Imagine this...

You are a secretary or clerk at a company. Either male or female. Every day, you come to work, and try to hurry to your desk before Joe, the Assistant Director of Marketing (who is much, much bigger and stronger than you), darts out of a doorway and knocks you to the ground, sending your briefcase and your brown bag lunch flying, and then steals your lunch. You know if this happens not only will you have a sore back and some bruises, you will also go hungry because you have no other options to get food that day.

Today you're lucky. You get to your desk with lunch and back intact. You lock up your lunch in your desk drawer - you never bring anything that would have to be refrigerated because one of the three people who hate you will invariably figure out which is yours and take it from the office fridge. You're safe as long as you can sit at your desk, near your boss, Andrew, who is well-liked and respected. He tolerates no "nonsense" in his presence, but he doesn't really want to hear about any, either. He deplores office drama and those who perpetuate it - so you've learned better than to try to talk to him.

Your day is going well until your boss asks you to send a fax. The fax machine on your floor is broken, so you know you will have to go to the second floor to send the fax. But the last time you were on the second floor, Sarah, whose hobby is judo and who can't tolerate wussy eggheads like you, greeted you with a roundhouse kick to the stomach that landed you in the ER. This time, you get to the second floor, and there is Sarah - blocking the fax machine. "Come on," she taunts, "come over here and send the fax, chicken$#!t" You try to approach, standing as straight and walking as confidently as you can manage. She aims a punch at your face, but pulls it back at the last minute. "Gotcha." she says. You start to send the fax. She hovers over you. Once its finished she grabs the back of your head and slams it in the machine. She says "next time, stay the hell on your own floor!" and walks off, laughing.

You go to the head of HR, Kim, with a bloody nose and bruised forehead, and complain about Joe and Kim. She says "can't you just stand up to them?" and "maybe if you stood up a little straighter you wouldn't invite this sort of thing." Never mind that given the series of assaults it's a miracle you're still walking.

You decide the next day you should not have to put up with this; it's too harmful to your health. So you stay home. But then there's a knock at your door. A police officer, come to take you to your job, where you have to stay for the whole day. And go through all that again. The officer drags you into work, and you go directly to Kim's office, and you say "I quit."

But you can't quit. Because you live in a totalitarian system where you are required by law to go to that office every workday for the next seven years.

************

Adults would not tolerate this state of affairs. There would be a revolution. But somehow kids are expected to put up with harassment that would be actionable discrimination in the workplace, and even assault and battery that would be a criminal offense if it occurred among adults. And worst of all, they have no choice. A junior high school kid can't simply decide not to go to school, or to quit. It's all too easy for (misguided) adults to say "if you would just ignore it and walk away" because the structure in place makes it impossible for a kid to take him or herself out of the situation. And kids are even worse off than adults, because they don't have the means to remedy the deprivations bullies cause without adult help. If in the above scenario a coworker took your lunch, you could always pull out a credit card and go across the street to the deli. A kid doesn't have that option. If a bully takes your only money, you don't eat.

Anyway, something to think about.

I'm not sure that most bullying that occurs between minors should be treated as a criminal offense. But I do agree that teachers and administrators should not tolerate this type of behavior. In my experience, kids don't think the teacher will do anything about it because all too often they don't do anything about it. That is absolutely unconcionable. The schools can enforce civilized behavior if only they had the gonads to do so.

you are so very right. and let me tell you something...the magic words to a school administrator are " is this going to be dealt with to my satisfaction within the school, or should i call the police"...and boom! you will all of a sudden be taken seriously because how many times the police are called to a school goes on some kind of safety assessment and there are no principals who want to have a bunch of calls to there schools because they do not want to be seen as running the loser school. i have taught for a long time, and i can guarantee you that if i were ever assaulted( which i never have been, nor have i ever even felt unsafe), it would be a matter for the police, not for the administration, because, frankly, the school administrations of the world are loathe to deal with this kind of thing and the police call it what it is "assault"...mind you i am talking about middle school/high school...not elementary school.

"Adults would not tolerate this state of affairs. There would be a revolution. "

Bullying has evolved around the parameters of the school environment, as you state. Adults do tolerate this state of affairs, though in different forms. Consider typical neighbor or workplace disputes. They are the same.

JJ, can we safely assume that you're male?

Most bullying is not of the 'physical assault' variety. It's endless little insults and social aggression. When the wealthy popular kid tells a poorer and more timid classmate, "I wouldn't ever want to play with you -- you aren't even dressed right"), that's bullying. It may be an honest sentiment, and it may be "natural" for kids to compete for social standing, but these ham-fisted demonstrations of having more social power than virtues are not positive social behaviors.

One of the major points that the article makes is that the response by bystanders to these displays really matters. If the other kids would stop nodding at this display of power, and start saying "Hey, she's a nice person, and it's not her fault that her parents don't have any money, and what you said isn't very kind", then the kid with the social power will be less inclined to pick on the victim (and will have to find other ways to signal social standing, such as displaying material wealth, or courting public signs of acceptance and respect from favored adults).

You are absolutely right. I cannot BELIEVE what we expect children to put up with just because it's "the way things are" or we had to do it. In every other situation our society has no tolerance for child abuse and parents would be considered negligent at best to keep sending their child day after day after day into the hands of an abuser. And then schools have zero tolerance for a child taking a prescription pill, but these abusers might get a good talking-to or even take their victim down with them into the punishment. If I have any power at all, I will never force my child to repeatedly walk into an abusive situation. Does anyone remember how long a day is when you are a child? But then, I'm in a position to change schools or homeschool if I have to - plenty of victims will have no choice but to stay where they are while the adults who are supposed to be looking out for them allow them to be victimized and/or blame them for becoming a target. It's disgusting.

>>JJ, can we safely assume that you're male?

Nope, definitely female! Why do you assume I'm a guy?

once:

JJ, can we safely assume that you're male?

Most bullying is not of the 'physical assault' variety. It's endless little insults and social aggression. When the wealthy popular kid tells a poorer and more timid classmate, "I wouldn't ever want to play with you -- you aren't even dressed right"), that's bullying.

That's the way girls bully other girls, but with boys it's with physical violence. For girls, the problem is not the individual bully but the girls to also shun the victim in hope of gaining / keeping the bully's approval. For the boys, the problem is usually the bully himself; the victim does not even have the option of going his own way.

By the way, the office scenario might not be something adults put up with, but the bullying analog most certainly does exist on the street in rougher neighborhoods. The police don't put up with muggings and carjackings that happen in their presence, but if they don't see it maybe you can get them to file a report. So your options are to get out / stay out of the neighborhood, to travel only in groups (especially women and old people), to try to walk in an alert and "confident" and energetic manner, etc. (Stay off the playground, don't get caught without your friends, etc.) In some neighborhoods you even have the "Don't snitch" rule.

And the school principal who equates the child who defends himself with the bully who threatens to beat him up -- that's any government which makes you a criminal for shooting the robber as he threatened your life.

adopts a socialist system.

KA