Some days

[attackfish]

We were talking about bullies and I listened to my fellow teaching students just not get it in so many kind, well meaning ways.  And then my teacher asked about our own experiences with bullying, and everyone in the class talked.  Most said they had never been bullied, the rest mentioned isolated incidents, and talked about how standing up to the bullies really worked!  And I looked around at this room of earnest faces, and realized none of them had a clue.

Most people want to become teachers because public school was a place of joy for them.  I feel a little alone right now.

Comments

[grandiose666]

I only had some isolated teasing/mean girls incidents but not a whole encompassing experience like you did. Reading about your experiences on your journal has made me more aware of the dynamics between children (even very young people can be pathological and more than any child can deal with). I also thought about Atla and Azula and her whole set of relationships in an expanded light (already knew she was a bully and kinda sociopathic).

Maybe they cannot identify with your experience in any way, but could still learn from you.

[attackfish]

I hope so. If teachers know what to look for and know how bad it can get, they're much more likely to effectively handle it and protect their most vulnerable students. If they don't...

[marfisa.livejournal.com]

Ignoring the bullies, which is another well-meaning piece of advice that adults often give you, actually did work for me eventually when I was finally able to get myself to try it long enough. But I think this probably had something to do with the fact that I was being bullied because I was perceived as weird (I read books in the schoolyard at lunchtime), but not as being particularly physically vulnerable, and in fact was taller than many of the boys who used to follow me home from parochial elementary school catcalling and then chase me if I started to run. (I was the tallest girl in the class until Nydia Pinero got left back, and the only boy who was taller than me was a shy, tongue-tied guy who never bothered anybody.)

This was back in the mid-1960's when you never heard of "nice" middle class kids doing anything really horrendous (although of course that doesn't necessarily mean that it never happened). So when I just kept plodding along pretending that they weren't there while they made various allegedly teasing remarks and, I think, even tried throwing a schoolbag at the back of my legs (which didn't work nearly as well as the time one of the bags had hit me in the back of the knees while I was running, making me fall down and bloodily skin my knees), after a few days they just gave up and wandered off, disappointedly saying, "She doesn't run and scream anymore." This seemed to validate my parents' claim that if I just kept ignoring them, the boys would get bored and leave me alone. But in retrospect I wonder if it would have been that easy if I'd been smaller and looked less as if I could inflict a fair amount of damage on them in return if they'd been emboldened to try escalating things further and I'd fought back. (I actually had thrown my schoolbag back at them at least once, although that didn't seem to discourage them much.)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

My grandmother was a high school student in the 50s in a nice little farming community. She was hounded out of school by bullies. But of course she was a slut who got pregnant, and it was an open secret her family was Jewish, so that was okay.

[marfisa.livejournal.com]

So I guess my point is that even when the things adults tell you to do to try to deal with bullying on your own do more or less work, they may only apply to certain very limited and specialized circumstances and involve large amounts of luck.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It works some of the time, to some extent, in certain situations. For example, no one started bullying me in third grade (worst year by far) because I was physically vulnerable, or even primarily because I was socially vulnerable. They ignored me because they were afraid of me, and then when my seizures stopped, they bullied me to prove to themselves and each other that they weren't afraid of me anymore. Ignoring them did nothing, and standing up to them only made them more determined to prove they weren't afraid of me. If a kid is being bullied because of some perceived transgression, being queer for example, or being labeled the school slut, ignoring and standing up won't work, because the bullies think they're punishing the victim. If a kid is being bullied by one or a small group of very determined bullies, ignoring or standing up to the bullies might work, or it might make them double down. Ignoring and/or standing up to the bullies, in the very best case, means that the bullies will switch targets. This doesn't solve the problem at all, since it just means there's another kid suffering.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

It does seem ironic, in a way, that you had such bad experiences in public school yet want to work in that system yourself. What would you say your motivation is?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Aside from the fact that I really really like working with young children, and find the way their brains work absolutely fascinating, while I had some terrible teachers and school administrations, I also had two really wonderful principals and a handful of really wonderful teachers, and I remember what a difference they made. I hope I can make that difference for my students.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

That's so funny, I was just talking about this with a man I just had dinner with today. (Maybe I had this conversation on my brain, subconsciously.) He works as a language instructor for both children and adults, and I asked why he preferred teaching children even though adult instruction was so much more lucrative. He gave basically the answer you did--that he enjoyed the kids' company better, particularly liked how open they were about their emotions, and felt he could make a real difference in their lives.

Sometimes it seems there are only two extremes of public school teachers--either the really bright and dedicated ones who would be there regardless of the conditions, or the ones whose skill levels and brutally conventional minds are actually commensurate with the low pay. Guess which type far outnumbers the other. Sigh.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

It got to the point in my depression where the only times I was happy was when I was with small children, and I came home from teaching Hebrew school full of stories of what this kid had done, and how they came up with this, and how this kid does this, and she figured out this today, and isn't that amazing, and I realized that this is what I want to do.

There are also a few teachers who are there because the low pay is made up for by the control they are given over a vulnerable population. Most of my awful teachers were just unskilled and uncaring. One was definitely there for kicks.

[lokifan]

Oh dear. That's pretty chilling, because they're going to be the well-meaning teachers who never helped at all.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Hopefully not. The professor gave them a good lesson about no, that's not what works, and I talked some, and with any luck, this will sink in. This is just our foundations class. They will be learning about bullying more in depth in other classes.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope that's enough and new awareness of the problem of bullying is leading to better training that previous generations of teachers lacked. I keep wondering if it will make up for the kind of gut instinct and empathy gained through personal experience, but obviously I'm not saying it's a requirement for teachers to have been bullied in order for them to intervene effectively. I just hope the instruction is effective and we'll see some changes in the way bullying is handled--or too often, not handled--in schools.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

So do I. From what I understand, talking about bullying and bullying prevention in teaching classes is a relatively new thing. Hopefully increased training really will make a difference and make some young teachers see the light on how to handle bullying in their schools.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

As you know, I to was severely bullied as a kid but it's hard for me to find that place within myself where I can stand up and say, hey, I went through that because it still makes feel weak and angry but mostly I'm at that stage that I just want to get over it. It's never really over though, so yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. It's nice that not all people go through this, even if it feels they should have, but it's nice to know that at least some people had a normal something in their lives. But dear, you are never alone! *cues creepy music* we're there, right, with, you!

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I keep looking around at them and their happy childhoods going "What kind of mutants are you????"

Lol. Nooooooo! I shall never be free of you!

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Hehe. Yeah, I love it when I tell someone that I used to cut. They're like: O.O. Yeah dude, where I come from, it's normal.