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"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"
March 23, 2008 11:05 PM Subscribe

Every One That Hates Billy....” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”

Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness. [His mother] remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy.... While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead.

The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold.

The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning.

....

Judging by school records, at least one official seems to think Billy contributes to the trouble that swirls around him.

posted by orthogonality (267 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite

My only surprise is that this kid hasn't decided to get a gun and take revenge. His teachers, however are shocked, shocked that Billy "is easily distracted, occasionally disruptive, even disrespectful."

Disrespectful of authority? Imagine that!

I suppose there's an explanation for this in anthropology or primatology, that every social grouping needs a runt or a scapegoat to serve as an outlet, as the base of the school's rough herrenvolk democracy, and the authorities at the school instinctively realize that without Billy to be beaten up, their jobs would be all the harder. Or that'll "make a man out of him" or something. I just fear what it will make our society.
posted by orthogonality at 11:17 PM on March 23 [7 favorites]

Enroll Billy in boxing class and make him read Oscar Wilde.
posted by geodave at 11:19 PM on March 23 [6 favorites]

Jesus, why do his parents keep sending him back?
posted by moxiedoll at 11:20 PM on March 23 [16 favorites]

His parents need to enroll him in some Muay Thai classes.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 11:25 PM on March 23

It's funny. I'm an avowed pacifist. But reading this, all I can think of doing is destroying the lives and property of the bullies and their families. Torching cars, getting them in minor legal trouble, anything to make their lives miserable. And you know, if it was my kid, I'd do it and feel good about it.

I guess some things from elementary and middle school just never leave you.

And administrators in this sort of situation are worse than useless.

I'm a teacher now, and I like to think that I'd be aware of this happening and put a stop to it in my classroom, but I know that I allow a little bit of horsing around among friends and I really hope that I don't miss anything.

(Flashback- one year at summer camp I kept getting beaten up by a kid, can't remember what started things, I think he did something to me that I didn't like. I kept getting him to cry by saying he was the product of incest. I ended up with a lot of bruises that summer. But I think that's the only time I can remember that I actually provoked the bullying I received. But that was the exception.

By high school I was over six feet tall and had learned to game the social system. And I switched schools.)
posted by Hactar at 11:26 PM on March 23 [2 favorites]

Is our children learning?

Given the topic, I have to giggle a bit at that, though I'm not sure if it's intentional humor or an amusing typo.

This is one of those stories that infuriates me so, though. It's a tale of parents trying to work within a system, and when it fails, they just keep trying to work within the same system

hint: try a different school. It's obvious this kid doens't have tons of friends that he'll miss every day of his life. Or sue the school system, they're obviously not doing enough. Or both!

It's also a tale of a school that just sits there while things go to hell. OH, you suspended a kid for getting a fight? Bully for you, but the kid keeps getting beaten up, so you're failing somewhere. . . perhaps there are other options, other avenues is discover other than "sit and wait and react weakly"

And it's a tale of a kid who is probably turning into a less than productive member of society because he's surrounded by no one taking enough initiative to make any changes. He can read War and Peace later, right now he needs to learn how to take control, turn things around and get things done, and he's not.

I certainly hope he has enough self-control to not take control in ways that put him on the news and land him in our memories as a monster.
posted by Inversehelix at 11:28 PM on March 23

Oh yeah, and does this remind anyone else of Donnie Darko?

"And you... yeah, you. Sick of some jerk shoving your head down the toilet? Well, you know what? Maybe... you should lift some weights, or uh, take a karate lesson and the next time he's tries to do it, you kick him in the balls."
posted by Inversehelix at 11:30 PM on March 23

At least he is learning something useful, but I am missing the point of this post orthogonality. Why is this one article interesting or special? What I am supposed to learn from reading this?

“And if the page didn’t have stuff to learn, I’d rip it out.”

I see.

/Ripping this post out.
posted by Dr. Curare at 11:32 PM on March 23

Oh yeah, I'm sure a newspaper story will help. The publicity won't provoke even more beatings or anything.

