5 ms·

I could say a lot about the quality of education: the lack of a challenge, the boringness of the one-size-fits-all curriculum, etc. But boredom isn't that big o

by byuu 11y ago

I could say a lot about the quality of education: the lack of a challenge, the boringness of the one-size-fits-all curriculum, etc. But boredom isn't that big of a deal. I made up for that by studying what I wanted to outside of school, instead of doing homework. Even with the vindictive teachers that made homework 30% of the final grade, it was still cakewalk to pass their classes without doing a single assignment. The real root of the reason school was a living hell for me was the bullying. We all like to tell kids that "the teachers will help you", but they either don't care or feel they can't do anything. Either way, the net effect is they are completely useless. We tell kids, "it builds character!", but that's nonsense. I don't care if it is the secret to my success, I'd rather be average today than to have experienced a tormented childhood. Those were formative years, and those scars run deep. The worst mistake I ever made was deciding I wouldn't be a part of that Lord of the Flies bullshit. I kept thinking it'd get better as we got older, but it only got much worse. I never stuck up for myself, never learned how to fight, never worked out to become stronger to defend myself. And that's easily my biggest source of regret. Every day my mind recalls terrible memories from those days, and I find myself constantly thinking, "if only I had fought back here or done this there ..." Bullying mostly targets the gifted, but it would help everyone if we took it seriously, instead of just saying, "well I went through it and lived; so the next generation can too!" Also, it's bordering on a different topic, but bullying very much extends to the home as well. Abusive parents, siblings, etc. Some kids have literally no escape from it for 18+ years.

