Can a teacher encourage/ignore bullying or even be a bully? Why?

[nuba km]

If you want to know, it's summed up in three words: zero tolerance policies. They're supposed to end bullying by making it a serious offense to get into a fight, but what it really does is punish fighting back just as strongly starting a fight. Add that to some inconsistent enforcement and a situation where the bullies tend to throw in a thousand little, easily denied jabs while the victim, if they eventually snap, does so /hard/ and in a way that the teachers can't ignore, you have a recipe for institutionalized bullying.

Actually, what I meant was that I don't understand why the "zero tolerance policies" and such exist. I don't understand why kids/teenagers kill themselves over bullying now. Bullying just doesn't seem worth all that to me. Kids are cruel to each other, teenagers are much worse. I don't see it ever being stopped.. just becoming more sneaky to circumvent rules about it.

I was bullied most of the way through school. I played it off, made jokes, laughed at myself, bided my time until I got out of school, and then got on with my life. It just wasn't a thing the way it seems to be now. It's as though bullying was an inconvenience for my generation, but is somehow something bigger and worse now. I'm not sure if bullying itself has changed so much or if kids are just less able to handle it now for whatever reason(s).

I know I probably sound callous and/or clueless.. but, as I said, I just don't understand the current mentality toward bullying. It's not that I feel it shouldn't be an issue, it just kind of boggles my mind why it is.

Well now a days you can be bullied 24/7 so it becomes a whole lot harder to just shake off. As well as that the severity of bullying is different with each person, how regular it is, the number of people doing it, who is doing (i.e. if a boss or a teacher bullies you its a lot worse then a co-worker or fellow student) and I think you generation did have a problem with being bullied but yet again stories about people committing suicide because of it wouldn't be as wide spread as they are now. I also think if you can ignore being bullied through out your entire school life either you are one of the emotionally strongest people there are or that you weren't really bullied to any major point.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

meh I got bullied when I was very young.. know what I did? stood the fuck up for myself and ended it like a rational person... and now I'm a stronger person for it and have been able to deal and stop it from happening to me again...

god kids need to stop crying and grow a pair

Alright, explain how you "ended it like a rational person".

The "rational" option we get most of the time is tell the teachers. That doesn't work as you can see from all the things that have been said here already.

beat them up? You get punished and you get more trouble and they will bully you harder.

Tell them to fuck off? NEVER works and makes them laugh at you.

It is complete and utter bullshit that getting bullied makes you stronger. It mentally breaks you. There are people attacking and hating you for nothing but their own kicks. That does not give very beneficial ideas to the young mind leading to the bully-cide phenomenon .
You most likely never really got bullied. At most you were collateral damage once.

lol... need a tissue?

seriously grow up and stop playing the weeping victim

so some one brings up a very strong argument against what you said pointing out that what you said shows an utter lack of understanding the subject and then you simply insult them. so please share with us how you ended it rationally, because I think we would all like to know how you have solved the issue of bullying I mean verbal or physical confrontations don't work neither those getting a authority figure as far as I can tell the only way is to hope it just ends and try your best to ignore it. So what is this magic solution you have?

a combination of cruel manipulation and physical confrontation worked fine for me... maybe you were just doing it wrong... or more likely you never even tried... you just cried to others then cried more when they didn't solve all your problems for you

See my post above. Physical altercation isn't really an option anymore, and "cruel manipulation" sounds more like you were the bully than the bullied.

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

On the other side of the coin, (this was in a primary school you have to remember) there where kids who had quite poor emotional development

By any chance were these the younger children in that class?

Yes, generally, but sometimes i was surprised (although i probably shouldn't have been) at how immature relatively old pupils could be.

The main problem with bullying is that unless its outright violence its damn hard to police. Its very rarely clear cut, especially with girls. They do it sneakily.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

meh I got bullied when I was very young.. know what I did? stood the fuck up for myself and ended it like a rational person... and now I'm a stronger person for it and have been able to deal and stop it from happening to me again...

god kids need to stop crying and grow a pair

Alright, explain how you "ended it like a rational person".

The "rational" option we get most of the time is tell the teachers. That doesn't work as you can see from all the things that have been said here already.

beat them up? You get punished and you get more trouble and they will bully you harder.

Tell them to fuck off? NEVER works and makes them laugh at you.