Jesus, that poor kid.
posted by infinitywaltz at 11:32 PM on March 23

In early grade school I was a constant target of one bully in particular. This, in addition to a couple other reasons, caused my parents to enroll me in Tae Kwon Do.
I really enjoyed the sport. It was something I was really good at. It brought structure and focus to my life.
One day we got our report cards at school and bully was really upset about his grades. He decided to take it out on me. He got in my face and shoved me. I started to stand up for myself and he punched me. I ended the fight nearly as soon as it had began. He never messed with me again.

I am a pacifist at heart, but a person needs to be able to protect themselves. And I can tell you from experience, most bullies are terrible fighters.
posted by matt_od at 11:34 PM on March 23 [2 favorites]

Inversehelix writes "Given the topic, I have to giggle a bit at that, though I'm not sure if it's intentional humor or an amusing typo."

It's a quote by President GW Bush, in reference to his (and Kennedy's) "No Child Left Behind" legislation.
posted by orthogonality at 11:37 PM on March 23

I wondered myself what that article was doing in the Times. Hey Doc, what does "orthogonality" mean?
posted by Rich Smorgasbord at 11:37 PM on March 23

Sucks to his ass-mar!
posted by fleacircus at 11:56 PM on March 23 [8 favorites]

I was bullied as a kid, and what made things turn around was the realization that acting vunerable made me vunerable. Any martial art or defense mechanism you develop will help (a witty retort is a fine solution). Showing weakness encourages bullies, therefore, you must learn to be proud of yourself, and then things will change.

However, it is probably unwise for Billy to stay in that school district. He could do with a fresh start, or perhaps a couple of fresh starts. It removes all the bad blood that may have existed, which, even if things get better, will surround him until he graduates with bad memories.

In my experience some of the best people I have met switched schools at around age 16. They had matured my that age, could leave their past behind them, and make an impact on a new school. It gave them freedom to become something greater.
posted by niccolo at 11:56 PM on March 23

“I suppose there's an explanation for this in anthropology or primatology, that every social grouping needs a runt or a scapegoat to serve as an outlet…” - orthogonality

René Girard calls it mimetic desire and the scapegoating mechanism. Things Hidden is a pretty neat read.
posted by Faux Real at 12:02 AM on March 24 [5 favorites]

My only surprise is that this kid hasn't decided to get a gun and take revenge.

Then there is the grown up version, but of course it seems to come with its own issues.
posted by caddis at 12:04 AM on March 24

Ahhhhhh, GWB, gotcha. I tune him out.

And I'm not blaming the victim, I figured I'd spare everyone from reading the entire scene. For those o you who haven't seen it, it's a school assembly where PAtrick Swayze's character talks about moving towards love as the answer to all problems. Donnie gets up and calls him out, and the underlying message in all of his attacks is "don't listen to this douche talk about love, do something about your problems"

A sentiment that I feel is sorely lacking in today's society, and in this case is lacking all around. . . as I stated before. I really do feel sorry for him, but at some point someone has to stand up and do something. Sympathy alone is a worthless emotion.
posted by Inversehelix at 12:06 AM on March 24

Worse than the bullies are the school administrators who take an active role in fomenting and encouraging their behavior, by setting up two sets of rules: one for the jocks, and another for those they get to torture.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:07 AM on March 24 [11 favorites]

I am the shrimp in my family, but then my "little" brothers are ungodly large. The funny thing is that they were bullied, in some ways, even more unmercifully than I was. Their bullies were just older and larger. "So, you are the biggest kid in your grade? Huh, are you bigger than me (sic)?" Their main tormentor is now doing life, thank God not for anything he did to one of them.
posted by caddis at 12:09 AM on March 24

Most bullies are physically superior to those they bully. Which includes kids with parents so disconnected that they don't care Billy's getting beat up, or too poor to afford martial arts classes, or kids who are so skinny and small, or even disabled, so that no amount of martial arts will help.

Nerds-Kicking-Ass stories are fun, but they're mostly fantasies, and do nothing to help, and much to hurt, as it places the blame right back on the victim.

The story's not about Billy, or the Bullies. The story is about how bullying in school and elsewhere is overlooked, tolerated, or encouraged as a way of enforcing social conformity... which is unacceptable in the modern day.

