20 hindsight. Kids may try to come off cocky and know it all,  but its a front to prevent people from seeing how they really feel.


The only reason you're really "compared" to Nazis is the fact that ROTC rhymes if you sound it out. That's it. If they still call you a Nazi (and mean it) when most of your friends are Jewish then why so offended? You should be laughing at their stupidity.



Unsilenced said:


> Whatthefuckamireading.jpg
> 
> This does not even _approach _logic.



It's completely true. Every time you turn your head, some parent is bitching and complaining and threatening to sue the school or whatever for every little reason.


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## Xenke (Oct 12, 2011)

*siggghhhhh* I guess this is what I get for being such a tease.

I really don't want it becoming public knowledge though. Like, I'm serious here. Anyone truly interested can PM me, but who I actually tell will be on a case-to-case basis. :\\\\\\\\\

Also bear in mind that it's not totally ridiculous, but a certain cultural reference has forever haunted me.


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## Volkodav (Oct 12, 2011)

Xenke said:


> Hellnaw, it'll pretty much lead you directly to my IRL identity, and that would be so not cool.
> 
> Only people in the friend circle get to know my name. And despite the fact that I said "we're all friends here" in another thread, we're not _that_ good of friends.
> 
> Also, I'm too paranoid for that. :B


 
... what.
how will knowing your name get me to know your address


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## Unsilenced (Oct 12, 2011)

Aleu said:


> It's completely true. Every time you turn your head, some parent is bitching and complaining and threatening to sue the school or whatever for every little reason.



High or not, the rate of bullshit lawsuits against would have to be absolutely insane in order to be relevant to the rate of bullying, and even then why would the potential consequence of being sued into oblivion make parents and teachers LESS likely to care about bullying? 

"Ah let him beat the nerd up. So what if they sue? We're a school! We have plenty of money, right?"


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## Xenke (Oct 12, 2011)

Clayton said:


> ... what.
> how will knowing your name get me to know your address



It's not very common. At all.

Also, I never said that.


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## Volkodav (Oct 12, 2011)

Xenke said:


> It's not very common. At all.
> 
> Also, I never said that.


How will I, a man up in fucking Canada, find out your IRL identity by knowing your first name.

"it'll pretty much lead you directly to my IRL identity,"

Durrr


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## Xenke (Oct 12, 2011)

Clayton said:


> How will I, a man up in fucking Canada, find out your IRL identity by knowing your first name.
> 
> "it'll pretty much lead you directly to my IRL identity,"
> 
> Durrr



I'm not talking about first name, seeing as I've never really been called by my first name by anyone ever for most of my life.

I'm pretty sure I've posted my first name on here before, even.


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## Volkodav (Oct 12, 2011)

Xenke said:


> I'm not talking about first name, seeing as I've never really been called by my first name by anyone ever for most of my life.
> 
> I'm pretty sure I've posted my first name on here before, even.


ok tell me your weird name, i dont even know your first name


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 12, 2011)

Deo said:


> This. Anything that lasts for long periods of time and is beyond the time of school (like around the clock harrassment) or physical attacks requiring a hospital visit I would not consider bullying. I'd put such under stalking (for the excessive, long term, constant harrassment) and assult which are both illegal.


Fair enough. What happens when school faculty and other adults look the other way because they've been conditioned to think "it's just bullying, it can never be serious"? It's not that rare. It happened my brother, it happened to Ramsay's friend, it happened to Gavrill, it happened to this guy, it happened to this kid. (In the last case, the adult in question did finally act, but only after the kid need reconstruction surgery and had apparently developed PTSD.)



Deo said:


> However a few punches, or getting the snot pummeled out of someone never really did them too much harm in my book. Made a person more humble, ya know? Taught you to stick up for yourself. Take what you want from the world. Be assertive. All of which are good lessons for kids. I still have some pride over some of the fights I got into, and sure it hurt like hell at the time, but it left you a good story later and a lesson learned (even if it was a lesson like "concrete is hard"). I'm not one to take bullying lightly, don't any of you for a second think that just because *I was a bully *means that I have no empathy for "victims". I've had my nose broken nine fucking times. More concussions than is safe, and bones broken. Hell, my dad made me walk on my broken foot for a month. And you know what? I'm good. Decent citizen, somewhat of a samaritan, honest, ethical. It built character.


You're very quick to assume that your situation in life is applicable to all situations. If I took the beatings that you took, I would have ended up with lifelong debilitation due to my connective tissue disorder. (Which we didn't realize was in the family until I was 15; I never had particular protections before then.) Hell the wrong hit could have killed or paralyzed me; dislocated spines don't have the best recovery rates.