SixSigma 11y ago
If it makes you feel any better, if you fight back you will get hit harder.
- bonesmoses 11y ago
  Potentially. I deterred many bullies because I simply didn't give any fucks. I grew up pretty poor and moved a lot, so I was always the new kid, and I also stood out because I usually immediately rose to the top of the class. That usually painted a target on my chest, but it didn't last long. The few times I was bullied was always the first few weeks after I arrived, and they quickly found out I would fight back pretty aggressively. Was that a "being poor" thing? Was it my notorious "punched a kid in the face for cutting in front of me in line when I was five" temper? Was it simply because I wasn't an "easy" mark? I can't rightfully say, but one of those things definitely reduced my propensity for being the target of bullies.
- byuu 11y ago
  You most certainly will, but if you manage to hurt them, they'll remember it the next time and be less likely to engage you in the first place. Bullies thrive on easy targets, and having no real consequences even when caught. Even if you lose horribly in a fight, you're the only person that can possibly inflict consequences. The physical pain wasn't even the worst of it. What hurts the most 20 years later is the fact that I stood there and did nothing. I'd have rather had memories of losing fights than having never fought at all. And honestly, getting kicked around by a full-grown adult at home was worse than anything another sixth grader could have dished out. I really don't know what I was so afraid of back then.
- justinclift 11y ago
  That's completely the opposite of my experience. It was only when I got completely fed up with it / gained the courage to well and truly fuck up the people that were bullying me... that they mostly stopped. I'd been learning martial arts for some years by then, which definitely helped.
dennisgorelik 11y ago
All other things being equal, higher intelligence helps to stand up to bullying. Kids with lower IQ have tougher life.
DanBC 11y ago
> Bullying mostly targets the gifted, Wait what? You have nothing to support that claim. https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2009-10/Livinginfear.pdf https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2009...
rustynails 11y ago
>Bullying mostly targets the gifted I believe bullies target what is different. Intelligence or lack of it will make you a target in equal measure. Got a birthmark on your face? Boom, you're a target. My kids don't go to a school that accepts bullying. I don't think bullying was seen all that different when I was at school.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >I believe bullies target what is different. Fully agree. I think the problem is how people react to different differences. Kid who has clear physical disability getting bullied is seen immediately as a problem and dealt with.* Special education children getting bullied aren't quite as well responded to (lots of justification by adults that the children are treating them differently because society treats them differently), but any overt bullying is still squished. But being bullied for being different in just social skills but not other means... many adults will look at the bullying as a natural reaction to the victim being socially awkward instead of as bullying. And there is a bit of truth in that, because the difference between ostracizing someone who is socially awkward because you just don't want to be around them and ostracizing someone who is socially awkward as a way to bully them is not that clear cut. At the end of the day, the kid ends up ostracized either way. *If they recognize it. Many forms of treating someone differently are hard to recognize if you haven't experienced them. A classical example is people asking extra questions to gay people that they would never ask to straight people, even though the questions themselves are mostly benign. Regardless of how harmless the questions themselves are, it is still treating them differently, which has subconscious effects.
- byuu 11y ago
  > I believe bullies target what is different. Yeah, that was the reasoning behind school uniforms. A misguided belief that simply normalizing clothing would prevent bullying. But instead all that did was make them focus on something else. Your hair, your skin color, your height, your weight, your voice ... anything. I don't think it'd matter how conformant you got everyone. You have to address the underlying causes and change the mentality, and you also have to increase the severity of punishment for bullying. > Got a birthmark on your face? Boom, you're a target. For me it's a scar. > My kids don't go to a school that accepts bullying. All of mine completely and utterly ignored it. We learned pretty quickly that going to the adults only made matters worse.
JohnBooty 11y ago
I 100% believe everything you said, but it's shocking to read. Bullying of the gifted kids wasn't really a thing in my public school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I'm not sure if this was despite or because of the fact that while we had some gifted classes, we weren't totally segregated from the rest of the kids nor were we extolled as the "elites." More importantly, I'm sorry that happened to you. Nobody should have to deal with the toxic environment you suffered through.
- byuu 11y ago
  Jacksonville, Florida here, school from '88 - '01. Both public and private schools. I've been punched in the face and chest multiple times, spit on, thrown into a creek by three kids, pushed down stairs, you name it. But it was mostly constant emotional abuse. For how much I was called a faggot, you'd swear the WBC kids went to school with me. I can't even imagine how much worse it'd be if I actually were gay. Kids in the '90s were obsessed with anti-homosexuality. I'd usually ditch the cafeteria and eat alone in the stairwells. The worst parts of the day were between-classes. I took to just carrying all of my books with me all day so I could jump from class to class as quickly as possible. Well, that and gym. Gym was always a nightmare. It was at home where I received by far the worst physical abuse. But, I'm not looking for a pity party for myself here. I'm doing just fine today, and managed to cope with most of it. And to be fair, I really was a weird kid. The sock thing in the article caught my eye. I would have killed for socks without seams: I was always taking off my shoes and folding the edge of the sock because the seam would drive me nuts. I had all kinds of weird tics, many caused by actual (not trendy) obsessive-compulsive disorder, others by misophonia. I'd just really like to see people take bullying seriously instead of as a rite of passage. Imagine if you had a coworker call you a faggot and push you down the stairs at work. And so you told HR, and they told the coworker, "hey, don't do that again or we might make you work an extra hour!" and that was it. Yet somehow this is perfectly okay with children, because "kids will be kids."

by byuu 11y ago

SixSigma 11y ago

If it makes you feel any better, if you fight back you will get hit harder.

bonesmoses 11y ago
Potentially. I deterred many bullies because I simply didn't give any fucks. I grew up pretty poor and moved a lot, so I was always the new kid, and I also stood out because I usually immediately rose to the top of the class. That usually painted a target on my chest, but it didn't last long. The few times I was bullied was always the first few weeks after I arrived, and they quickly found out I would fight back pretty aggressively. Was that a "being poor" thing? Was it my notorious "punched a kid in the face for cutting in front of me in line when I was five" temper? Was it simply because I wasn't an "easy" mark? I can't rightfully say, but one of those things definitely reduced my propensity for being the target of bullies.
byuu 11y ago
You most certainly will, but if you manage to hurt them, they'll remember it the next time and be less likely to engage you in the first place. Bullies thrive on easy targets, and having no real consequences even when caught. Even if you lose horribly in a fight, you're the only person that can possibly inflict consequences. The physical pain wasn't even the worst of it. What hurts the most 20 years later is the fact that I stood there and did nothing. I'd have rather had memories of losing fights than having never fought at all. And honestly, getting kicked around by a full-grown adult at home was worse than anything another sixth grader could have dished out. I really don't know what I was so afraid of back then.
justinclift 11y ago
That's completely the opposite of my experience. It was only when I got completely fed up with it / gained the courage to well and truly fuck up the people that were bullying me... that they mostly stopped. I'd been learning martial arts for some years by then, which definitely helped.

dennisgorelik 11y ago

All other things being equal, higher intelligence helps to stand up to bullying. Kids with lower IQ have tougher life.