It is complete and utter bullshit that getting bullied makes you stronger. It mentally breaks you. There are people attacking and hating you for nothing but their own kicks. That does not give very beneficial ideas to the young mind leading to the bully-cide phenomenon .
You most likely never really got bullied. At most you were collateral damage once.

lol... need a tissue?

seriously grow up and stop playing the weeping victim

so some one brings up a very strong argument against what you said pointing out that what you said shows an utter lack of understanding the subject and then you simply insult them. so please share with us how you ended it rationally, because I think we would all like to know how you have solved the issue of bullying I mean verbal or physical confrontations don't work neither those getting a authority figure as far as I can tell the only way is to hope it just ends and try your best to ignore it. So what is this magic solution you have?

a combination of cruel manipulation and physical confrontation worked fine for me... maybe you were just doing it wrong... or more likely you never even tried... you just cried to others then cried more when they didn't solve all your problems for you

See my post above. Physical altercation isn't really an option anymore, and "cruel manipulation" sounds more like you were the bully than the bullied.

physical confrontation IS always an option... and I guess if you want to get technical about it what I did to the kids who bullied me could be counted as bulling... but hey fighting fire with fire is called for sometimes... beats crying like a little girl about it for the next decade like some of you seem keen on doing

Do you understand the meaning of the word "zero tolerance policy?" You get suspended, or worse, expelled and sent to an alternative school if you get caught fighting, and it doesn't matter who started it. Fighting makes it worse these days, not better.

Edit: and this is ignoring the fact that bullies are cowards, and they never pick on someone they think might be capable of beating them up. They're either twice the size of the victim, or they travel in packs. So fighting back gets you beaten up /and/ in trouble. Joy.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

If a teacher chooses to ignore a bully or, doesn't do anything to stop bullying from happening in the classroom I would consider that teacher to be aiding in the bullying. Weather or not they like it the teacher is an authority figure and it's part of their job to keep order in the classroom. Just my opinion though as I've never taught and have limited experience dealing with groups of children.

 

[theSteamSupported]

Someone said that parents can't get fired. This must be the main reason why teachers don't interfere. Remember that every bully is someone's sweet little angel.

 

[Easton Dark]

Snip

I'm really sorry to hear that. I'm becoming more and more aware about abuse, both mental and physical, that some religions can inflict on people for living their lives, and it just gets me progressively angrier.

 

[nuba km]

meh I got bullied when I was very young.. know what I did? stood the fuck up for myself and ended it like a rational person... and now I'm a stronger person for it and have been able to deal and stop it from happening to me again...

god kids need to stop crying and grow a pair

Alright, explain how you "ended it like a rational person".

The "rational" option we get most of the time is tell the teachers. That doesn't work as you can see from all the things that have been said here already.

beat them up? You get punished and you get more trouble and they will bully you harder.

Tell them to fuck off? NEVER works and makes them laugh at you.

It is complete and utter bullshit that getting bullied makes you stronger. It mentally breaks you. There are people attacking and hating you for nothing but their own kicks. That does not give very beneficial ideas to the young mind leading to the bully-cide phenomenon .
You most likely never really got bullied. At most you were collateral damage once.

lol... need a tissue?

seriously grow up and stop playing the weeping victim

so some one brings up a very strong argument against what you said pointing out that what you said shows an utter lack of understanding the subject and then you simply insult them. so please share with us how you ended it rationally, because I think we would all like to know how you have solved the issue of bullying I mean verbal or physical confrontations don't work neither those getting a authority figure as far as I can tell the only way is to hope it just ends and try your best to ignore it. So what is this magic solution you have?

a combination of cruel manipulation and physical confrontation worked fine for me... maybe you were just doing it wrong... or more likely you never even tried... you just cried to others then cried more when they didn't solve all your problems for you

and you didn't bring up a strong argument against anything I said... you just cried and complained that you had a hard time and nothing helped... which I doubt you even tried anything beyond crying

So you are in fact a worse person now after being bullied, instead of staying strong and by your principle you stoop to the same levels as those who you feel did wrong. Any one that know me knows that I am one of the first people that will confront you if they have an issue with what your doing I am not someone who sits back and takes other peoples shit, but one thing that I will do over that is not be a dick because I know what it was like to be up against jerks on a daily biasses, so I developed something known as principles which helped me become a stronger person.

You on the other hand feel like you have to insult people when they are sharing stories of one of their most vulnerable points in their live, as in picking on someone who might be weaker then you as in something a bully those, so please to elaborate on how "strong" of a person you have become.

 

[Sara Fontaine]

I certainly feel that they can refuse to acknowledge that bullying is going on. I was a very quiet child; shy and nervous, so as such I got left by myself a lot. Sometimes I think that if you come across as a loner child, teachers think you're bringing it on yourself. Told my parents what was going on after they noticed I didn't want to go to school anymore, and of course they go to the school enraged, accuse the Headmistress of condoning the bullying and an argument breaks out, but she at least said she'd do something about it. She didn't though.

