Bully for me (a little long)

[LibraryLady]

I get my nails done, maybe three or four times a year, usually for a special occasion, once in a while just for the luxury of it. This past Wednesday, I needed a treat and went to the manicurist.

I started going to Harriet six or seven years ago, and when I first sat down at her little work station, she stared at me and said, “I know you. I know I know you. Give me time.” I didn’t know her from Eve (well, I’d say Adam, but…). Finally, she exclaimed my name. I still didn’t know her. “Harriet X from Old Court Junior High School!” she said.

I immediately flashed back to one of the worst years of my life, eighth grade.

I was the new kid in school, and they put me in a “slow” class because of the difficulties I had at my previous school. My parents decided to move to the county, after they discovered I was being pushed around, offered drugs, and “losing” my lunch money on a regular basis. My grades plummeted. Seriously, like C’s and D’s. The counselor at Old Court looked at my transcript and allotted me accordingly.

So, there I was, this geeky, bookish, city kid, who didn’t know how to dress cool or talk cool and who wore thick glasses. I was toast. Well done toast.

Our class was actually one half of a larger class which did some of our subjects together. Unfortunately, in the other half of this unit was a girl named Susan N. Susan had bleached hair that looked just like Twiggy’s, great clothes, and a posse. One of the posse was Harriet the manicurist, but she was actually a minor player. Susan took one look at me and I was her target for the next nine months.

I had been bullied before, but this was extraordinary. The verbal abuse, locker sabotaging, tripping as I walked down the hall was bad enough. I couldn’t talk in class, because if I tried to answer a question, the laughter would drown me out. Every time. I had obscene songs sung to me in gym class. To this day, the song by the Box Tops, “The Letter,” brings it all back. I told my parents about it, and they spoke to the counselor, but there didn’t seem to be any action. I was told by one teacher that it was all my fault; I just needed to be friendlier to them.

Luckily, my written work was stellar and I got straight A’s easily. The next year I was put into an accelerated class and told the year before was all a mistake. Um, yeah. I still saw Susan and her little herd in the halls, but had met up with some nice peers and was actually participating in class.

The year after that I went to Milford Mill high school, and happily, all of those girls went to the brand new Randallstown High School. High school was great.

In my sophomore year at Milford, I got very sick and ran a high fever. My mother was sitting by my bed; she was debating whether to call my father at work, and we were listening to the radio. They broke into programming with a news flash; there had been a horrible accident. A car had flown off an overpass and landed on another car on the Jones Falls Expressway. The car had been full of teenagers, and one of them was killed. There was also a kid in the trunk of the car, and drugs were found. They landed on another car and killed the father of a boy I knew. The girl who was killed was Susan N.

And now Harriet was looking at me across a manicurist’s table. After we stared at each other for a few minutes, she broke the silence by apologizing for the abuse. She, as I’ve said, was a minor player, and I had no trouble saying, “Hey, it’s been a long time, don’t worry about it.” Then we talked about Susan.

Harriet told me about a Susan I didn’t know. Her mother was single, and there were three kids, two girls and a boy. The mother had decided that children are perfectly capable of making all of their own decisions. The kids decided when they would come home at night, where they would spend the night, who they would hang with, and what they did. Susan was the oldest. Bear in mind, she was thirteen at the time of the bullying. We know how Susan died. Her brother died of a drug overdose. Her sister apparently got a grip and managed to survive her childhood.

When I saw Harriet the other day, she told me two more members of that group just died of drug overdoses. They were my age, 52.

I understand that now bullying is taken more seriously and the children who are bullies have their home life looked at. At least, this is what I hear from my nieces who are teachers. I hope so.

Are there other victims of bullying on the forums?

[TragicMonkey]

Of course not. Public schools are very nice places for skinny, geeky gay boys who get very good grades and have very bad eyesight and move every couple of years so they never have any friends.

But eighth grade seems to be the worst year of all. I only remember one or two of the names of the worst tormentors, but I can cheerfully state that should their paths cross mine tomorrow, seventeen years later, those people had better pray to whatever gods they believe in because I will do everything in my considerably evil imagination to wreak a revenge so horrific that it will drive any witnesses insane with terror. Did they come from broken homes? Did they have dreadful reasons for being as they were? I don't care, and neither will the vultures!

Not that I'm one to bear grudges, of course.

[fuelair]

Occasionally I was because of glasses and a briefcase. Generally, it did not last too long though. My appearance - even now - leads to misinterpretation of my abilities (just example: I knew bayonet use long before I was drafted - and recognized that most people initiated actions way too slowly). Other than a sort, sharp demonstration to a large 17 year old behind me in chow line who decided (for the usual reasons) he could take out his basic training frustrations on me - resulting in him walking with a limp for 3 days after being struck just under the knee with my helmet swung backwards so he had no warning it was coming- I have not had to do damage to anyone since that time. I know that doesn't help most bullying victims - since many are as they appear unfortunately but...made my life safer after word got around.

[qayak]

I was bullied once, in 2nd grade by a kid in 6th grade. he had the pleasure and humiliation of being beaten up by the smallest kid in school.

I was small and had a big, smart mouth which made me a target but I also had 6 older siblings who beat on me regularly so I knew how to take care of myself. Besides, I love fighting and I love it even more if there is a chance I might lose or if I get hurt while doing it.

I fought a lot but it was always with bullies. Some picked me, others picked kids weaker than them and I stepped in. I would fight anyone, anywhere and anytime.

My theory has always been that in order to beat a bully you have to be meaner and nastier. I loved watching the first fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield where Holyfield's trainer can be heard telling him "Your the bully here, not him!" He understood the concept.

So, I guess I was a bully bully.

[slingblade]

Every day for 11 years.

[The_Fire]

7 years. Then we moved to jutland. After smacking (with a fist) one would-be bully hard enough to bloody him, no-one in the new school tried anything with me.

[Chris Haynes]

I was an Army brat. I graduated from the 9th school district I attended... I was always the new kid.

Yes, I was bullied. Even in the very nice private school I attended in Venezuela.

The worst was when we had to live in a small town of Weston, MO while my dad attended the Command and General Staff College in Ft. Leavenworth across the river in Kansas. It sucked to be a half way intelligent kid who had not been born in that town, and actually came from California (Ft. Ord)... oh, and had curly hair (apparently that was a "no no" in the mid-sixties). I take every opportunity as an adult to "disrespect" that town now (it was the largest tobacco growing area west of the Mississippi, had the only legal distillery in the state of Missouri... McCormick's , and still had wild hemp growing there from the time they used that in WWII... Oh, and the farms between it and the Missouri River were run by the several prisons in Leavenworth and Ft. Leavenworth --- oh, yeah... a really "great" place).