DanBC 11y ago

> Bullying mostly targets the gifted, Wait what? You have nothing to support that claim. https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2009-10/Livinginfear.pdf https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2009...

rustynails 11y ago

>Bullying mostly targets the gifted I believe bullies target what is different. Intelligence or lack of it will make you a target in equal measure. Got a birthmark on your face? Boom, you're a target. My kids don't go to a school that accepts bullying. I don't think bullying was seen all that different when I was at school.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>I believe bullies target what is different. Fully agree. I think the problem is how people react to different differences. Kid who has clear physical disability getting bullied is seen immediately as a problem and dealt with.* Special education children getting bullied aren't quite as well responded to (lots of justification by adults that the children are treating them differently because society treats them differently), but any overt bullying is still squished. But being bullied for being different in just social skills but not other means... many adults will look at the bullying as a natural reaction to the victim being socially awkward instead of as bullying. And there is a bit of truth in that, because the difference between ostracizing someone who is socially awkward because you just don't want to be around them and ostracizing someone who is socially awkward as a way to bully them is not that clear cut. At the end of the day, the kid ends up ostracized either way. *If they recognize it. Many forms of treating someone differently are hard to recognize if you haven't experienced them. A classical example is people asking extra questions to gay people that they would never ask to straight people, even though the questions themselves are mostly benign. Regardless of how harmless the questions themselves are, it is still treating them differently, which has subconscious effects.
byuu 11y ago
> I believe bullies target what is different. Yeah, that was the reasoning behind school uniforms. A misguided belief that simply normalizing clothing would prevent bullying. But instead all that did was make them focus on something else. Your hair, your skin color, your height, your weight, your voice ... anything. I don't think it'd matter how conformant you got everyone. You have to address the underlying causes and change the mentality, and you also have to increase the severity of punishment for bullying. > Got a birthmark on your face? Boom, you're a target. For me it's a scar. > My kids don't go to a school that accepts bullying. All of mine completely and utterly ignored it. We learned pretty quickly that going to the adults only made matters worse.

JohnBooty 11y ago

I 100% believe everything you said, but it's shocking to read. Bullying of the gifted kids wasn't really a thing in my public school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I'm not sure if this was despite or because of the fact that while we had some gifted classes, we weren't totally segregated from the rest of the kids nor were we extolled as the "elites." More importantly, I'm sorry that happened to you. Nobody should have to deal with the toxic environment you suffered through.

byuu 11y ago
Jacksonville, Florida here, school from '88 - '01. Both public and private schools. I've been punched in the face and chest multiple times, spit on, thrown into a creek by three kids, pushed down stairs, you name it. But it was mostly constant emotional abuse. For how much I was called a faggot, you'd swear the WBC kids went to school with me. I can't even imagine how much worse it'd be if I actually were gay. Kids in the '90s were obsessed with anti-homosexuality. I'd usually ditch the cafeteria and eat alone in the stairwells. The worst parts of the day were between-classes. I took to just carrying all of my books with me all day so I could jump from class to class as quickly as possible. Well, that and gym. Gym was always a nightmare. It was at home where I received by far the worst physical abuse. But, I'm not looking for a pity party for myself here. I'm doing just fine today, and managed to cope with most of it. And to be fair, I really was a weird kid. The sock thing in the article caught my eye. I would have killed for socks without seams: I was always taking off my shoes and folding the edge of the sock because the seam would drive me nuts. I had all kinds of weird tics, many caused by actual (not trendy) obsessive-compulsive disorder, others by misophonia. I'd just really like to see people take bullying seriously instead of as a rite of passage. Imagine if you had a coworker call you a faggot and push you down the stairs at work. And so you told HR, and they told the coworker, "hey, don't do that again or we might make you work an extra hour!" and that was it. Yet somehow this is perfectly okay with children, because "kids will be kids."