Quote:
Originally Posted by ilidawn
krampus the "ching chong" thing was incredibly offensive but teachers never stopped them.
This is what I never understood even as a kid - how the adults could look on and watch the horrific bullying, and any kid who interferred on the victim's behalf was likely to be punished.
My sisters are 14 and 16 years younger than I. But my brother is not quite 2 years younger. So we were in school together. He and I both were defenders of the bullied. Me with my big mouth, and my brother with his fists.
What I hated most was the teachers actually taking sides. Oh they never said anything directly, but you learned which kids the teachers hated, bercause they not only ignored the bullying they'd punish any kid who tried to intervene on the victim's behalf.
I don't remember the bullies nearly as much as the teachers who allowed and subtly encouraged bullying - the one's who would smile smugly when some kid was being torchered by the other kids. I don't remember as many teachers who would look the other way (except the P.E. teachers. I think "meanness" was a job requirement or something). But in gradeschool some teachers seemed to enjoy watching kids get bullied (especially some kids). Some teachers would even wait to break up a fight if the victim was a kid they didn't like. You could almost count how many punches and kicks the teacher would watch before breaking it up. And as often as not, they'd blame the victim for the fight no matter what the kids witnessing the fight said.
As a kid I had dark fantasies of those teachers being beaten by a mob of all the bullied kids and all the kids who had been punished (or given dirty looks) for trying to come to the rescue of a bully victim.
I still find it hard to fathom how a teacher could watch a seven year-old get bloodied and watch the kid get beaten and pretend not to see it for several kicks and punches, just because they "don't like" the kid getting beaten.
I wasn't shy with kids, but I was afraid of the mean teachers (I thought who would believe a kid over a teacher?). Some of us kids talked about going to the principle, but we never did, because we didn't think anyone would believe us or we thought we'd get beaten up by bullies (I think we half believed that the mean teachers were in league with the bullies, and told them who to pick on).