(side note: My brother on the other hand had an opposite experience in that same "RS" or "rural school" district. Since he had been bullied in the private parochial school he went to in California (because of school violence in Seaside, my dad sent him to a private school... which despite the bullies, my brother is still fond of the teachers there!)... he decided to project an aura of super coolness! He went back several years later and found out that there were rumors of him and his friends doing things like having big parties that he never did, nor would have ever think of doing... but it seemed to be expected of his "Big Man on Campus" image.)

I am amazed on how well the middle schools handle bully culture these days. They do really try to get a handle on it. There is an active anti-bully program going on all the time. A couple of years ago they had the auther of Odd Girl Out (http://www.amazon.com/Odd-Girl-Out-Culture-Aggression/dp/0156027348/)come to the school to talk to kids and parents (in the evening).

Even my special needs kid has avoided most of the bullying I encountered. He has been bullied... but he gets defended by other kids (some of which are surprising to me!).

[Chris Haynes]

I should add that middle school/junior high has become a very interesting subject for research. Here is one study that one of my children has participated in:
http://depts.washington.edu/pathways/page2.html#purpose

[StewartP]

I was bullied in my first 2 years at high school.

By being a clown and amusing people I got into the in crowd, and I am ashamed to say became one of the bullies myself.

[qayak]

My daughter's both went to a school where a young girl committed suicide after allegedly being bullied. There was a huge, national media frenzy over this and the girl's mother made the talk show circuit in the US speaking out against bullying. They even made a documentary about it.

The interesting part in this is that a few years earlier, I lived in the same townhouse complex as this woman and her family. Her daughter, the one that committed suicide, bullied my youngest daughter constantly. When I went to talk to this woman about the problem, she slammed the door in my face.

http://home.socal.rr.com/huntingtonbeach/bully.html

I have not seen the documentary and have no desire to. I think the resulting focus on bullying in school has been good but it disgusts me that some many lies have to be told.

[rjh01]

I was bullied during years 7 - 11 at school and at home though out my childhood. Not to mention a few times at work.

Lucky it is not practised as much at work anymore. There are now rules against it.

[Gilmar]

Yup, bullied plenty around 1966-1974. Toothless school administration, a father who told me to "ignore them" until they broke a molar. We moved away the next year. I still bear considerable rage towards bullies.

[wollery]

I was very lucky. I was a small skinny geek with NHS glasses (the crappy black plastic framed things) and probably would have been bullied had it not been for three things.

1. There were two boys in my class who were very big for our age group, at age 11 one of them was over 6' tall, the other was about 5'9" and built like a brick outhouse! I was good friends with both of them.

2. I was good at sports, very fast and agile.

3. My sister went out with the school's most notorious bully. As an example of the fear that this guy engendered, my sister's bag was stolen once, and found half an hour later in the boys' toilets with everything still inside, including a fair bit of money! Whoever had taken it must have looked inside, seen my sister's name on her books, realised who she was and who her boyfriend was and decided that it wasn't worth the pain.

[malbui]

As the skinny bright kid with few social skills I was bullied mercilessly for years, until at the age of 14 or so I suddenly shot up and out to 6'2" and about 14 stone. I found myself playing rugby for the first XV and that taught me a lot about taking care of myself... I found a few well-placed punches on the pitch got the message across pretty well. In fact, the only circumstances in which I've ever exchanged blows have been when things have heated up on the pitch. Fortunately, as it's hardly dignified.

[Hawk one]

I was bullied in my first 2 years at high school.

By being a clown and amusing people I got into the in crowd, and I am ashamed to say became one of the bullies myself.

Bullied on and off for about 9 years. One of the results was the same as with Stewart here: Getting to become a clown (good thing) but unfortunately also starting to bully others. I did have friends, and I could be nice... But occassionally, I could also be a surprisingly big ass, especially considering my lack of muscles. (Didn't get glasses until I was 14, so that pretty much changed nothing). At least I was tall enough to not look 100% like a target, only about 85%.

But those few occassions also eventually led me to take a pretty damn good look at myself, and helped me in the resolve of becoming a pacifist. Well, I possibly would have become that anyway, but the memories of those certain occassions when the bullied became the bully did help. Still, I'd rather have become one the not-that-kind-of-hard way.

[Dark Jaguar]

I was bullied once, in 2nd grade by a kid in 6th grade. he had the pleasure and humiliation of being beaten up by the smallest kid in school.

I was small and had a big, smart mouth which made me a target but I also had 6 older siblings who beat on me regularly so I knew how to take care of myself. Besides, I love fighting and I love it even more if there is a chance I might lose or if I get hurt while doing it.

I fought a lot but it was always with bullies. Some picked me, others picked kids weaker than them and I stepped in. I would fight anyone, anywhere and anytime.

My theory has always been that in order to beat a bully you have to be meaner and nastier. I loved watching the first fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield where Holyfield's trainer can be heard telling him "Your the bully here, not him!" He understood the concept.

So, I guess I was a bully bully.

I just didn't have it in me to do such things. Also it was against the rules in pretty much every school I went to to ever stand up for myself. They often punished those who fought back worse than the person who started it. I can see the wisdom in just letting things alone. I'm not big on making sure I "get respect" really, so if I'm merely threatened, I just walk away, and if I'm "called out", I forget about it by the end of the day and end up leaving some idiot standing around waiting for me to show up for some fight I was ordered to attend (as if). But, if the fight has already started and I find myself in it (and that's always the way isn't it, nothing cool and standoffy like on the TV, fights are fast..., I've never been able to suddenly jump back and wax philosophical before unleashing the "big move"), well what exactly do they expect me to do? Apparently, the moral is that it's better to get beaten up than to get in trouble.