The worst incident for me was when I sitting by a tree that was in the playground, and it had two foot wall around it. Some kid came over and asked if I wanted to play with him. Somehow or another we ended up on the wall, when suddenly a bunch of other kids came over led by his 'girlfriend' (how a 7 year old can have a relationship is beyond me). She was one of the worst ones for bullying me, and suddenly she shouted "Do it, now!" I feel two hands shove me in the back and I fall face first off the wall, hitting my nose when I landed. It sounds like something you'd see in a film, I know, but while I sat crying with my nose pouring blood, they ran around me laughing. The teacher in the playground eventually came over, and ushered all of those involved inside the school building, leaving me sat there clearly injured and upset by myself, and I remember feeling completely and utterly rejected. The look on my mother's face when she came to fetch me and saw the state I was in was something else...
I don't know what exactly happened when she went barging into the Headmistress' office, but it got results. I got roughly a months worth of peace and quiet and a letter of apology from the boy who pushed me. What bothers me though is why when my mum dragged me into the office, the other kids were sat nearby, but the Headmistress apparently had no idea what had happened, so obviously the teacher who brought them in said nothing.

The bullying carried on in high school, but by then I'd developed my coping mechanism of being sarcastic and using my vocabulary to confuse the shit out of them. I also started laughing at whatever they said to me; they really didn't like that. I got over bullying by myself, but as a result it's left me with a perpetually half-empty glass and I can be bitter sometimes.
Did the teachers know it was going on at both schools? Yes.
Did they do anything about it? No. No they did not; unless they were being threatened with being complained about that is. I understand there's only so much a teacher can do to stop it from happening, and I know that there are the odd ones who will go out of their way to stop it from happening. But in my experience, they were the least helpful aspect of the whole experience.

EDIT: Apologies for the long post. I didn't quite realise how much I'd rambled on.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

meh I got bullied when I was very young.. know what I did? stood the fuck up for myself and ended it like a rational person... and now I'm a stronger person for it and have been able to deal and stop it from happening to me again...

god kids need to stop crying and grow a pair

Alright, explain how you "ended it like a rational person".

The "rational" option we get most of the time is tell the teachers. That doesn't work as you can see from all the things that have been said here already.

beat them up? You get punished and you get more trouble and they will bully you harder.

Tell them to fuck off? NEVER works and makes them laugh at you.

It is complete and utter bullshit that getting bullied makes you stronger. It mentally breaks you. There are people attacking and hating you for nothing but their own kicks. That does not give very beneficial ideas to the young mind leading to the bully-cide phenomenon .
You most likely never really got bullied. At most you were collateral damage once.

lol... need a tissue?

seriously grow up and stop playing the weeping victim

so some one brings up a very strong argument against what you said pointing out that what you said shows an utter lack of understanding the subject and then you simply insult them. so please share with us how you ended it rationally, because I think we would all like to know how you have solved the issue of bullying I mean verbal or physical confrontations don't work neither those getting a authority figure as far as I can tell the only way is to hope it just ends and try your best to ignore it. So what is this magic solution you have?

a combination of cruel manipulation and physical confrontation worked fine for me... maybe you were just doing it wrong... or more likely you never even tried... you just cried to others then cried more when they didn't solve all your problems for you

See my post above. Physical altercation isn't really an option anymore, and "cruel manipulation" sounds more like you were the bully than the bullied.

physical confrontation IS always an option... and I guess if you want to get technical about it what I did to the kids who bullied me could be counted as bulling... but hey fighting fire with fire is called for sometimes... beats crying like a little girl about it for the next decade like some of you seem keen on doing

Do you understand the meaning of the word "zero tolerance policy?" You get suspended, or worse, expelled and sent to an alternative school if you get caught fighting, and it doesn't matter who started it. Fighting makes it worse these days, not better.

ok first then why isn't the bully expelled and sent away? if he isn't you must be talking about nothing but verbal bullying... if that's the case than ya you are just a pussy... grow some thicker skin and man up

besides if you are being bullied bad enough to get all weepy like you are then getting sent to another school is probably a valid option

The "other school" in this case is effectively a prison; it's the step in between a normal school and honest to god juvie hall. And you've just demonstrated that you have no idea what it's like to be bullied, so you just need to shut up about it; it's not about growing a thick skin. I /have/ a thick skin. It's about teachers who don't pay attention until the violence gets to a point they can no longer ignore (like, half the school standing in a circle chanting "fight!" impossible to ignore), and then they don't bother to find out who started it or why, everyone just gets punished equally.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

meh I got bullied when I was very young.. know what I did? stood the fuck up for myself and ended it like a rational person... and now I'm a stronger person for it and have been able to deal and stop it from happening to me again...

god kids need to stop crying and grow a pair

Alright, explain how you "ended it like a rational person".