Both my my mother and brother have chronic TMJ from jaw trauma as kids. My ma got pushed onto the sidewalk and developed something called Tarlov cysts, which are cysts that grow in your spine, typically after trauma to the spine. (Not necessarily a break, and EDS folks are very prone to it.) Sometimes Tarlov cysts are harmless but sometimes they cause terrible pain among other things; my mother was essentially unable to sit upright for prolonged periods without terrible pain throughout much of her life. Doesn't sound like much of an issue until you remember how much of a car-based society America is, she essentially became trapped in the house. When she got the surgery--and a lot of the time the cysts just come back, or the nerve damage doesn't heal, she got lucky for once though--that was another year of her life out the window for recovery, you don't fuck around with recovery from spinal surgery especially if you're already fragile. So all that pain and wasted time, and why? The docs say the cysts likely developed in reaction to that punk shoving her down on the sidewalk, not breaking her tailbone, but causing it significant trauma. Some life lesson.

So no, a beating is no good for everyone. It's not necessary to create a decent human being either. I was never beaten around and still became a hardworking, ethical person. My brother _was_ beaten around, probably worse than you (it was near-daily and he was ganged up on, no chance of defending himself), and it turned him into a distrustful, angry, fearful person and that pretty much wrecked him up until he was about 26 and started getting therapy. His life's slowly been getting back on track for the past year or so, but he's still got chronic pain (TMJ) from that, and only after a lifetime wasted on fear. You can't apply your situation to all situations, and forgive me if I'd rather err on the side of not beating children to a pulp.

(EDIT: Not that you can apply my family's situation to all situations either, but it indicates that there are some significant exceptions.)


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## Deo (Oct 12, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> You're very quick to assume that your situation in life is applicable to all situations. If I took the beatings that you took, I would have ended up with lifelong debilitation due to my connective tissue disorder. (Which we didn't realize was in the family until I was 15; I never had particular protections before then.) Hell the wrong hit could have killed or paralyzed me; dislocated spines don't have the best recovery rates.


You have a valid point. But what I'm talking about isn't anything so violent as what I went through. For most kids a few shoves or a punch or a kick every so often won't do any sort of lasting harm or damage, and that's the scenario I mostly have in mind.



Ad Hoc said:


> My ma got pushed onto the sidewalk and developed something called Tarlov cysts, which are cysts that grow in your spine, typically after trauma to the spine. (Not necessarily a break, and EDS folks are very prone to it.) Sometimes Tarlov cysts are harmless but sometimes they cause terrible pain among other things; my mother was essentially unable to sit upright for prolonged periods without terrible pain throughout much of her life. Doesn't sound like much of an issue until you remember how much of a car-based society America is, she essentially became trapped in the house. When she got the surgery--and a lot of the time the cysts just come back, or the nerve damage doesn't heal, she got lucky for once though--that was another year of her life out the window for recovery, you don't fuck around with recovery from spinal surgery especially if you're already fragile. So all that pain and wasted time, and why? The docs say the cysts likely developed in reaction to that punk shoving her down on the sidewalk, not breaking her tailbone, but causing it significant trauma. Some life lesson.


This... is something I'll really have to think about. It strikes home because I did break someone's tailbone once by throwing them onto ice. (they were trying to choke me out, but still, this new knowledge has me morally bothered).



Ad Hoc said:


> So no, a beating is no good for everyone. It's not necessary to create a decent human being either. I was never beaten around and still became a hardworking, ethical person.


No, I'm not saying it's *necessary *to get kicked around in order to be a model citizen. Being bullied is certainly not a prerequisite to being a good person later on in life. I just think that there are some life lessons in it if it is not extreme.



Ad Hoc said:


> My brother _was_ beaten around, probably worse than you (it was near-daily and he was ganged up on, no chance of defending himself),


Five on me. Almost every day when I could not outrun them or punch them down before they grouped. One hung back and kept watch usually so it really was only four.



Ad Hoc said:


> and it turned him into a distrustful, angry, fearful person and that pretty much wrecked him up until he was about 26 and started getting therapy. His life's slowly been getting back on track for the past year or so, but he's still got chronic pain (TMJ) from that, and only after a lifetime wasted on fear. You can't apply your situation to all situations, and forgive me if I'd rather err on the side of not beating children to a pulp.
> 
> (EDIT: Not that you can apply my family's situation to all situations either, but it indicates that there are some significant exceptions.)


There are exceptions to every rule or concept.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 12, 2011)

Deo said:


> You have a valid point. But what I'm talking about isn't anything so violent as what I went through. For most kids a few shoves or a punch or a kick every so often won't do any sort of lasting harm or damage, and that's the scenario I mostly have in mind.


Well, clearly situations like yours happen, it happened to you. Say I went to your school and took the beatings you took, but because of the culture, the adults looked away? We didn't know we had EDS until I was 15, the only clue anyone had was that I was hypermobile and had weird stretchy skin. No one would have known that I needed protection until I turned up with a dislocated hip, or a massive skin tear that just wouldn't heal (skin weakness is another Ehlers-Danlos problem), or worse. 

I'm not alone, I'm not rare or special. Hypermobility EDS can affect as many as 1 in 10,000, Classical EDS affects another 1 in 10,000. That's ~60,000 sufferers in the US, from those types alone. (The other types are rarer.) They're also all vastly under-diagnosed, most people don't get their diagnosis until well into adulthood. It's not the only such disease either. 