That said, I hate fighting, because it hurts, and the "challenge" just isn't worth it. So, instead I just avoided them every single time I could. So, I've only gotten into like a handful of incidents like that, total, in school. Still, bullying was a big problem for me. There's other ways to make someone feel worthless than physically overpowering them (though that will do the trick in a pinch, humans like to think they can defend themselves). There wasn't much to do to avoid stuff like that. So yeah, I was basically alone in terms of my "peers" back then. Yes, the administration was pretty much toothless about it. Yes, a couple of times I was actually blamed for it (by teachers who apparently never had a problem with such things in their youth). Yes, a few of them realized there was a problem, but you know, too busy to really handle it. So, I basically just barrelled through it until the end, but I can't say it ever got easy for me. I certainly had it easier than my mother from the horror stories she's told though. At any rate, I basically ran from class to class, keeping myself out of the halls as long as possible by simply packing ALL my learnin' materials in my backpack and not even bothering to use my locker. In the early years, recess was a fun period where I basically ran to some distant corner where no one else was and played around in the dirt (because I learned early on that hanging out in the lunch room during recess was simply not allowed), and then rushing to be front of the line simply because that's where the adults were. Class clowning only works if you are funny apparently, and my jokes weren't, so that was a failed experiment. Every year a new small group would (seem to) sort of bundle together to antagonize me the whole time (except for two nice years at a VERY small private school with a population so small that bullying just wasn't possible, nor was it wise as it would just reduce the already small sample of people you could call "friend", as well as it being more likely that the bully would just get ostrasized as a result of such actions, but unfortunalty that school closed and I went back to a big school again where it all started up anew). Oh yes, and I would note that after a certain point, I basically didn't even want anyone to be my friend. I wasn't clinging onto people desiring that and annoying them. At a certain point, I'd have been perfectly content if they just ignored me completely.

At any rate, I've moved on past all that. I don't bother holding any grudges against any of the individuals, though I do think some sort of reform would be in order. The one nagging question is simply one of logical curiosity. I could understand simply being one out of a group that was selected by fairly random social forces (such as me not having any siblings when I first started going to school and thus having zero socializing experience in that regard) and then from there simply being associated that way in a single school for years, but I moved every single year (pretty much). Now, I can't say that moving messed me up, because it didn't. Even as a kid I wasn't torn up about it. Even when I was only 10 I remember thinking to myself "On TV they always show those specials where someone has some emotional breakdown about moving all the time, but that's never been a problem for me, they must be wrong." (This was during the era when all sitcoms had to have these sorts of "moving life lessons" about kids based on assumptions transparent even to kids.) If anything, it gave me a fresh start every single year, an escape of sorts. Basically I'm saying I could never figure out "why". I should probably just move on from that too, and I suppose it doesn't really matter, it just seems a little weird is all.

Oh, and I would note that I too experience a sense of sheer rage when I think of others being bullied. You know, the sort of flames engulfing the eyes and demonic surge of power shattering the earth around me kind of rage.

[gnome]

I was bullied in somewhat minor ways on occasion, but nothing enrages me more than bullying that is sanctioned by school staff by what has been described--punishing victims, or failing to discipline bullies. Aside from the personal injustice to the victim... they are also performing a broader injustice to all the kids in the school, by teaching them to roll over for the tough guy. In fact, the bully is being screwed up as well--if they don't learn from their parents OR their school that naked aggression will get them in trouble, they're in jail as soon as they're 18, or even before. What a waste not to stop the behavior while the personality is still malleable. --And before they become an adult criminal with even more victims.

[Dark Jaguar]

That's true too. I think it's important though for those who may not have had such an issue to understand that it's not the issue of one incident on a playground. A single instance of being called a name isn't the problem. It's that it happens constantly, almost every single day, that's the problem. That's what leads to the eventual total breakdown of a person as they run home crying to parents, if they are fortunate enough to have parents they can rely on in this fasion as I was. It's when every single day your only real concern is just getting through it until the end. That's when personality and grades start to suffer for it.

At any rate, the tolerance of it, in those cases where it is tolerated, seems to stem from thinking it's "no big deal". I'm sure drilling a small hole in someone's toe, from the outside in terms of pure physics, doesn't seem that big a deal either. I mean what are they screaming about? Now THAT is some powerful hyperbole, sorry. I've had people tell me to "just toughen up" a few times and a few others tell me I needed to "be more open to them". Apart from the fact that these two recommendations are inherantly contradictory in nature, it seems they have no basis in reality. Why would any sane person want to open up to those constantly belittling them? The only response I had was to become a stone wall to it all and suspect everyone. I'm sure as a result I hurt some feelings though. In retrospect I can think of many times when the person was most likely being genuinely nice, but there had been too many cases of a sort of strange sarcasm type of bullying, where they were nice to me as some sort of odd joke, that I just couldn't really trust those cases of niceness. At any rate, this leads to the other thing, that apparently some thought I really deserved what I got because I came off as "smug" or "stuck up". I'm not sure what it is about someone hiding themselves away from everyone else that gives off that impression. I would have thought I'd be labelled shy for that. At any rate all it shows is that I learned nothing about acting like a decent human being and living in an actual outside world social setting by being subjected to such an environment. Fortunatly, where I'm at now, I can see so very clearly what was impossible to see from "the inside", that the tiny society of the school yard is such an insignificant meaningless thing and no one of any importance cares if someone was class president or a football star in some tiny building somewhere. I can see much more obviously how very quickly all of that comes to an end, and no matter how popular or unpopular or however you are treated in those years, it all is meaningless and over with once you are in the outside world. Anything a kid ever learns about how "society" works in that little zoo-prison is quickly erased the second the outside world hits, excepting those lessons in the history books. That's about all that actually turned out useful to me, the book learnin'.

So yeah, I do in fact have some strong feelings associated with my time in school. And yes, those who tolerate it really don't seem to have any idea how bad it can really be. It can be worse, but that knowledge isn't too helpful while it's being endured.

[bluess]

Let's see ....

Only Asian Indian in sixty kids.
Glasses.
Braids.
Bookworm.

Mostly left alone, but for two incidents. One where someone was making fun of reincarnation, as they'd just figured out that those heathen hindus didn't believe in their judeo-christian god. It started at recess and continued as a whispered campaign in class. I stood up and announced that she had obviously been a tomato in her last life and left the class. The poor teacher, she'd never seen a worm turn before. I got a written apology from the dumb b**ch who started the teasing.

In 7th grade, a girl spent an entire day torturing me - kicking, throwing salt and sugar at me in class, spitting, tripping, snot-ass comments. We were waiting to exit a class when she kicked me again. I whirled around and back-handed her. A catfight ensued (which I lost!).

But no one really bothered me after that.

One boy was physically attacking a girl in kindergarden in Blue2's school. The response from the school was fairly useless and I think partially driven by the ethnic origins of the people involved - the little boy is a WASP and his parents born in the area, while the little girl is hispanic with foreign-born parents. The little girl has since been taking karate lessons, and I have no doubts that the little boy is in for a surprise if he thinks to repeat last year's activities.