The "rational" option we get most of the time is tell the teachers. That doesn't work as you can see from all the things that have been said here already.

beat them up? You get punished and you get more trouble and they will bully you harder.

Tell them to fuck off? NEVER works and makes them laugh at you.

It is complete and utter bullshit that getting bullied makes you stronger. It mentally breaks you. There are people attacking and hating you for nothing but their own kicks. That does not give very beneficial ideas to the young mind leading to the bully-cide phenomenon .
You most likely never really got bullied. At most you were collateral damage once.

lol... need a tissue?

seriously grow up and stop playing the weeping victim

so some one brings up a very strong argument against what you said pointing out that what you said shows an utter lack of understanding the subject and then you simply insult them. so please share with us how you ended it rationally, because I think we would all like to know how you have solved the issue of bullying I mean verbal or physical confrontations don't work neither those getting a authority figure as far as I can tell the only way is to hope it just ends and try your best to ignore it. So what is this magic solution you have?

a combination of cruel manipulation and physical confrontation worked fine for me... maybe you were just doing it wrong... or more likely you never even tried... you just cried to others then cried more when they didn't solve all your problems for you

See my post above. Physical altercation isn't really an option anymore, and "cruel manipulation" sounds more like you were the bully than the bullied.

physical confrontation IS always an option... and I guess if you want to get technical about it what I did to the kids who bullied me could be counted as bulling... but hey fighting fire with fire is called for sometimes... beats crying like a little girl about it for the next decade like some of you seem keen on doing

Do you understand the meaning of the word "zero tolerance policy?" You get suspended, or worse, expelled and sent to an alternative school if you get caught fighting, and it doesn't matter who started it. Fighting makes it worse these days, not better.

ok first then why isn't the bully expelled and sent away? if he isn't you must be talking about nothing but verbal bullying... if that's the case than ya you are just a pussy... grow some thicker skin and man up

besides if you are being bullied bad enough to get all weepy like you are then getting sent to another school is probably a valid option

The "other school" in this case is effectively a prison; it's the step in between a normal school and honest to god juvie hall. And you've just demonstrated that you have no idea what it's like to be bullied, so you just need to shut up about it; it's not about growing a thick skin. I /have/ a thick skin. It's about teachers who don't pay attention until the violence gets to a point they can no longer ignore (like, half the school standing in a circle chanting "fight!" impossible to ignore), and then they don't bother to find out who started it or why, everyone just gets punished equally.

ah yeah cry it's everyone else's fault you can't defend yourself... god grow the fuck up... if you ALLOW yourself to be shit on you will be shit on again and again.. if you are to afraid to fight back because of the consequences you may suffer than again you deserve it... touchy feely fucking generation

My god are you an unpleasant person. You weren't bullied, you were a bully. Or at the very least, you became one. You don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Edit: seriously, dude, you want to claim you were the one who was bullied, when you're the one pulling the "oh, are you gonna cry ya big baby?" routine? You're like Scott Farkus, except you live in a time when poor Ralphie would have been the one who got in trouble here, instead of solving his bullying problem.


Edit Edit: well, shoot. Embedding is disabled. Hopefully most people will get the reference, whether they bother to go to Youtube or not.

 

[Aris Khandr]

Snip

I'm really sorry to hear that. I'm becoming more and more aware about abuse, both mental and physical, that some religions can inflict on people for living their lives, and it just gets me progressively angrier.

Eh, I'm mostly over it. Though I do harbor a rather strong prejudice against religion, and Southern Baptists in specific, because of it. I try not to let it colour my feelings on individual people, but if a group of people is identified as being from a church, as opposed to being the same bowling team or book club or whatever, I am immediately going to trust them less. I simply have a hard time fully trusting anyone who's first identification is to such a hateful institution.

 

[razer17]

Teachers can't do anything anyway. Oh no, not detention. Bullies don't give a shit, and they never really get excluded or expelled unless a teacher physically sees them beating the crap out of you.

The best thing to do is ignore bullies, as long as it's only verbal and not phyiscal. So what if someone calls you gay/fat/stupid/nerd or whatever? It doesn't do anything to you. When did sticks and stones stop being true? Telling a teacher is almost always a bad idea, because they can't do anything, and if they do you get bullied more because you went crying to teacher.

