4 ms·

School isn't really just there to teach you facts, it's to prepare you for life as an adult. You are going to deal with bullies your whole life and you'd better

School isn't really just there to teach you facts, it's to prepare you for life as an adult. You are going to deal with bullies your whole life and you'd better be well prepared for it before you're out on your own as an adult.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
> You are going to deal with bullies your whole life Never dealt with them again once I left high school. Not even any close calls. That shit's like living in a war zone. No one sends their kids to a war zone so they can "learn to survive". No good lessons exist in a war zone, not even in between people stepping on landmines or getting pulverized by airstrikes. All that exists in such a place is a bunch of trauma, and yes, debilitating/mutilative injuries, for those that somehow manage to get sneak back out of them. Bullying is like this too, though obviously to a lesser degree. I strongly suspect that most people get their ideas about what bullying is from the same half-dozen made-for-tv movies and other narrative fragments thereof on the subject.
- Simulacra 3y ago
  Cannot echo this enough. Not once in the 20 years since high school have I had to deal with with the same kind of bullies, intimidation, and violence. School was like a prison and going each day, steeling myself to deal with misbehaving kids, apathetic teachers, and an administration that thought ignoring the problem, social promoting, and punishing anyone who fights back was the best strategy. It's not just the constant picking and poking that bullies do, it's the way they make the entire school environment like a prison yard. You never know when someone is going to do something to you, or how a teacher (guard) would react. Teachers exacerbating the problem because, while powerless, they mostly threw up their hands because they were not allowed to send the student out of the class. Public school in America is, in a word, prison.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    > It's not just the constant picking and poking that bullies do, it's the way they make the entire school environment like a prison yard. It wasn't the only way that schools were like prisons, just the most uncomfortable of those. We can be honest now, we're well distance from it at this point. > You never know when someone is going to do something to you, or how a teacher (guard) would react. Did you ever have any of the teachers join in? Not just decide that it was your fault, but to actually pick up on the name-calling and contempt? When it happens during class, that's the cue for everyone else to join in too, even those who'd always be too timid. But pretty much the whole administration does this in more subtle ways, you know? For me, this happened on the school bus more than anywhere else. I was in second grade, they were in highschool. An hour's bus ride to school every morning, an hour home each afternoon. Bus driver was an old asshole of a curmudgeon and from his driving I doubt he could see 6ft in front of his face (let along 14ft back through a mirror). When my mama went to the administration to try to have a stop put to it... they threatened her with me being thrown off the school bus. We lived in a rural area, she didn't have a car at the time. The implication was that if/when I missed school, it'd be truancy. She'd be arrested, I'd be put in foster care. You know, me. The second-grader who is a troublemaker just provoking the 16 yr olds into beatings, into having my clothes torn and stained with god knows what, into having my hair snipped off whenever my head was turned. I can't even tell anyone about this shit. No one believes me. I don't believe it myself. My memories seem like lies to me. > Teachers exacerbating the problem because, while powerless, Sounds alot more like "only following orders" to me.
candiodari 3y ago
You're going to learn to avoid bullies entirely and live the remainder of your life without them, is what you mean. As to how 18 years of being forced into a small room with them helps prepare you for that, I hope you'll enlighten me.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

> You are going to deal with bullies your whole life Never dealt with them again once I left high school. Not even any close calls. That shit's like living in a war zone. No one sends their kids to a war zone so they can "learn to survive". No good lessons exist in a war zone, not even in between people stepping on landmines or getting pulverized by airstrikes. All that exists in such a place is a bunch of trauma, and yes, debilitating/mutilative injuries, for those that somehow manage to get sneak back out of them. Bullying is like this too, though obviously to a lesser degree. I strongly suspect that most people get their ideas about what bullying is from the same half-dozen made-for-tv movies and other narrative fragments thereof on the subject.

Simulacra 3y ago
Cannot echo this enough. Not once in the 20 years since high school have I had to deal with with the same kind of bullies, intimidation, and violence. School was like a prison and going each day, steeling myself to deal with misbehaving kids, apathetic teachers, and an administration that thought ignoring the problem, social promoting, and punishing anyone who fights back was the best strategy. It's not just the constant picking and poking that bullies do, it's the way they make the entire school environment like a prison yard. You never know when someone is going to do something to you, or how a teacher (guard) would react. Teachers exacerbating the problem because, while powerless, they mostly threw up their hands because they were not allowed to send the student out of the class. Public school in America is, in a word, prison.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > It's not just the constant picking and poking that bullies do, it's the way they make the entire school environment like a prison yard. It wasn't the only way that schools were like prisons, just the most uncomfortable of those. We can be honest now, we're well distance from it at this point. > You never know when someone is going to do something to you, or how a teacher (guard) would react. Did you ever have any of the teachers join in? Not just decide that it was your fault, but to actually pick up on the name-calling and contempt? When it happens during class, that's the cue for everyone else to join in too, even those who'd always be too timid. But pretty much the whole administration does this in more subtle ways, you know? For me, this happened on the school bus more than anywhere else. I was in second grade, they were in highschool. An hour's bus ride to school every morning, an hour home each afternoon. Bus driver was an old asshole of a curmudgeon and from his driving I doubt he could see 6ft in front of his face (let along 14ft back through a mirror). When my mama went to the administration to try to have a stop put to it... they threatened her with me being thrown off the school bus. We lived in a rural area, she didn't have a car at the time. The implication was that if/when I missed school, it'd be truancy. She'd be arrested, I'd be put in foster care. You know, me. The second-grader who is a troublemaker just provoking the 16 yr olds into beatings, into having my clothes torn and stained with god knows what, into having my hair snipped off whenever my head was turned. I can't even tell anyone about this shit. No one believes me. I don't believe it myself. My memories seem like lies to me. > Teachers exacerbating the problem because, while powerless, Sounds alot more like "only following orders" to me.

candiodari 3y ago

You're going to learn to avoid bullies entirely and live the remainder of your life without them, is what you mean. As to how 18 years of being forced into a small room with them helps prepare you for that, I hope you'll enlighten me.