There are two little girls in Blue2's class who are developing their manipulative and bullying skills. Mr.Blue and I have been giving Blue2 role plays, as have at least one other set of parents, to deal with the little monsters. Blue2 has a list of responses in the event of bullying - get near a grown-up; or if not possible, a group of people; or if not possible AND the person is trying to hurt you physically, deck them.

Mr.Blue was short in grade school, and thin and tall in junior high. His response to any bullying was immediate drastic physical retaliation. If you break someone's nose at the beginning of the year in New Jersey you don't get bothered for the rest of the year. :)

I don't know how I would have handled the ongoing bullying experienced by LL and Dark Jaguar.

[fishbait]

I don't know how I would have handled the ongoing bullying experienced by LL and Dark Jaguar.Use the Joe Pesci method. I'll crack your friggin' skull open! And, just about the time you're getting outta the hospital, I'll be getting outa jail. And, ya know what? I'll crack your friggin' skull open again!

[wunky]

In junior high there was this one girl who would always torment the other girls- but only during gym class. It became the most dreaded hour of the day. She was bigger, taller, dirtier- both in hygiene and language, and more mean than any other person in class. She regularly stole money, clothes, anything that she wanted. Outside of gym she left us alone-
She was only there one year- I never knew what happened to her, nor did I care.

[Piscivore]

In grade school I was tiny, with fair hair, thick glasses, allergies to everything, and reading three grade levels above my peers. In fourth grade I was sent to the Sixth grade class for reading and the teacher decided she didn't have anything to teach me so she let me do crafts.

One of the sixth grade boys, who was probably struggling, decided he didn't like that. He came after me on the playground.

Understand, I had almost no social skills whatsoever. I never played with neighbor children- by choice. I was an indoor kid, an early reader and cripplingly shy, and completely naive. With few exceptions, other children frightened me. They were loud and rough, the opposite of my kind family.

Anyway, this huge kid came after me. I don't remember many details, and I'm going to resist making up stuff. I doubt he intended to harm me, but I was scared. Basically, I went Ralphie on his Scott Farkus ass. I remember there was blood, and it wasn't mine.

Two years later my little brother's classmate (he was four years younger), a mean little viper of a girl, stole his toy six-guns from his cowboy Halloween costume (you could take toy guns to school back then) and was taunting him while we all waited for the bus home. I got out of class, saw this, took the guns away from her, and pushed her away. Her older sister, a large and ill-tempered girl, saw this and came to her defense. Heated words were exchanged, until she reared back to take a swing at me. I socked her in the eye, hard. It was only the testimony of several younger students that the elder sister was a frequent tormenter saved my ass.

I wasn't picked on, but I was whispered about. I think. I thought I was whispered about, but it may have been the paranoia setting in.

When I got into junior high and hit puberty and still had very little social development, I started getting harassed, and I got even worse. I wonder sometimes that I survived at all. I've blocked a lot of it out, but hardly anything I do remember am I proud of.

I got better.

[LibraryLady]

I started this thread and then I had to back off it for a while. Too many memories opening of. I have once again been trying to read Odd Girl Out; I tried once before, but again, the wounds reopened. One of the things I have read about in that book is the problem with trusting people who are nice. There is always that nagging doubt that behind my back, they are whispering. I don't have that issue with most people, but there are a number of people at work I really do. There is one woman, whom I've discussed before, who I wouldn't trust as far as I can throw her, but that's probably wise.

I wonder about the bullies though, whether they continue the behavior into their grown up life.

I have a very close relative who was a bully in school. He's thirteen years older than I, so I didn't witness it, but I hear tales. He has continued some of the bullying behaviors. I wonder if that's typical.

[bluess]

When I was in elementary school, I read a book called "The Bully of Barkham Street". Told from the bully's point of view. You were supposed to feel some sort of rush of understanding after reading it, I suppose.

I didn't.

[jimlintott]

When I was a youngster at school I was one of the smarter kids. I wasn't very large and I think I might have looked like a victim to a bully. I remember a couple trying but they didn't realise that I was much stronger and tougher than I looked. When they pushed I pushed back. Bullies are often big chickens who won't bother if it takes any effort. So I never got bullied.

My own kids ran into it a bit and I could only tell them what I knew. Stand up for yourself is probably the best advice. Tell on them works well if the school responds correctly. Consequently my son encountered very little bullying. My daugter ran into some. It seems that girls are some of the worst bullies now days.

My daughter's school called me once saying that they wanted to council her because she was getting bullied. I said great but what are you doing for the bully. They said nothing. I pointed out that the bully was the kid with the real problem and you could council his victims all day long but the bully still remains. Stupid school. No offense to any teachers here but school teachers can be real freakin' morons sometimes.

I noticed an interesting system of justice at that school. The first child to tell was believed. Any subsequent stories were categorically dismissed. No attempt to find the real truth was ever taken. The kids knew this and used it.

[gnome]

My experience is, some of them do, some of them don't. I suspect that any behavior which is successful will be repeated, so the ones that stop had a chance to learn that it doesn't work as a long-term strategy for dealing with people.

[jimlintott]

Do bullies continue? I suspect that the reasons for bullying are as varied as the bullies. A good friend of mine says he was a bully in school. He is not at all like that now and has said that he would love to apologise, profusely, to one kid whom he particularly tormented. It now bothers him that he was a bully.

[CriticalThanking]

LL - first things first. :clap: for being able to talk to your former tormenter (as opposed to taking her out).

I was rather tall as a child. Um.... well, horizontally, anyway. I was enough of a clown and socially adept that I only had regular trouble with one bully in elementary. No bones broken. He was a year older and I mostly learned to be where he wasn't whenever possible.

One summer I went to camp and managed to get a gash in the back of my head. As the nurse cleaned up the wound before the stitches, she asked me about school - what I liked, what I didn't like. While I don't remember what I said, it got back to me that she was the bully's mother and apparently I had really opened her eyes. I didn't have any trouble from him anymore. On a side note, one kid who got on all fours behind me so the bully could push me over ended up being my best friend in elementary.

I am ashamed to say I did bully one kid in 6th grade.

In 7th grade, my parents made me choose a sport. Since I was too uncoordinated for football or soccer, I chose wrestling. There being very little running involved helped my decision a lot. Between finally getting in shape and suddenly hitting my growth spurt, I had no major problems after that.

