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.

[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.)

[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.

[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?

[lokifan]

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

[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!