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There's a wide variety of schools in the US and it sounds like you're at one of the worst.

I went to school at a suburb of Chicago where two friends died by being shot by gang members (Latin Kings), a kid that sat in front of me in Spanish murdered his girlfriend and went to prison, and drug deals were common in the hallways. But standing up to bullies was still better than backing down.

That said, the gang members were rarely if ever the bullies; not unless they suspected you were in a rival gang. The bullies were the kids that wanted a power trip, mainly the Seniors and mainly the sports guys.

If you give in you're doomed to be giving up your money or whatever again and again and again. You fight back, and that's usually going to be the end of it. People that fight back aren't fun; the weak ones that cry and give you stuff, that's where the fun is. The bullies want a reward with little effort. The gangs usually have a personal vendetta against you, your family, your different gang, your race, or something else. That's a whole different issue and one that's not dealt with in the same simple way.

Don't confuse gangs and bullies, they're two very different beasts.

"I guess maybe this is what happens in white suburban schools?"

"[I]n real life Jesus and Jose and their 20 cousins and homies just show up ..."

Jesus and Jose? Homies? Just. Stop.

Was it really necessary to inject some sort of pathetic, dogwhistle racial component into this? Why are you trying to cast a universal problem like bullying into a phenomenon where the scary minorities are picking on white kids?

Curious assumption that it's the white kids who are getting picked on...

That was the implication, yes.

Why did you assume I meant white kids were getting picked on? What? I specifically said I was NOT teaching in white, suburban schools.

Even if I got that part wrong, the main point stands. Definitely no need to make this a discussion about "José" and his "homies."

Are we just talking about the US here? Perhaps Canada and Australia have a similar situation, but I'd imagine every country/region has a different story. The blog writer, though, was in Hong Kong, where even teachers get bullied by students in high school. Cross the border into the mainland, and the bully will keep themselves well hidden, using proxies to do the dirty work.

Why do you feel the need to dismiss others' suffering, because it wasn't hard-core enough?

Is locking the skinny kid in a locker until he pisses himself real bullying?

Is one kid holding another one down while a second one punches him real bullying?

It may not be guns, knives and chains, but the suffering is real. Also, what makes this kind of middle-class bullying worse is that

A) it's not expected -- it's different from the rest of these kids' lives, which are non-violent

B) educated middle-class parents give their kids bad advice like "don't fight back, violence doesn't solve anything".

> It's sort of embarrassing this is the number one story on hacker news. Especially since it's 6 weeks old and was already posted before, and mostly seems fabricated.

I'm as surprised as you are that it's #1 on HN - I posted it to my blog for my readers, I didn't think it'd get submitted as a top level post or rise up the frontpage.

That said, everything on my end is real - I was quoting another author who said he was bullied quite badly, and his story sounds true but I can't confirm that.

> It reads like some fat kid ender's game revenge fantasy.

Eh, there's no need to be nasty, that doesn't add to the conversation. The entry is all true. Plenty of people here know me, I can run my schools and dates by someone if anyone really cares. Good luck to you.

That just depends on whether or not the bully has friends. There were plenty of kids that bullied me in school that, looking back, didn't have some huge posse to back them up.

That said, all of the "I was about to beat up a mob boss in Hong Kong because I'm so cool like that" was over the top (i.e. probably fake).

This. I wasn't in an elementary school that bad (Radom, Poland). Still, the young bullies were friends with elder bullies. Some bullies were repeating years, and that meant there was no way I could get as big as them.

And, the bullies actually do know how to fight.

Actually, for me, being nice worked out just right. After some time, the few bullies that bothered me found themselves enemies of the school, including some other bullies. Serves them right.

Realistically, I don't think the point is to make the bully stop bullying, or even to win a fight. The point is to convince him to find an easier target.

Maybe the point should shift to the former. I'd feel awful if I knew my hitting a bully back just made him go pick on some other kid instead of me. We should be trying to change his behavior, not deflect your problems onto someone else.

You have about as much chance of changing his behavior by taking a beating and then talking to him as you do of winning the lottery.

Talking alone does almost nothing. Now if you defend yourself and then treat the bully like a human being and even try to be a friend you might make some headway.

You may have replied to the wrong comment of mine, as my above comment didn't suggest that talking is the only way to change his behavior. Legal threats work very well, too, as do messages from their parents.

When you suggest defending yourself, and then trying to be helpful in making the bully no longer a bully, that's a completely different strategy than what others are suggesting, one I wouldn't mind seeing tried out more! What others are suggesting is just beat the bully and now he's someone else's problem.

your right I was replying to the wrong comment.

While I may have educated my children in how to defend themselves. I have also taught them that every individual has value. My hope is that they understand the aggressor is also valuable enough treat with respect.

Changing the behavior of bullies is the responsibility of adults, not the child being bullied. Of course we should be trying to change his behavior, but throwing that demand on your kid as he's being bullied is irresponsible.

I think it's the responsibility of everyone involved. This is why I don't like solutions which claim "The kid needs to learn independence, teach him how to do a chokehold and let him take it from there." or "The kid can sit back and let the adults handle things."

> Cuz fights in the schools where I used to teach math would end up with kids in the hospital or dead.

I guess not all schools are the same. There is no way this would happen in any school I went to. Such school wouldn't probably even exist for a long time. Tbh, if such incident happened more than once, it would probably end up on national news. Then again, I'm not in US. Sure, there were bullies, but what you describe is just as completely foreign concept as your experience is to me.

These schools definitely exist in the US. Our news focusses on the sensational, yes, but not all Americans have the same amount of respect for 'Jose and Jesus' as they do for 'Christopher and Ryan'. It's unfortunate, but many schools in Compton, California or the ghettos of New York, or the slums of New Orleans struggle with very real gang threats targeted at middle and high schoolers. I always find it interesting trying to decipher which murder trials hit the news here and which never see media coverage. I don't know where the bias comes from exactly, but it exists.

I will agree the author sounds like he is living in fantasy land, but, fighting back can and does work. I was a picked on band nerd in middle school, and finally snapped on two kids who pushed me around after school. I knocked one out with my clarinet case to his head and got in a tumble with the other. I wasn't bothered after that, even though I was still the same annoying easy to pick on personality. There was no outright war either, which I doubt happens except in the most undisciplined urban settings...

I really think that while what you say is true in certain circumstances, in my "suburban school" when bullies finally have to defend themselves, they often stop after bullying that fight. Some people respond differently to violence, but I think if I ever have kids I'd prefer not to live somewhere that I have to worry continuously about "Jesus and Jose and their 20 cousins and homies" pilfering, assault or worse to a future child over a few bruises.