My son was small in elementary. He was bullied for a while. I found out later that year that he also was bullying a kid smaller than him. :sigh: The parent of the kid he bullied wouldn't talk to me about it. As he got older, he found a way to talk himself out of most situations. As he got more and more confident in his own infallibility, he began to mouth off a bit to people he considered less intelligent (which according to him is most people :rolleyes:). We will see if he survives his senior year without getting his clock cleaned.

Bullying will happen. Nothing can prevent it completely. But I strongly believe in the bully being called out for such behavior. The decision to retaliate (or not) is a personal one and I will rarely gainsay someone either way. Blaming the victim just makes my blood boil.

CT

[Dogdoctor]

I have told this story before but it's a good one so here goes again. I was in the third grade and this bully from the fifth grade decided to pick on me. He was bigger than most kids in the fifth grade so I had no chance against him so I had to bite my tongue and stay silent while he verbally abused me and pushed me around. He got me so angry I spent most of my waking hours thinking of a way to get even with him. Finally I came up with this solution. I got an old book and cut holes in the pages in the middle of the book to fit my squirt gun. I filled my squirt gun with methyl eugenol which is a fly attractant. I walked around school looking for an opportunity to use it. Finally after about 3 weeks of lugging the thing around I was walking behind the bully and no one behind me. So I squirt him good and put the gun back in the book. He doesn't have a clue so I do it 2 more times. Later in the day I see him talking to his "friends" and he has about 30 flies on him and he is constantly chasing them away. Then for a while I don't see him in school so I approach one of his friends. His friend tells me that for some reason flies suddenly started to chase the bully around and he became convinced it was a sign from God that he shoudn't be a bully and was going through a born again episode and was being tutored by members of the church. I was horrified. That was far worse punishment than I had intended and in those days my view of the world was us kids against the grownups so I hated that the grownups had gotten control over this kid. I told his friend what I did and that I was going to tell him what I did. He laughed and said the bully deserved it and I shouldn't tell him and if I did it would likely result in serious injuries to me and maybe death. Suddenly I thought the friend was a victim of the bully and asked the friend and he said that he was and that in fact all his friends were victims at one point or another. I was still determined to right this wrong I had done and talked to several friends and every one of them tried to discourage me from telling the bully the last one pointing out the his best friend said don't tell him. I never told him what I did and he never bullied me again or anyone else as far as I knew.

[gnome]

I wonder what he thought God wanted him to do before the flies...

[Dogdoctor]

I wonder what he thought God wanted him to do before the flies...

I had not met him before so had no plans for him :)

[qayak]

Her older sister, a large and ill-tempered girl, saw this and came to her defense. Heated words were exchanged, until she reared back to take a swing at me. I socked her in the eye, hard. It was only the testimony of several younger students that the elder sister was a frequent tormenter saved my ass.

I knocked a girl out in 9th grade. Before math class I was sitting in my chair when this kid walked in, grabbed my pencil out of my hand as he walked by and then went and sat at the back of the class. I got up, went to the back of the class and, as he waved my pencil to taunt me, I grabbed it out of his hand. I turned around and headed back to my seat.

A girl who had a crush on the guy, jumped up in front of me and open hand slapped me, really hard, across the face. I grabbed her by the lapel with my left hand and punched her as hard as I could right in the face. Of course, as my fist was making contact the teacher walked into the classroom. He came running over, yelling at me. I told him what happened and he said he didn't care. Boys were not supposed to hit girls.

So, down to the office I went and after explaining it to the principal, he told me that boys were not supposed to hit girls and that I was being expelled for 2 weeks and there might be criminal charges.

I lived way out of town and rode into town by train on Sunday, stayed in a dormitory all week and went home on Friday. He had to phone my parents to let them know what happened and that I would be home on that evenings train. I waited in the hallway while he phoned, thinking of all the hiking and camping I was going to get in during my time off.

When the principal came out, he told me to go back to class. My mother apparently had asked him if the girl hit me first. When the principal said yes but that doesn't matter, boys shouldn't hit girls, my mother blew her top. She told him that I had 5 sisters and I was not allowed to hit girls UNLESS they hit me first. Then I was free to defend myself.

She insisted that if I was going to be kicked out for two weeks that the girl should be kicked out for three, plus, she wanted the police called and charges filed against the girl.

They came to an agreement that nothing would be done. :D

Awhile after this, a cute girl from the 8th grade slapped me really hard as well. I had been teasing her and because she was so shy, she couldn't retaliate fast enough so she slapped me. Then she covered her face and burst out crying. I told her I was sorry for hurting her feelings and that I was just teasing her.

She lookied at me through her fingers and then burst out laughing. "I know you were teasing! I was crying because I thought you were going to punch me!"

Instead, she agreed to let me take her to the dance the following week. :D

[qayak]

You know, after reading through this thread again, I have to say, I had a great childhood. Whenever I think about it, I only remember sunny days lazing about, playing all types of sports, hiking, swimming, camping, fishing, riding bikes, etc. I had so much freedom that I cannot imagine having to live the way kids today do.

I do not remember bad things. I know bad things happened but they were so few that it is hard to recall them. The incidents I have written here are the extent of the bad things and I did not even see them as bad at the time. I enjoyed them.

Later on, I had a lot of classmates die in accidents and a few close friends as well but even then, I am very thankful to have known those great people. I do not remember them with sadness, we had too much fun together.

Great memories!

[rjh01]

During my childhood I was bullied a lot. I once had a win against a bully. I was about 9 or 10 at the time. I apologise to all teachers for telling this. However the bully was the headmaster of the school, who was also my teacher. He was often criticising students for the smallest thing and ensuring everyone in the room could hear, so that people would think the students were stupid. I had it worse than most students. I grew sick of what he was doing. I did the last resort. I hit him. He took a few seconds to recover. He then completely lost it. Then he started hitting me hard around the ears. Several times. And threatening to send me back to the previous class. This was silly. I knew he could not do that. My big worry was that he might injure me. But he did not. After that he treated me with respect.

My parents later told me he could have been sacked for what he had done to me. I have never regretted what I did.

NB. To any student who has a bully for a teacher. This is a last resort treatment. You need to have several significant problems before this is considered. If you have a bad teacher ensure you have told your parents and other people. And document everything.

[logical muse]

I don't think I was ever bullied as a kid, but there were many isolated attacks. These were motivated, I think, by my status as one of the very few non-Australian kids at my school.

