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Comment by pragmatic | Hacker News Reader

"This comment will be controversial, especially for North Americans and Western Europeans."

No not really. It will perhaps offend the bizarre establishment that has invaded school administration. However, this is bully repulsion 101.

If the system doesn't protect you, you must find a technique that does. Would we avoid school shootings,etc, if we taught our kids to stand up for themselves, don't let yourself get bullied? Real self respect vs the artificial "everyone's special" of today's thinking?

Sidenote: Why is this behavior (bullying) tolerated in school? What other part of our culture accepts bullying as "part of growing up" or "just the way it is?"

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Why is this behavior (bullying) tolerated in school?

They're just children. They're not going to pay you. They're not going to vote. Their parents aren't actually the ones getting kicked (WOW would you see a different scenario in that case). It's easier to write it off as "childish" and do nothing. And if you actually sided with a child, there would be loss of status from affiliating with such a low-prestige person.

Same reason society tolerates rape in juvenile prisons. Same reason textbooks and teaching are so uniformly awful. Children have no power, and there's nothing to be gained politically or socially from siding with someone who can't side back.

Their parents care more about them than any politician cares about his voters.

Faint praise.

Not true, in most cases.

Probably more than even themselves.

This question ate me in elementary school. I knew that the teachers & staff KNEW who the bullies were and who were the bullied. But they did nothing, and all of their punishments would give equal blame to both parties.

If there was actually unequal punishment then you'll get a lot more "he started it!" kind of arguments, kids will lie to get whatever they want.

And at the same time, I realize looking back on school is that the teachers & admins in public school aren't that bright. As a group they're the poorest-performing college students.

When I'm a father, maybe I would rather have equal & consistent punishment for both parties, rather than some crappy teachers trying to decide who did what.

Why is bullying tolerated in school?

If we accept that "loving the bullies" is a sign of weakness that encourages more bullying, allowing the school to intervene is a sign of extreme weakness that encourages even more bullying whenever kids are out of sight of authority figures.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that bullying occurs out of sight of authority figures regardless, and that when children report it they're basically told to suck it up.

I agree that children should learn to handle confrontation for themselves, but at the same time when there are chronic offenders there needs to be repercussions. If a bully picks on a kid and they fight back, the bully will move on to the next kid. If he keeps doing it, take him out of the system, expel him from school, or (optimally) find him some way of acting out his aggression, anger, etc. in a more productive manner.

'Fighting back' would soon reduce the school to anarchy outside of the presence of a teacher, but telling kids to deal with it and shrugging it off as 'part of growing up' just encourages the bullies by teaching them that they can do whatever they want, as long as they don't get caught.

In high school I was told my the assistant principal to "Deal with it" when a bully was stealing stuff, like my TI-86 calculator, from my locker. A few weeks later I ended up getting in a physical fight with him which resulted in me getting suspended. When asked why I did it, which I fully admitted to hitting first, I would only reply that the assistant principal told me to.

At the very least, my shit quit disappearing.

I think it's either apathy or fear of legal retribution on the part of teachers.

In Maharashtra(India), laws penalize 'ragging' - a ritualized form of bullying freshmen in the first month of college.

Earlier, ragging led to a few suicides, which in turn prompted the passing of the law. It does occur however; I have been ragged myself. Personally though, it didn't affect me as much as I feared it would.

Probably has more to do with the parents. Kids that end up as bullies don't come from extremely loving and/or close-knit households (for the most part). The parents will likely put up a huge, "You're picking on my kid; don't tell me how to raise my kid" type argument.

  > Sidenote: Why is this behavior (bullying)
  > tolerated in school? What other part of our
  > culture accepts bullying as "part of growing
  > up" or "just the way it is?"

There is a huge, "I went through it and survived and so will you"/"I had to endure it and so do you"/"it builds character"/etc attitude that extends beyond bullying (or even the education system).

Why is this behavior (bullying) tolerated in school?

My theory is denial. Parents of bullies don't want to admit that their kids are doing wrong, and the parents of victims don't want to face the fact that they need to get involved.

That was my situation, at least -- even with known bullies... when I finally fought back, I got dragged to the principal's office... and I let him have it. Another rarity is that my parents actually backed me on that one.

It's important to the train the unwashed masses to give up their lunch money to the bullies when they embezzle the entire country's capital structure and need another hit of finance-o-crack.

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