Twentieth Century Fox's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" Image from movieweb.com
An article in The Monitor recently stated that the San Benito School District is the first in the region to put together a guide on how to deal with bullying. I know, from first-hand experience unfortunately, that being picked on, or getting beat-up at school is a horrible experience. Although, I do feel the need to mention that one of the worst beatings I ever got in school was actually from my own teacher’s wooden paddle.
I have no doubt bullying in schools is a very serious problem, and it's very likely that bullying these days is a-hundred-times worst than it was when I was in school… or is it?
According the San Benito “Guide to Deal With Bullying” - bullying is defined as; “written or oral expression or physical conduct (that has) the effect of physically harming a student, damaging a student’s property, placing a student in reasonable fear or harm.”
The article continues stating that bullying can also take the form of gossip, and rumors, or also harassing emails, texts, or taking “unflattering pictures” of someone and posting them online.
I may be wrong, but doesn’t that pretty much describe everyone in your class?
When I was in school, the bully was the guy that that would make your nose bleed, make the girls cry, and be responsible for major property damage.
Are we to believe that today a bully is anyone who posts a comment you don’t like on your FaceBook wall, or send you a text with a curse word in it?
At some point in our “K-12” life, we all yelled at someone, we all made fun of someone, we all spread rumors. Does that mean we were all bullies?
Bullying is a problem that has always has been, and likely always will be. What hasn’t always been however, is written school rules that state that anyone that simply makes a student feel bad deserves to be punished for any reason, even if their “misconduct” doesn’t involve any physical harm, and I question whether in the end that will do more harm than good.
Yes, I am well aware that there are cases where verbal bullying was enough to cause severe damage to a bullying victim, but what about the hundreds of thousands of undocumented cases of kids who dealt with their bullies in their own way, and became stronger people.
Our teachers were never shy about reminding us that they were there to teach us, not baby-sit us. Maybe one of the most valuable lessens we learn in our entire life on any campus is how to deal with people who intimidate us, and treat us poorly, because the truth is, bullies do exist outside the walls of public, and private schools, and in the real world, there are no teachers, and principles to cry to.
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