If you are a guy and you start getting surrounded by a couple of goons who are ready to beat you up just punch the head goon in the nose and run the hell away. That was what I did. He never bothered me again and was all sweet words since. Why you would think he was one my best friends. Then again I did that because he was in the same grade as me. Replying in kind against problematic kids who are several years older (and bigger) than you is not so easy. Especially in todays overpopulated schools where they mix kids of all ages together in the same grounds. In that case I just evaded them. I went to the other side of the school when I saw them sometimes. Sometimes that is not enough and they actively seek you out just to mess you up. That is when it is a good idea to have real friends and I was lucky enough to have a couple of those.
It took until I was in high school, but I finally did two things that put a stop to the bullying:
First, I chased one of them the length of the school after he slammed my locker door shut — before I could put my books away — one time too many. The look in my eye as I threw my books down on the concrete sent him running, and it took that long before he turned and hit me. I took one step back in reaction to being hit, and then one step forward, still too pissed to care about pain. He talked fast, agreed to meet me after school, but never showed.
The next year, I called out another one who’d been razzing me in class. He did show up, and re-broke my nose — but when he saw that I wasn’t going to back down even then, he did.
I owe my high pain threshold to having a brother four years older than me.
Replying in kind against problematic kids who are several years older (and bigger) than you is not so easy.
For such kids, I solved the problem using improvised weapons
Like Paul Graham says schools are a prison environment. You even have the tall fences, guard at the gate, lousy cafeteria food, etc. So yes the goon clique also exists.
In my experience when kids grow up around actual adults this sort of thing happens way less.
I suspect that is because the bullies segregate into other milieus where they continue their bullying with those close at hand. People with the skills to do the kind of work most people here probably do tend more to the past victims than past perpetrators. So, the people you interact with from day to day may not be representative.
Sorry, on second read, I don’t think you were saying what I thought you were saying.
On two occasions, I punched someone who bullied me. They are fond memories and high points of my schooling. Even the one who beat me up afterward never bothered me again.
Once I bullied a smaller boy, and his big brother stepped over and decked me. I remember lying on the ground and thinking, “Huh. I deserved that, really.”
Passing notes?????
Sneers????????
These are student behaviors.
The students are *not* the problem. The problem is the staff, and the attitudes and bigotries of the staff. Those are all too easily passed to students, including the sociopathic 4%.
Most of the times I was assaulted in school, I was told by my assailant, “Don’t bother going to Mr. xxxxx, or Mr. yyyyyy, because *they* hate you more than we do”. The real problem, of course, was that they were right! By 7th grade I knew what I would hear before my complaint was spoken, ….”You’ve just got to learn how to get along!”
The policies of the schools towards bright students can be changed, especially the fallacious idiocy about keeping fast-learners with their age cohort. The attitudes of the staff are a far harder problem. In my old school district they finally decided to do something about it in 2000. They began a 3 year re-education program to change staff attitudes towards assaults on kids on the autistic spectrum. Some quite senior teaching and administrative staff “were allowed to retire early”, but it worked. From 2003 to 2008 they had not a single complaint of an assault related to someone’s status on the spectrum.
Of course, this took immense pressure from young parents who worked in “silicon forest” on the Oregon side of the Columbia.
“The policies of the schools towards bright students can be changed, especially the fallacious idiocy about keeping fast-learners with their age cohort.”
This.
Suppose one has a racehorse, and puts hobbles on it as a foal so that it won’t go any faster than a plow horse. If the hobbles are removed when the horse is three years old, can it run?
Is the horse named Forrest?
The school authorities were often the protectors of the bullies
If you are a guy and you start getting surrounded by a couple of goons who are ready to beat you up just punch the head goon in the nose and run the hell away. That was what I did. He never bothered me again and was all sweet words since. Why you would think he was one my best friends. Then again I did that because he was in the same grade as me. Replying in kind against problematic kids who are several years older (and bigger) than you is not so easy. Especially in todays overpopulated schools where they mix kids of all ages together in the same grounds. In that case I just evaded them. I went to the other side of the school when I saw them sometimes. Sometimes that is not enough and they actively seek you out just to mess you up. That is when it is a good idea to have real friends and I was lucky enough to have a couple of those.
It took until I was in high school, but I finally did two things that put a stop to the bullying:
First, I chased one of them the length of the school after he slammed my locker door shut — before I could put my books away — one time too many. The look in my eye as I threw my books down on the concrete sent him running, and it took that long before he turned and hit me. I took one step back in reaction to being hit, and then one step forward, still too pissed to care about pain. He talked fast, agreed to meet me after school, but never showed.
The next year, I called out another one who’d been razzing me in class. He did show up, and re-broke my nose — but when he saw that I wasn’t going to back down even then, he did.
I owe my high pain threshold to having a brother four years older than me.
Replying in kind against problematic kids who are several years older (and bigger) than you is not so easy.
For such kids, I solved the problem using improvised weapons
Like Paul Graham says schools are a prison environment. You even have the tall fences, guard at the gate, lousy cafeteria food, etc. So yes the goon clique also exists.
In my experience when kids grow up around actual adults this sort of thing happens way less.
I suspect that is because the bullies segregate into other milieus where they continue their bullying with those close at hand. People with the skills to do the kind of work most people here probably do tend more to the past victims than past perpetrators. So, the people you interact with from day to day may not be representative.
Sorry, on second read, I don’t think you were saying what I thought you were saying.
On two occasions, I punched someone who bullied me. They are fond memories and high points of my schooling. Even the one who beat me up afterward never bothered me again.
Once I bullied a smaller boy, and his big brother stepped over and decked me. I remember lying on the ground and thinking, “Huh. I deserved that, really.”
Passing notes?????
Sneers????????
These are student behaviors.
The students are *not* the problem. The problem is the staff, and the attitudes and bigotries of the staff. Those are all too easily passed to students, including the sociopathic 4%.
Most of the times I was assaulted in school, I was told by my assailant, “Don’t bother going to Mr. xxxxx, or Mr. yyyyyy, because *they* hate you more than we do”. The real problem, of course, was that they were right! By 7th grade I knew what I would hear before my complaint was spoken, ….”You’ve just got to learn how to get along!”
The policies of the schools towards bright students can be changed, especially the fallacious idiocy about keeping fast-learners with their age cohort. The attitudes of the staff are a far harder problem. In my old school district they finally decided to do something about it in 2000. They began a 3 year re-education program to change staff attitudes towards assaults on kids on the autistic spectrum. Some quite senior teaching and administrative staff “were allowed to retire early”, but it worked. From 2003 to 2008 they had not a single complaint of an assault related to someone’s status on the spectrum.
Of course, this took immense pressure from young parents who worked in “silicon forest” on the Oregon side of the Columbia.
“The policies of the schools towards bright students can be changed, especially the fallacious idiocy about keeping fast-learners with their age cohort.”
This.
Suppose one has a racehorse, and puts hobbles on it as a foal so that it won’t go any faster than a plow horse. If the hobbles are removed when the horse is three years old, can it run?
Is the horse named Forrest?
The school authorities were often the protectors of the bullies