Here are a few I remember:

In grade 5 a kid held his hand behind his back and told me he had something for me. When I asked what it was, he said something and swung his fist out and hit me in the head. I don't recall what it was that he said.

In grade 6 (I was maybe 10 or 11 years old) I was stabbed in the back by a kid with a Stanley knife. I ran home crying. I admit it; I'm a wuss.

In year 8 or 9 a guy who decided to form a gang thought it would be fun to pick on me. He taunted me for a few days, at first verbally then physically. I ignored it until one day my threshold for abuse was reached. I didn't even realise I had a threshold, and I was more surprised than he was when I flayed him with weak punches, backing him up against a wall until he cried. He wanted to be friends with me after that but I wasn't interested.

Sitting in class one day, against an open window, I was targetted by a girl walking by outside the room. She threw some white powder, I think it was flour, over me through the window. Much to the teacher's chagrin, I leapt (ok, stepped gingerly) out the window and chased her. When I caught her, she tried hitting me. I just held her at arms' length to prevent her fists from reaching me, and I didn't really know what else to do. By this time a group of kids had gathered around us, chanting that old standard, "Fight! Fight!" A teacher came over and defused the situation.

I was never big, I'm only five foot five now and was smaller then.

The biggest bully of the school, all six foot two across the shoulders of him, once challenged me and my mate to a fight. Who knows why. Word spread quickly around the school that there was to be a fight at the back of the shops after school. When the time came my mate hopped on his bike and rode off in the opposite direction to the shops, taking his usual route home. I walked in the direction of the shops, which was my usual way home.

A large gathering of kids were eagerly awaiting the afternoon's entertainment. I didn't feel as if I could avoid it, so I resigned myself to the inevitable and walked into what was an arena thronged by salivating bloodthirsty kids. OK, maybe that was a little melodramatic.

Bully was there, in the middle of it. He saw me approach. I walked up to him and stopped a couple of feet in front of him. There was no escape route, and no way of backing out now. I was scared.

He looked down at me and said "Umm, it wasn't you I was after. It was yer mate."

I told him "Oh, he's gone home." He said "OK". The crowd dispersed. That was the end of that. I think he was trying to save face. If both of us had turned up, the possible outcomes would have been: He beats us both up, confirms his reputation and status; or, he gets beat up by both of us, which is still ok as there are two against one. But faced with the possibility of fighting one person, and for some reason being unsure of the outcome, he backed down.

Two kids racially taunted my mother on one particular occasion, in my presence. I became livid and gave chase. One went this way, the other went that way. I chased one of them through a hole in the fence, around the pavilion and into the oval. His gang was there.

It was night time. He ran into the middle of the gang. I didn't know which one of them he was, as I hadn't got a really good look at him. I was still exceedingly angry. I stood in front of the gang and asked for him to come forward, but he didn't.

I couldn't believe his cowardice, and said "How many of you are there?", to which one of them made a great show of counting and replied "Twenty, why, you gonna fight us all?"

I said, and looking back I can't believe my effrontery, "I would, but you're all a bunch of *********** pussies and wimps. Not one of you's got the guts."

And, I was right. Luckily for me, not one of them made that decision to lead them into an attack. I walked away, feeling as if I had scored a major victory.

There are many more stories, but they are mostly along the same lines.

Funnily enough, the only time I've felt bullied was last year. Who'd have thought that years after school I would find myself in a situation of being bullied? It was by a friend of a friend. I put up with it for a while, for my friend's sake, until it became too much to bear.

I dealt with it by calling her on it. That's all it took. She stopped once she realised that I wasn't going to play the victim.

These experiences, and others like them, were not defining. I'm sure they've had some impact on me, but so have many others.

Like the girl I met on the bus that wrote "Hello Logical Muse" on the petal of a rose she gave me. Or the messages in the guestbook of my web site saying that the world would be a better place if more people were like me. Or the professor, a leading authority in her field, in fact, the leading authority in her field, who requested to co-author a paper with me even though I don't have a PhD, a Masters, or even a Bachelors degree.

Or just my friends who smile when they see me.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, I have good memories too.

But I'll do ya one better. I have a great PRESENT :D. I'm happy with where I'm at, right now. Not much bad happening and no real worries right now, it's great! In other words, I'm happier now than I was when I was a kid.

Rereading this thread, it appears that for some people standing up for themselves worked. I'll just say that's not always the case. Certainly in my case standing up for myself only made things worse most of the time. That said, I never stood up for myself by punching someone, but I just didn't have it in me to be physically violent except in response to someone, and that was a rare occurance. I'm not saying I was innocent. I was just afraid of escalating what was only mental abuse into physical abuse.

[TragicMonkey]

In fifth grade, I was on the swings just about to start when some bastard kid grabbed me by the throat from behind and started to choke me. All I could think to do was grab his wrists and try to pry them off my neck, which wasn't easy because I wasn't very strong. Simultaneously, I dug my nails as hard as I could into his wrists. That's what stopped him, and he ran crying to the teacher on playground duty (who up til then was my favorite teacher). Who then punished ME for injuring the bastard. I asked her to ask him what his hands were doing around my throat. She didn't think it was worth pursuing, since I was obviously the aggressor. Despite the fact that I had never gotten in trouble before and the other kid was always getting in fights. Not to mention the logistical impracticality of inflicting those sorts of wounds unless someone were actually choking you from behind. Did she really think I walked up to a bigger, stronger kid, grabbed his arms, and started tearing at them?

That's when I lost the last vestiges of trust in adults. She didn't give a damn about her students or justice. She was just doing a job. And if by any chance you're reading this, Miss Harrison, I hope you realize what a unfeeling jerk you are, and also that you choke.

Wow, past injustices can really still upset. I'm almost shaking in anger decades after the event.

[gnome]

Were your parents supportive? At that point mine would have escalated to county officials or police. And if there is a hell, I hope there's a special place there for teachers and other authority figures that enable bullies.

[sackett]

There were a few bullies in our little country school, but one stood alone: our school principal and superintendent, Warren Willard, the Bull.

He earned the nickname. He had been a heavyweight wrestler at the University of Nebraska, a good one I’m sure, back in the 1920’s when college wrestling was a lively sport. He stood six feet tall, very heavy and thick, and dismayingly strong. His head and face were gigantic, with a big salient nose and a huge chin. In winter, that is during much of the year, his skin was a closely marbled red and white. He had a strange tic, a sudden twist of the head simultaneous with an indrawn grunt to clear his sinuses: grraankh. I think he may actually have followed this with a snort. I said he earned his nickname.

