I read heart-breaking stories about young children who have killed themselves because of bullying. The First Lady has (supposedly) taken up cyber-bullying and other forms of bullying as her personal cause. Friends have reported that their children are being subjected to various degrees of bullying for being different, i.e. they are not white/straight/gender-conforming. This has led me to reflect on the instances of bullying in my past, when I was in secondary school. (Yes, I was bullied. Big surprise.)
The first instance that really comes to mind was during the first day of elementary school. Let me first say that elementary school itself was a HUGE shock to me. This was the first time I had been around other CHILDREN and indeed it was the first time I was treated as a child. Hithertofore I had spent my time around adults and pretty much been treated like a very small intelligent being. Here I was handed CHILDREN’S books, which I regarded as an insult, and I found children to be totally alien.
Getting back to recess and the topic at hand. We went out for recess and the teacher instructed us to skip. I looked at her blankly and inquired,”Skip what?” She had to show me how to skip, which I found most humiliating, and the other children laughed at me. That set the tone for the rest of the my life in elementary school, vis a vis the other children. My glasses were regularly knocked off my head or stolen; my books were shoved out of my arms; recess was just a nightmare. The teachers didn’t make this any better by their obvious preference for me, once they had discovered my academic prowess. Praising a child in class to the detriment of their peers does not endear them to their classmates.
Gym class was its own special brand of torture. IT was taught by a misogynistic coach who allowed us divide up into teams that pitted the boys against the girls. The girls got battered, and some girls got battered more than others. Finally I had had enough. I brought a book to class one day, sat myself under a tree in the yard, and announced that I wasn’t playing with the others. The coach yelled at me to get back in the game (kick ball, an esp. hated game for me.) I refused. He sent me to the principal’s office. I went and explained to the principal that I was tired of getting: shoved, hit, knocked to ground, trampled on, etc. So I was opting out. He said that I couldn’t do that. I replied that I was. He said that I would get an F. I said, “Fine.” He then said, “I think I’m going to have to call your parents….” I said, “Fine.” So my parents came, heard what was ensuing, and backed me up! They told the principal that if I chose not to participate in activity that was causing me to get knocked about, that was totally acceptable and reasonable behavior and that they supported me. The principal reiterated his threat of an F for the semester. My parents told him, “Fine.” So I sat out of gym the rest of that semester with my book. And incidently I never had to take another gym class the rest of my elementary school career. I was excused for “health” reasons by order of the principal. (More likely by reason of my parents theatened to make an issue of the coach.)
The other bullying that took place didn’t have such a good resolution. It was during Junior High. I was a Band Geek and played trombone. I rode the bus and was always burdened down with a trombone and a heavy knapsack of books. Being a small nerdy girl with glasses with a reputation for being smart can make you a target. There were some really BIG (or so they seemed to me at the time) girls who rode the same bus as I did who decided that I was the perfect prey. Day after day they assaulted me: they pushed me to the ground, knocked over my trombone case, threw my books around, called me names….I couldn’t fight back physically; I was outnumbered, plus I didn’t know how to fight AND we were on school property and I didn’t want to get caught fighting. So I fought back using the only method at my means: my vocabulary. I called those girls names I’m sure they would have surely beaten me up for, had they known what I was saying. But they simply had no idea that they were being maligned. I even cursed them out in Latin…and Latin has some truly amazing curses. (Perite and vacca stulta were two favorites.)
Looking back on this I find myself wondering where the bus driver or a teacher or SOMEBODY, some adult, was. But back then bullying wasn’t really on anyone’s radar. I certainly didn’t tell anyone about it. It just didn’t occur to me. You didn’t talk to adults about stuff like this. I pretty sure that if I had thought about it, I would have concluded that talking to a teacher would have only made matters WORSE, not better. This was not like elementary school, where your parents could intervene and make a difference. This was Junior High, and your peers ruled. For a teacher or other adult to be seen trying step in your behalf would be infinitely a terrible mistake. Whatever was going on would increase full force. Shudder.
And this is part of the reason why I left for college at age 16.