Poor Baby?

Bullying at School

By Robert Ringer

While reader e-mails for the Cho Factor series have run about 25:1 on the positive side, there have been many who have expressed negative views. Most of the negative e-mails have been from unionized teachers, which is quite understandable. On the other hand, it's remarkable how many teachers and ex-teachers have agreed with me. There is no doubt that bullying at school invokes strong responses.

As to negative e-mails from non-teachers, most of them were along the lines of the following:

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Your constant pushing of "victim status" for kids at the "mercy" of bullies has finally reached my threshold tolerance. Your stereotyping of coaches as the built-in support group for the bully class of students is ridiculous and worthy of my disdain.

Your attitude of "poor baby" does nothing to help those who are the butt of this abuse. You imply that there is no such thing as self-help, that the problem is with the system. I can agree that the system is at fault, the system that no longer allows the teased student to fight back when attacked.

My mother taught me to diffuse taunts. She also taught me to fight back. The first time I punched the bully who had been pushing me around for weeks, the harassment stopped. I didn't win the fight, but I was no longer a "safe" target ... and I did not get suspended.

In those days the teacher asked questions and punished the perpetrator. The "victim" defending himself was admonished to not do it again, and let go. I am suspending my subscription. — Bruce F.

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The attitude of readers like this is: Parents need to teach their wimpy kids to stand tall and fight. Even if you get eight bones broken in your face, it's worth it. After all, if you're going to live in a violent society, you have to learn to be violent, right? Bullying at school is actually good practice for the real world.

I understand this kind of mentality ... I really do. But there is one thing that advocates of the kick-butt fraternity don't get: What if a child doesn't have the physical and/or mental tools to hang tough? Do you really want to encourage him to get beaten to a pulp?

Should a blind child be required to stand up to schoolyard hooligans? No? Why not? After all, he has to learn to live in a violent society, doesn't he? What about a child in a wheelchair? Or a child afflicted with autism? Where do you draw the line?

I've observed the phenomenon of bullying for a long time, and I'm here to tell you that the majority of kids who are bullied lack — for whatever reason — the ability to fight off their attackers. And why should they have to? As a firm believer in liberty, I believe there is one law that is inviolable: No one has the right to commit aggression against any other human being.

When student thugs bully those whom they perceive to be easy targets, they are guilty of aggression. When teacher thugs bully any child, they are guilty of aggression. And when it comes to children in school, I have to expand my definition of aggression to include taunting and other forms of harassment.

How dare a teacher or student call another student "fag"? How dare a teacher or student make fun of another student's speech? How dare a teacher or student tease another student who walks "funny"? How dare a teacher or student make fun of another student afflicted with dwarfism, obesity, or a nervous tic?

I have witnessed all of these things firsthand, and, to borrow a line from Glenn Beck, it makes blood shoot out of my eyes. You don't have to be a card-carrying liberal to feel this way. Liberals don't have a monopoly on compassion. What you have to be is humane. It has nothing to do with politics.

The other major point that anti-wimp readers miss is a foundational one that I made at the outset of this series: A Seung-Hui Cho grabs the headlines by killing classmates and teachers, but no one gives a thought to the Chos who don't take out their anger on anyone. Instead, they suffer in silence, and all too often their lives are damaged beyond repair.

If I had any doubts about this, they were cast aside by the tidal wave of e-mails from readers who related gory details of how, as adults, they are still suffering from the abuse they experienced in school. Anyone who missed this point missed the main point of the series. Why should millions of children's lives be ruined because of teacher apathy or, worse, malevolence? I will never back off on this issue.

As to The Game, it destroys even more lives than bullying at school, though in a much different way. Parents need to not only be aware of The Game, but to think of ways to immunize their children against it. The Game will always be an integral part of the world your children live in. But whether or not they choose to play it, and to what extent, will be up to them. That is where good parenting comes in.

As to the future of The Cho Factor series, one of these days I may get around to telling the story of a basketball coach and athletic director whose malevolence and dishonesty astonished even me. And how the headmaster stood up for them in spite of a mountain of irrefutable evidence. Right now, however, I think it would be too much for my Cho-fatigued reading audience to handle.

Sometime soon, I also plan to get around to the subject of how teaching is conducted in our schools — including curricula, teaching methods, and every parent's worst nightmare, parentwork (euphemistically referred to as "homework"). I realize that many readers think I'm a masochist, but if all I'm after in this life is love, I'd buy a dog.

Previous - Part XXXI, Jocks Rule: High School Sports

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