Everything was physical to him. He seemed to be an almost entirely instinctual being, living beneath thought, not a prey to his impulses but existing in them naturally. And I attended his school uninterruptedly from the time I was six years and three months old until I was a few days short of eighteen.

He was ferocious to little boys. I don’t mean ferocious in language or expression. I mean vicious: he mauled and beat children of seven and eight and eleven years old. He had spent a kind of sabbatical year at the Nebraska State Penitentiary (!) in the 1930’s, and he seemed to have acquired his zest for battering while there. He brought his chosen hobby into our lives, and of course there was no escaping him.

He wrenched ears, at least once permanently damaging a boy’s hearing; he threw boys down long flights of stairs; he wrung necks; he slapped; he twisted arms; he kicked. Something shrill and frenzied would possess him at times; he once beat a boy in my class for fifteen minutes; we heard the crashing and bellowing in the hallway -- and there was a clock in our classroom; I know that it was a full fifteen minutes. Then, whistling with rage, he came back into the room and made a kind of pilgrimage up and down the rows of desks, threatening other boys with a huge red hand raised over his head: “Do YOU want some, Dick? Eh, boy, eh? Do YOU want some, Billy? Eh? Do YOU want some, Eddie? Eh, boy?” The memory is surreal, like the actual event. I think I was ten years old.

“But what did your parents do?” people ask in horror now when I tell about this sort of thing. Do? What were they supposed to do? They needed a school superintendent; not many men would take on such a job, year after year, for such pay. (The Bull had to farm a piece of land in the summers to make a living.) But we children almost never told our parents, after one or two experiences of being shouted at to stop that lying right now.

You won’t be surprised to hear that we kids took a sort of delight in the Bull. We traded stories, some of them decades old, of his thrashings. Like country children everywhere, we admired physical strength, and the Bull had plenty of that. When the whim took him, he could bat flies far out into the weeds of our huge playing field, accurately calling to those boys who had mitts to try for them. He insisted on rolling out wrestling mats in our gymnasium (why did our little school possess so many wrestling mats? because the Bull would have it so) and pitting boys against each other with boxing gloves. (I recall the unscientific pummelings we gave each other; my head ached for an hour afterward.) When he cared to, he could give valuable coaching in basic wrestling techniques (you see? not a bad education for a small public school out in the sticks).

I’m sure that no school principal in America could have matched him in dedication to his job. He was completely devoted to that little place; he worked quite sincerely to make it better – probably his word would have been stronger. The local school board was lucky to find and retain anyone who would – who possibly could – make a career out of our remote little institution.

There’s a story that one small boy grew up into a tall man and came back to get even. They say that he successfully gave Willard Warren a beating. Maybe so; it was a long time ago and I had left Wyoming long before. But I note that the fellow waited until the Bull was old and sick before he tried it on.

[gnome]

I have to say it, to me that sounds like the argument of "he made the trains run on time"... though I completely understand your point.

I can't bring myself to imagine respecting him, though. He was assaulting children enstrusted to him, can there be any worse crime? ETA: Yes... but my sense of outrage remains.

[sackett]

Heck, I wouldn’t defend our principal for a moment. I’m only recalling our childish attitude toward him. As we got older, he became less amusing.

One reason in particular: The man was a physical coward. As soon as boys reached puberty, he stopped the hands-on bullying. That was odd, because, even though we were big rugged farm kids and would both take and give a licking, he could have pulverized any ten of us. I think he was the purist form of sadist I’ve ever encountered.

[Dark Jaguar]

What shocks me more than anything is that fellow teachers didn't do anything. So no one else would take the job, so? Fire him anyway. I'm shocked he wasn't murdered during the entire time he worked there....

I mean, I've seen apathetic communities plenty, but I've never had the experience of ones so utterly willing to turn a blind eye, and not only that, accuse anyone saying such things as "lying".

This sounds like a job for a camera!

[LibraryLady]

What decade did this happen? Just out of curiosity.

[tkingdoll]

I was bullied when I was 12 for being a born-again Christian (well I did walk around the playground reading my New Testament instead of playing) and having a dead father.

When we moved to the big city when I was 15, I attended the local comprehensive school for a few weeks until I was beaten up for asserting that neither Jesus nor Cleopatra were likely to have had white skin. I never went back. Their loss, frankly.

[TragicMonkey]

When we moved to the big city when I was 15, I attended the local comprehensive school for a few weeks until I was beaten up for asserting that neither Jesus nor Cleopatra were likely to have had white skin.

Now there's a celebrity power couple! Just a few decades and a few hundred miles different, and history would have been a lot more interesting. Sermons such as "Turn the Other Bosom" and "Asp Not What Your God Can Do For You" and "It's Easier For A Camel To Pass Through The Eye Of A Needle Than To Get Marc Antony To Stop Calling" and "Render Unto Caesar That Fine Booty" would have made a world of difference in Christianity. And they'd never have crucified him, either, because he'd just pull the old rolled-up-in-the-carpet, nothing-to-see-here-officers trick, and turn up weeks later with Cleo in Namibia, shopping for photogenic orphans to adopt.

Of course there would have been a few problems along the way. I doubt Cleopatra would have had much in common with a mother-in-law who was an immaculate holy virgin, and frankly, her family wasn't much to brag about either. But with love, all things are possible. Just look at Nick and Jessica. Not now, obviously. But two years ago.

[LibraryLady]

I'm not so sure about Cleo. Wasn't she of Macedonian descent?

[tkingdoll]

I'm not so sure about Cleo. Wasn't she of Macedonian descent?

No idea. But we were discussing Elizabeth Taylor at the time, and something didn't fit.

[Dark Jaguar]

I was bullied when I was 12 for being a born-again Christian (well I did walk around the playground reading my New Testament instead of playing) and having a dead father.

Whatever one's opinion of religion (and mine isn't a very high one to put it mildly), that's no excuse. From what you describe you were still minding your own business. Sometimes that's enough of a reason for people to not like someone though...


When we moved to the big city when I was 15, I attended the local comprehensive school for a few weeks until I was beaten up for asserting that neither Jesus nor Cleopatra were likely to have had white skin. I never went back. Their loss, frankly.


Which big city was this? At any rate, sounds like either racism or religious zealotry at work (maybe both). Glad you got out of there.

[Kevin_Lowe]

I made a post about my own experiences but the forum ate it. Oh well.

