Harassment! and what to do about it

Yeah. I live in the state of New York.

edited 23rd Mar '11 2:24:52 PM by MrAHR

In the US you have the K-12 system, where schools or school districts divide it differently between schools. There's plenty of schools here stateside that have all of K-12 in a single school, where others (like the ones I went through) seperate it, usually K-5, then 6-8, then 9-12. Numbers may vary though, and as far as I know, there's no extrance exam.

Thanks. For all those who suffer from school violence (and I mean serious crap that involves beating) if you don't have strong friends or can't fight back (usually against big group) and if you don't break before, high school will be better. Or at least here where we have entrance exams and not every damn shit doesn't get in. My 10-12 class were really paradise.

Oh, I see, this happened in middle school (grades 6-8, ages 11-13)?

Not exactly. Grades 1-9. Ages 7-16. Year 1-9 is pretty much one same school here. The dominating groups started to form already in the first grade. Not nice stuff.

edited 23rd Mar '11 2:30:57 PM by Urnos

I see. Yeah, middle school (ages 11-13) tend to be similar to your situation, with elementary school (ages 5-10) being more innocent and highschool (ages 14-17) being more lax. Middle school is where all the hormones come in. Thus, hell.

edited 23rd Mar '11 2:33:07 PM by MrAHR

You start school from the age of 5? It's usually 7 here, some can start at the age of 6 as well. I remember that shit started to hit the fan almost from the beginning. Those were the main bullies, other started to get worse later. From 10 or 11 like you said. We got some really funky people there. Unfortunately some knew each other from before school therefor strong gangs were pretty much formed.

Well, age5 is kindergarten, which is less of a 'learning' year, and more of a 'get used to how school works' year.

edited 23rd Mar '11 2:38:07 PM by MrAHR

I got the most of it in middle school as well, as did other kids my age. When high school came around, even though there were still clicks and groups of people and such, a lot of the bullying died out. You might get some snobish behaviour here or there, but nothing too serious that either the student or teacher couldn't handle.

Of course, that may have been the area that I lived in too; there wasn't a whole lot of violence in the community, so not much was brought to school.

Kindergarten is pretty much separate entity and very optional here. I never went there myself.

My class had only one troublemaker and he was very normal to me. In style: "You're nerd, nice to know, I am bad dude while you're not, I deal with my shit, you deal with your own." I was actually a bit sorry he fell out right before the end of 12 grade.

We have preschool, which is essentially daycare with some learning, which is for 4 and younger. That's optional here.

I think I got bullied starting from second grade (~8 years old) on up through most of high school. My first instinct-my initial response-was violence.

Now, I am a pretty small guy, and I was even smaller relative to other people when I was young. So I fought like a madman-scratching, kicking, and my particular favorite technique, choking a bitch.

What this gained me is, in a nutshell, twice as much attention from the bullies. They thought my reactions were funny. Not to mention that I was frequently the one who got in trouble-they initiate, I flip out, teacher responds to disturbance, I get caught.

I did precisely two things that helped, although they were both tremendously difficult. I a) stopped responding, as in at all, to their bullshit. That took me about 10 years to get the hang of, with constant reminders/bugging from my parents. And b) I started talking less, because I realized I talked way too damn much. That took one massive revelation and about 3 years.

Obviously these are just my personal experiences, however. Take them with as many grains of salt as you wish.

*

edited 23rd Mar '11 7:51:33 PM by deathjavu

I remember there was a guy in my highschool - I'm not sure it counts, though, because while his behaviour was definitely in the harassment category, I never really felt harassed.

For example, sitting behind me in class and hissing loudly that I was either a) a slut/whore/whatever or b) an ugly bitch who would die a virgin. Apparently he never noticed the contradiction.

Well, sucks for you I guess. Not trying to be mean, but I genuinely think you're at a disadvantage for having that frame of mind.

Me? Comfortable with violence, but I don't go looking for trouble. I just don't run and hide when it comes looking for me, I give it the finger and call it a pussy, which I guess is sort of looking for trouble after all. I'll never start a fight, but I won't turn down the offer either.

I don't really think it's immature or a sign of a lack of intelligence, I think of it as assertive and admirable to defend yourself when you get put in those situations, while I would consider your point of view meek and cowardly. But we all have our views, yours is understandable from where you sit, I'm sure, I'm just rather happy with how mine worked out.

If you say so, you are right.

edited 24th Mar '11 8:44:44 PM by QQQQQ

Touching on what Barkey said as well as your response to my post, it's all about the appropriate level of force; you're not going to deal with a guy who shoves you the same why you'll deal with a gu who pulls a knife on you.

Those people who go crazy and try to kill a bully just because they got punched into a locker have issues, time, training, and judgement can temper those sort of reactions. You have to major decisions regarding conflict, 1) Am I justified and 2) How much force should I use.

@Barkey: You're a cop, you could probably explain that concept better than I did.

I don't see a use for insulting the other person, when I can use some humour to make us both laugh at the ridiculousness of the conflict.

If it is where someone threatens my life, or another's, I won't hesitate to put out the danger.

edited 24th Mar '11 8:50:02 AM by QQQQQ

Insults are most of my humour, so the two are intertwined for me.

I have only the fuzziest memories of my education.

In some schools (I was basically in a different school each year) I was basically ignored. In others I received some attention — occasionally welcoming, usually harassment.

Except in my case it wasn't from the students.

For some reason peer harassment only occurred in schools where I was actively trying to fit in and make friends. For instance, in one school students would make fun of me or threaten me quite a bit, but once I started engaging in "their" kind of behaviour (playing sports, etc, which I was quite terrible at) it diminished. But to be honest, I can remember very little of anything my fellow students did. I didn't pay attention to them much at all. By the time I reached high school, I ignored them and they ignored me; and what attention was paid to me was fairly neutral ("oh hi, person in my AP English class. what did you think of today's reading?" "I didn't totally understand chapter 14." "It's a bit confusing, but I think blah blah oh there's the bell.")

I only have clear memories of the adults throughout my education. But then I never stayed in one school long enough to make friends.

The little I have to say has already been said. Turning the other cheek works fine for me, even if I did have a number of people thinking I was genuinely mute for some time.