>be me
>highschool gym class
>shirts vs skins
>take off shirt
>gym teacher sees my bruises
>get called into office
>asked if bruises are from home
>no these are from school
>oh ok
>never chosen for skins again
>thanks gym teacher

  • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Nobody cares about bullying, until the victim decides to fight back. Then it’s “zero tolerance” for violence

    • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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      9 months ago

      This was probably 25 years ago at this point but I got sent to the principal’s office along with the kid that attacked me and I didn’t even have a chance to fight back before an adult showed up to stop it. Didn’t matter, got the same “shame on you” even though I literally did nothing.

      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        I was in martial arts in highschool, and the star student got in a fight. Advanced levek blackbelt, teaching lessons himself, winning regional competitions, wanted to do mma and teach it shortly before it really became a known thing, think he actually does that now.

        I had recently watched this guy hold his own sparring against the lead instructor of our “dojo” and the lead instructor for the state. They came at him one at a time, but it was one contiuous match.

        The star student did not initiate the fight at school. He could have broken the kid who attacked him in half without much effort, but he didn’t even attempt to block. He knew the zero tolerance rules and didn’t want anything to come back on him.

        If I recall right, the attacker broke or sprained the star student’s arm. School admin still came down on him. It took intervention by state level people in our martial arts org and numerous others for them to let him back before the attacker.

        This sounds like some adolescent power fantasy, but it’s not. Just absolutely fucking absurd.

      • _lilith@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        They loved to do that shit in the 90’s. It got to where if someone threw a punch you went all out because you knew everyone was getting suspended no matter what

    • daniyeg@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      i am not defending how schools handle bullies at all, but saying no one cares is inaccurate. people care but

      kids and teens are naturally born liars or just can’t describe events probably and in their mind they are always innocent, most schools are understaffed and most teachers overworked and can’t keep track of what everyone is doing, and most importantly parents. a bully probably has bad parents and bad parents are the ones that are willing to get into shouting matches and lawsuits because you treated their little angle too bad. that’s why it’s always “your son got into a fight” and not “your daughter is bullying her classmates”. that’s why it’s always wishy washy “don’t fight kids” to both sides. the moment a parent feels like their kid is taking the blame they are going to pound on you until either they are forced out of school or you give in.

      it’s sad honestly but mix that with 10 or 20 years of constantly dealing with kids and parents bullshit, and you get seemingly apathetic teachers.

      • repungnant_canary@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        kids and teens are naturally born liars

        Absolutely not true. It’s the adults listening and reacting only to what they want that incentivizes young people to lie

          • repungnant_canary@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            If only you could read my comment… I only talked about the origins of lying, I said nothing about observed behaviour of young people

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        When i was in high school i got beat to shit by other kids regularly. These were some nasty fucks. too. Buncha farm boys who took what they learned from their old man at home and brought it to school to take it out on those smaller than them.

        The school knew i was being hurt regularly and did nothing. My reports of violence directed against me got no response at best and the school administration saying i deserved it for being weak at worst and i quickly quit even bothering. Other parents saw/overhead how i was treated and complained to the school but that was also ignored.

        But when Columbine happened suddenly that changed. They knew the whole time and they realized something bad could happen because of their inaction and encouragement: I could get revenge.

        Now, things didn’t change for the better but it became clear to me that they knew exactly what had been going on. They just didn’t care because, in their minds, i deserved what happened. Their response to the new fear of school shootings wasn’t to try to fix things and improve the situation, it was to view me not just as someone who deserved what happened to me but as an enemy.

        They know and they don’t care.

      • sheepy@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        That is such a horrible view of children. What happened to you to form such an opinion?

        • daniyeg@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          my experience with kids comes from the 10 or 12 years as a kid that i remember, one of my parents being a teacher and hearing about what happened in their school, and 1 year of helping teaching middle schoolers about computers on windows 7 boxes half of which had parts taken from by the kids (don’t ask me how i got to that point). should preface this by saying that all of these were in poor urban schools without councilors or other similar kinds of staff in a third world country.

          i got nothing against kids. they are indeed very sweet and innocent and i don’t hate them. i got bullied when i was a kid because i couldn’t socialize with anyone, all of it seemed very arbitrary and strange. it was the same routine in and out, someone sees me crying and they ask what happened, i tell them the kids name and we both get called to the office, and i would see the moment the kid gets accused of anything the tears start running down their face and they start lying through their teeth. at the end the teacher would decide either it was a close call or can’t do nothing about the kid and let us go.

          i’ve seen both how assholish kids can get (worst was definitely the time the drug dealer kid decided to have a go, in which he subsequently broke my nose and almost broke my leg), and how teachers fail to do anything about it. i’ve seen my fair share of abusive and sadistic teachers which would hit us if we didn’t do our homework even though it was illegal for at least a few years by this point, but looking back i clearly see that some people at least cared and tried to help me, but couldn’t do anything about it especially in that environment. and things have improved since then. spending time with teachers in break rooms, it’s obvious how much most of them care these days. they’re almost always discussing the kids relationships, how well they are doing, if any of them is getting bullied ect. some of the assholes are still there, no doubt about it.

          so to answer your question, probably the bias that has formed in me being a victim of bullying, or poverty, or a mix of them both. in my folly i assumed 1. teachers at richer countries are better and 2. yet at the same time kids are exactly how they are here. the amount of downvotes my comment got tells me otherwise. i just wanted to defend teachers that always getting thrown under the bus for bullying when in fact it’s much more of a complex and systematic issue.