The short version, I was bullied like some others in this thread were, and my experience with the reactions of parents and teachers is so similar that repeating it all would be monotonous. Even writing a detached note like this one about it still calls up a strong physiological response of hatred and adrenaline.

I'm skeptical about the effectiveness of "anti-bullying" initiatives, since I think the worst offenders are very thick and have horrible lives at home, and no amount of dot points or meetings will fix those issues. The only solution is to prevent the offenders from having access to victims, which is not possible while we still have the combination of compulsory schooling and a university system that tends to stream the least capable tertiary students into Education. (There are always bright and driven people who go into Education of their own accord, but even they have to admit they are a minority).

Teachers will say "We're teachers, not prison guards", which is of course perfectly true. They aren't trained to be prison guards and they did not sign up to be prison guards. The problem is that juvenile criminals need prison guards or the equivalent, and they don't have them.

[Dogdoctor]

My older brother used to try to bully me but I had my ways of getting even with him. I couldn't beat him up but he couldn't beat me up either so I got him back with psychological warfare and hidden stuff like using his toothbrush to clean the toilet etc. I had a hot temper and wasn't the kind of person civilized people wanted to know much less if I was angry. I used to talk to him and carefully push his buttons getting him more and more angry almost to the point of fighting with me then I would calm him down and placate him and turn around and get him angry again and keep doing this till he realizes what I am doing, then we fought. Or I would say something knowing that he would use take the other side of the argument and then I would present him a series of logical arguments which he had to agree with me that they were true till finally he agreed that what he said initially wasn't true only once he realizes what I did, we fight. Or sometimes I would just do something and frame him for it. We are good friend now :)
In high school a bully caused me some grief. Our school had classes where grades 9 through 12 were sometimes in the same class. This guy was a class ahead of me and he walks into the classroom and thumps me on the temple with his knuckle. It really hurt and once I recovered a little I jumped up and tried to pick a fight with him but the teacher saw me and not him and I got in trouble but he did not. So I tried to return the favor the next day and the next day but he was expecting it and the teacher was too so I got in trouble again. Finally I realized I would never be able to get even till he relaxed so I spent the next two months getting him to think I was not interested in getting even. Then one day I walk in the classroom and he was in the back of the classroom and no one was behind me and he did not see me come in and the teacher was busy up front. I think "perfect!" So I walk by him and smack him upside his head with my knuckle and quickly sit down at the desk in front of him. He slumped over and fell to the floor unconscious so I raise my hand and call the teacher and tell her that something is wrong with him. She comes over and makes sure he is breathing and then wakes him back up by shaking him. He is clueless what happened and so is sent to the school nurses station to be checked out. I never told him what happened.
I had another bully pick a fight with me where I couldn't back down. He was well known so the whole school showed up to watch the fight. I fought with him but he wasn't a very good fighter. I am not sure if I could have beat him up but he wasn't going to hurt me however if I beat him up he had several brothers that I would have to fight so i decided to take a dive. We threw a few blows and I tried to let him hit me but it took a while before he landed a reasonable shot to my abdomen and I buckled over and lay down on th ground. Then he asked me if I had enough and I said yes then he offered to be my friend. It was the tradition if you beat someone up then it was your job to look out for them after that. Weird but dose wuz da rules.

I am much more tolerant of people these days and more likely to find peaceful ways to deal with others.

[sackett]

Dark Jaguar and LL:

Thank you for asking questions about my account of our strange school principal. Some people would frankly disbelieve such a bizarre tale.

About the other teachers: They wanted to keep their jobs, simple as that. Also, they hit and manhandled us kids too, because this was the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and corporal punishment, especially in “traditional” societies (and Wyoming was and still is pretty much the Old West), was perfectly okay. How else could you wrangle them little savages, goddanggit?

That touches on the seeming apathy of the community. People expected their school to discipline children; see above about the uses of violence on little limbs of Satan. I think I’d call it acceptance as much as apathy. (The fact that some of the fathers and older brothers had once taken their knocks from the Bull complicates the picture. Maybe they regarded an ear-wrenching or being hurled into the wall as a normal rite of passage?)

Also, the community was extremely small, just a few hundred people spread over a region of the earth that would swallow a small country. Life was hard – poverty in the Goose Creek Valley is comparable to the Mississippi Delta – and most parents’ attention was concentrated on getting by. When kids got off the school bus they were put to work, and tales about the Bull were not needed or wanted.

I know a man in his mid-seventies, a fellow-survivor of Big Horn School, who maintains a flame of anger against Warren Willard. It burns bright to this very day.

I think I can say that our school principal, now several decades in his grave, has passed into legend – and I deplore that, and hope to keep the bald facts alive with essays like this one.

[Chaos]

Been bullied from 3rd to 10th grade. I´m not in the mood to go into details. Got the usual useless advice from parents.

There is, however, a happy memory... well two actually.

The first is, I was riding the bus to school, with two of the bullies right next to me; this must have been 5th or 6th grade. They kept taunting me over and over; I was pretty easy to upset, but physically weaker than either of them, and a whiner and a coward, I have to admit.
Then, for some reason, I said "Stop it, or else..."
They laughed. "Or else... what?"
"Or else, I´m gonna hit you."
"You - and which army?"
At that point, somehow I just snapped, and punched one of them on the nose - just hard enough for it to start bleeding.
You should have seen the look on their faces; I guess nobody ever tried to resist them, judging from how they were whining about the one guy having been punched. It´s really a pity, looking back at it, that this happened on the way home, instead of on the way to school; *nobody* at school would have believed them if they explained the bleeding nose by saying that I, of all people, had punched one of them.
By the way, neither of them ever attended a class re-union; I like to think that´s because they are afraid of me.

The other thing is, a while later, after one of the abovementioned bullies had left school, the other had taken to extorting money from me; since "accidents" could happen during cooking classes or PE, his threats were credible enough to me. After a while I worked up the courage to tell a teacher about this, who, oddly enough, didn´t just ignore this as teachers usually do. Shortly thereafter, I was cited before the headmaster, who was meeting with the bully´s father, the bully himself, the teacher I had told about this, and two of my classmates. It turned out I hadn´t been his only victim, and he´d been trying to earn a little tax-free extra to supplement his lunch money. The bully´s family was of middle-eastern origin, and I didn´t know a word of Farsi (still don´t), but I have to say I still enjoyed listening to the bully being verbally cut to pieces by his father in front of his victims.