Bulllying sucks, and bullies are cunts, but it's really not that hard to ignore. That's what I did, that or I gave back as good as I got.

 

[Easton Dark]

Snip

I'm really sorry to hear that. I'm becoming more and more aware about abuse, both mental and physical, that some religions can inflict on people for living their lives, and it just gets me progressively angrier.

Eh, I'm mostly over it. Though I do harbor a rather strong prejudice against religion, and Southern Baptists in specific, because of it. I try not to let it colour my feelings on individual people, but if a group of people is identified as being from a church, as opposed to being the same bowling team or book club or whatever, I am immediately going to trust them less. I simply have a hard time fully trusting anyone who's first identification is to such a hateful institution.

I've never had to deal with any prejudice up in Indiana, being a white heterosexual male.
That being said, I would never feel comfortable down in that Bible belt. Its certain sections that are just... wretched hives of scum and villainy, with beliefs that belong more in an African dictatorship than in the southern states of a first-world country. I'm really glad it hasn't affected you as much as it has other people in my life.

 

[HardkorSB]

meh I got bullied when I was very young.. know what I did? stood the fuck up for myself and ended it like a rational person... and now I'm a stronger person for it and have been able to deal and stop it from happening to me again...

god kids need to stop crying and grow a pair

Alright, explain how you "ended it like a rational person".

The "rational" option we get most of the time is tell the teachers. That doesn't work as you can see from all the things that have been said here already.

beat them up? You get punished and you get more trouble and they will bully you harder.

Tell them to fuck off? NEVER works and makes them laugh at you.

It is complete and utter bullshit that getting bullied makes you stronger. It mentally breaks you. There are people attacking and hating you for nothing but their own kicks. That does not give very beneficial ideas to the young mind leading to the bully-cide phenomenon .
You most likely never really got bullied. At most you were collateral damage once.

lol... need a tissue?

seriously grow up and stop playing the weeping victim

so some one brings up a very strong argument against what you said pointing out that what you said shows an utter lack of understanding the subject and then you simply insult them. so please share with us how you ended it rationally, because I think we would all like to know how you have solved the issue of bullying I mean verbal or physical confrontations don't work neither those getting a authority figure as far as I can tell the only way is to hope it just ends and try your best to ignore it. So what is this magic solution you have?

a combination of cruel manipulation and physical confrontation worked fine for me... maybe you were just doing it wrong... or more likely you never even tried... you just cried to others then cried more when they didn't solve all your problems for you

See my post above. Physical altercation isn't really an option anymore, and "cruel manipulation" sounds more like you were the bully than the bullied.

physical confrontation IS always an option... and I guess if you want to get technical about it what I did to the kids who bullied me could be counted as bulling... but hey fighting fire with fire is called for sometimes... beats crying like a little girl about it for the next decade like some of you seem keen on doing

Do you understand the meaning of the word "zero tolerance policy?" You get suspended, or worse, expelled and sent to an alternative school if you get caught fighting, and it doesn't matter who started it. Fighting makes it worse these days, not better.

ok first then why isn't the bully expelled and sent away? if he isn't you must be talking about nothing but verbal bullying... if that's the case than ya you are just a pussy... grow some thicker skin and man up

besides if you are being bullied bad enough to get all weepy like you are then getting sent to another school is probably a valid option

The "other school" in this case is effectively a prison; it's the step in between a normal school and honest to god juvie hall. And you've just demonstrated that you have no idea what it's like to be bullied, so you just need to shut up about it; it's not about growing a thick skin. I /have/ a thick skin. It's about teachers who don't pay attention until the violence gets to a point they can no longer ignore (like, half the school standing in a circle chanting "fight!" impossible to ignore), and then they don't bother to find out who started it or why, everyone just gets punished equally.

ah yeah cry it's everyone else's fault you can't defend yourself... god grow the fuck up... if you ALLOW yourself to be shit on you will be shit on again and again.. if you are to afraid to fight back because of the consequences you may suffer than again you deserve it... touchy feely fucking generation

So, if I'm being beaten up daily by 5-6 guys bigger and stronger than me, verbally abused and humiliated by a lot more, I am allowing them to do that?
When I can't even go to a bathroom because I know they will follow me there and "do their thing", I'm a cry baby?
When they destroy my books and backpack several times, throw rocks at my head, push me down a staircase, I deserve that?

What about this guy?
Should he grow up? He's crying like a baby, isn't he? what a loser.