Deo said:


> This... is something I'll really have to think about. It strikes home because I did break someone's tailbone once by throwing them onto ice. (they were trying to choke me out, but still, this new knowledge has me morally bothered).


Self-defense comes before all else; Tarlov cysts can debilitate (and many, like I said, are harmless), choke holds can kill. It's unfortunate that it happened but I'd hesitate to say it's your fault. 



Deo said:


> No, I'm not saying it's *necessary *to get kicked around in order to be a model citizen. Being bullied is certainly not a prerequisite to being a good person later on in life. I just think that there are some life lessons in it if it is not extreme.


Then why encourage it, when we see that it can get so far out of hand (my brother, Gavrill, Ramsay, etc.,), and that it can leave some kids damaged for life by no fault of their own? Why act like removing it can only turn out a generation of weaklings, when we've just acknowledged it's not necessary? 



Deo said:


> Five on me. Almost every day when I could not outrun them or punch them down before they grouped. One hung back and kept watch usually so it really was only four.


Despicable. It shouldn't have happened to my brother, and I don't care that you were lucky enough to be hardy enough to deal with it, I don't think that I can buy it should have happened to you. I'm very glad that it did not hurt you, as it would have hurt me, and did hurt my brother. 



Deo said:


> There are exceptions to every rule or concept.


Exactly. See my third little point up there. Again, forgive me if I think it's wise to err on the side of not letting children get beaten. 



I can understand the perspective that mild bullying can have a place in a child's life, but only when paired with acknowledgement that it can go over the line, it can be dangerous, and that it's not necessarily the kid's fault if they come out the worse for it--which they can and do.


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## Deo (Oct 12, 2011)

Ad Hoc said:


> Despicable. It shouldn't have happened to my brother, and I don't care that you were lucky enough to be hardy enough to deal with it, I don't think that I can buy it should have happened to you. *I'm very glad that it did not hurt you, as it would have hurt me, and did hurt my brother*.


It did hurt. Have some empathy, they broke my bones. They broke my face. I had to have surgery to fix me enough to breathe.

But I *still* stand by what I said that bullying can impart life lessons and build character.


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## Ad Hoc (Oct 12, 2011)

Deo said:


> It did hurt. Have some empathy, they broke my bones. They broke my face. I had to have surgery to fix me enough to breathe.


Well, I meant in terms of lifelong debilitating damage. You've been insisting that bullying never did such damage to you, until now.



Deo said:


> But I *still* stand by what I said that bullying can impart life lessons and build character.


It can--except when it doesn't, as we've discussed again and again. And you just acknowledged that it's not necessary a few posts ago. 

I said before, I can agree that mild bullying can have its place, but we must acknowledge its downsides and work to control them. Not necessarily a law, but a cultural shift. Adults looking the other way without examining the situation at all is unacceptable.


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## Unsilenced (Oct 12, 2011)

Just because someone *can* learn something from minor bullying doesn't mean it can be ignored. Different people react to stress in different ways, and what might toughen up one person might just break another down. Even if the victim does arrive at an effective solution for their problem, they may not end up a better person for it. One kid in one situation might find inner strength and stand up for themselves, but another might learn how to shift the hate to someone else and disregard their own compassion for fear of being singled out as one of the weak. 

It means a lot if the effective solution for one of the first big problems in life is to submit.


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## Onnes (Oct 12, 2011)

Are we seriously discussing whether or not some forms of assault should be allowed in schools? Good luck convincing a judge that the charges should be dismissed because you were only trying to help someone build character.


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## ImNotHere (Oct 12, 2011)

The problem, in my opinion, is that as a species, we are violent. As humans, we are out to be better than each other through one way or another. We cannot breed it out of ourselves...it's home grown and its staying that way. Neither can we pass a law in this society. Maybe, in a span of as much as 100 years, we can eradicate bullying through a severe social change. I never unprovokedly bullied anyone as a kid, I got in a few scraps in my time but mostly BECAUSE I was being bullied. I learned not to take shit from other people. And when you're in elementary school, nobody really has an upper hand. The kids that go home and cry to their parents and get the other kid in trouble, they're doing the EXACT same thing as the other...trying to get ahead of the rest. Perhaps not with ill-intent, but I think we all want what we each define as justice in our lives. Its manipulative in a very abstract and unconscious way but that's how many of us think as kids. So bringing it all back together again, bullying is about as inlaid in humanity as having a skull is. No matter how public it gets, the society we live in, have grown up in, will never support a bully-free existence. The changes that are necessary pose terrible (in our minds) consequences for society as a whole. I think that publicizing an issue like this does more harm than good, not because it is a bad thing to try to fix problems, but because it creates a sudden concern, and quick fixes are often a product of that.

Don't be terribly critical of my assessment, 'tis just my thoughts on the matter typed out for all to see and consider.


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