As I have grown, I have come to understand that very often bullies are themselves the victim of bullying in quite a few cases, and that relates back to parents and especially siblings, who are often abusing their own family members in a place that they can't escape.
This is not to excuse the bullies that terrorize their classmates but it helps explain it a bit.
Those crucial teen years, 13 to 19 are so strange and bizarre. Being basically a child at the start of it, there'a all the hormone driven changes of puberty and the awkward growth spurts that might have certain body parts suddenly disproportionately sized from the rest of you, and the skin conditions, and so many other oddities that are easy targets.
But certainly the discussion has to continue and this was a great examination of a great tragedy.
The world just keeps getting bigger and bigger, faster almost than it can keep up with itself, and, to some degree, I think this is one of the results
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I wasn't subject to constant bullying in school, and being in a very small school did help limit what there was -- mean kids being a certain proportion of a population, that number gets smaller. So my experience would be classed as "mild" compared to others in bigger schools or who had more obvious aspects to pick on.
Still, for any kid in my generation, the torment was mostly limited to school hours. Today, with social media, the mean kids can hunt you down 24/7, and, as in a case in Canada, even if you change schools and towns, the mean clique in your new address can be alerted to your easy-target status. Some degree of teaching/enforcing human decency has become necessary.
Bullies suck. I'm so glad to not be a kid, tween or teen any more. Now, as a teacher, I watch real close with my students. Some kids are real slick and stay off the radar but can do so much damage. AW
I think we are more aware of the damage bullying causes, and that it isn't harmless. The rise of the term "social bullying" in my lifetime, to describe persecution that doesn't involve fists but can destroy just as readily, is a sign of more awareness.
Schools still rely too much upon stupidity such as expecting that until the victims report it, the problem isn't happening. Typically, reporting it just causes more trouble for the victim. That's not what you want at all, and it's disingenuous to pretend that isn't exactly the typical result. :(
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This is not to excuse the bullies that terrorize their classmates but it helps explain it a bit.
Those crucial teen years, 13 to 19 are so strange and bizarre. Being basically a child at the start of it, there'a all the hormone driven changes of puberty and the awkward growth spurts that might have certain body parts suddenly disproportionately sized from the rest of you, and the skin conditions, and so many other oddities that are easy targets.
But certainly the discussion has to continue and this was a great examination of a great tragedy.
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Still, for any kid in my generation, the torment was mostly limited to school hours. Today, with social media, the mean kids can hunt you down 24/7, and, as in a case in Canada, even if you change schools and towns, the mean clique in your new address can be alerted to your easy-target status. Some degree of teaching/enforcing human decency has become necessary.
Thanks for reading and the feedback.
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Schools still rely too much upon stupidity such as expecting that until the victims report it, the problem isn't happening. Typically, reporting it just causes more trouble for the victim. That's not what you want at all, and it's disingenuous to pretend that isn't exactly the typical result. :(
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