Like most commenters, I was also bullied relentlessly in high school. And, as it seems most other people have been told to do, I took the advice of "do nothing

Like most commenters, I was also bullied relentlessly in high school. And, as it seems most other people have been told to do, I took the advice of "do nothing and ignore it" route. Here's the thing, it's all well and good for an adult to tell a kid "oh just ignore it", but you can't ignore someone sneaking up behind you and slamming your face into a brick wall, so of course, adrenaline coursing through you, you retaliate. Now, despite you being attacked out of the blue, for no reason other than some sadistic asshole gets his jollies out of hurting you, and you trying to defend yourself, when teachers dole out the punishment you also get punished. A system that punishes a kid that was assaulted from behind because they tried to defend themselves from their attacker is not a system that is designed to prevent bullying or help the bullied. The reason every kid in every school thinks all those anti-bullying programs are stupid and don't want to participate is because they realize something that the teachers don't, which is that it is nothing but bullshit lip-service to make those whose responsibility it is to actually do something feel better about their absolute lack of care or effort.