I was home schooled until 6th grade, or about 11 years old, and while that was great for my intellectual development, it wasn't good for my social development. Don't get me wrong, I never would've been an extrovert or social butterfly, and who knows, maybe if I'd gone to school earlier I would've been bullied even more. I know that there are some great homeschooling networks, but since we lived in a small mountain town, I didn't get a whole lot of socialization.
The groups that we did go to on occasion were generally nice and no one bullied me there, but the three or so people I hung out with most often could be pretty cruel to me. Two were siblings and would often team up against me and make fun of me, and the other was older and forced me to do stuff she wanted to do and... er, did inappropriate things to me. Though that's more accurately termed as abuse, not necessarily bullying.
Anywho. By the time I went into a small charter school in 6th grade, I was extremely introverted. I'm pretty sure I barely talked that entire year. There was one person in particular that bullied me for all three years of middle school, and it started right off the bat by telling me that my friends where saying horrible things about me while also trying to convince them to stop hanging out with me. I'm not entirely sure if it was malevolent or just chance, but as she got me removed from a group of friends somehow she'd always end up following me to the next group and doing the same thing.
This was a small school, with only a few people coming or going a year, so I started to run out of people to be friends with. I tried my best to fit in with the popular folks, but that really just isn't my style and caused me to be even more awkward because I was trying to be someone else. In 8th grade I made friends with two other people that were bullied constantly, and I think it's telling how each of us reacted.
I tried desperately to fit in, to wear the right clothes, have the right hair, and talk the right way.
The boy of our group revelled in being the "bad" guy; he made advances at girls that he knew didn't like him, somehow made everything he said sound lecherous, and often acted snobby when he went to go be by himself. I hung out with him outside of school once, and he was a perfectly normal guy, but the moment we were back in school his voice and body language changed dramatically (and he of course tried to say that we had been on a date). In the very beginning I engaged in saying mean things to him along with other people, but after a couple of weeks I realized that not only did it not help my own social standing, but it was cruel and not something I should be a part of.
Finally, the third person that was bullied at my school was another girl. She went mostly the same path I did - trying to fit in and often resorting to hanging out with younger students to avoid people in our own grade. The difference was that she also became a bully and physically bullied me. It took me a really long time to realize it, because all of her words said that she was my friend, but friends don't throw pointy things at your face, knock you over onto concrete, or try to smash your face in with a basketball.
The basketball incident was when it finally dawned on me and I spent the evening crying with my parents, saying I didn't want to go back to school - if even the other bullied kids were doing this to me, what hope did I really have? - and my mom talked to my teacher. I overheard part of his conversation with the girl, and I couldn't help but feel bad for him as he was a first year teacher that had two sobbing 13 year old girls on his hands.
Things got much better when I went to high school; I found new groups of friends, often very extroverted friends, that were just fine having a quieter person in their group. Though one did end up kind of bullying me teaming up with another girl to loudly complain about how quiet and passive I was, high school passed pretty smoothly and college was where I really found my confidence and became proud of being smart and geeky.
As I look back on this rather long post, hindsight is showing that the people that bullied me probably had a lot of issues of their own, and insecurity about their own social standing. As evidenced by the other kids I saw being bullied, those that feel powerless often try to find power over others in other ways, and can become bullies themselves.
All of that to say, I have no idea how anyone could start to get rid of bullying in schools. There are so many reasons why it happens, and just about any blanket rule would leave lots of loopholes.
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