Adults can get a restraining order, an assault charge and a lawsuit laid down upon the perp to stop that shit cold. The way things are now, kids got nuthin - they have to take it and take it and take it, regardless of the physical and psychiatric injuries that occur. That is the very opposite of justice, and it happens every day to children.

Ever notice how "zero tolerance" policies make sure honor-roll kids who have a kitchen knife in a milk-crate full of cooking utensils locked in their car get expelled a month before graduation, but Biff Beefneck who's been sucker-punching and cramming kids upside down in their own locker gets a stern talking to from the vice principle? Yeah. That's gotta stop.

(To complicate things, I have my own "Nerd hits puberty, and winds up 6'3" 300lb wrecking ball" story. By then it was too late, I got the shit kicked out of me by kids older and bigger up until that point, and after that point I wasn't interested in revenge as much as being left the fuck alone. Which turned into its own little hell I'm still dealing with 20 years on. And so it goes.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:10 AM on March 24 [47 favorites]

hint: try a different school.Inversehelix

I was the unfortunate target of school bullies because I had serious health problems as a child. I spent most of my time in elementary and middle school either on crutches or in wheelchairs recovering from multiple surgeries and instead of being worried about my recovery, I had to worry about how to stave off an attack from a wheelchair. The constant harassment, particularly during a long and difficult recovery from a surgery when I was 12, made me seriously consider suicide. Luckily, my mother, who was not fully aware of what I faced at school, suggested I transfer to a private school. We researched schools and, I ended up at a private school where other students were actually supportive and helpful when I faced health issues. It literally saved my life.

It saddens me that after all this time, the best solution is to transfer schools,but, indeed as niccolo pointed out, it works.
posted by miss-lapin at 12:32 AM on March 24 [7 favorites]

I think the really depressing part of this is at the end, when we learn that he's underperforming at school, which he is justifiably deathly afraid of, and you realize, this isn't a story about some Normal American Teen who we all can relate to, because no one liked middle and high school, and there are bullies everywhere, but that this is a story about a kid who will likely be deeply scarred, and who, through the actions of others, has had his childhood--and possibly his future stolen from him. As far as I'm concerned, each and every kid responsible should be locked up before it's their wives and children getting brutalized. And those administrators should all be fired, and also locked the hell up for facilitating this.
posted by Subcommandante Cheese at 12:36 AM on March 24 [17 favorites]

I'm not sure how much good it will do, but I went ahead and sent Mr. Wolfe a brief message of support via his Facebook profile.
posted by washburn at 12:40 AM on March 24 [4 favorites]

Welcome to my childhood. He'll survive.
posted by empath at 12:41 AM on March 24

"Welcome to my childhood. He'll survive."
posted by empath at 3:41 AM on March 24

Eponysterical.

He'll survive as what? As a failure because he can't concentrate at school for his constant and justified fear? As someone who spends the rest of his life with PTSD? As a bitter person who can't trust anyone?

And the bullies, they'll survive too, I suppose, and make our country proud doing the Lord's work at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Remind me again how Pastor Wright was wrong, because I'm about to echo his sentiments.
posted by orthogonality at 12:53 AM on March 24 [28 favorites]

I am horrified that his parents do not want to take him out of that school.

Of all the people who are letting Billy down, his parents are taking the least action. Forget the binders and correcting the names of former bullies and all that, place him in another school !! The parents appear to have good enough jobs to make that switch, I don't understand why they would not even consider this.
posted by seawallrunner at 12:54 AM on March 24 [6 favorites]

Infintywaltz is right, how is a story in the New York Times (with a slideshow no less!) going to help this kid?

The story's not about Billy, or the Bullies. The story is about how bullying in school and elsewhere is overlooked, tolerated, or encouraged as a way of enforcing social conformity... which is unacceptable in the modern day.

Adults can get a restraining order, an assault charge and a lawsuit laid down upon the perp to stop that shit cold. The way things are now, kids got nuthin - they have to take it and take it and take it, regardless of the physical and psychiatric injuries that occur. That is the very opposite of justice, and it happens every day to children.

This is very true, situations like this are treated in an entirely different way in schools then they are in the real world. On the other hand, his parents are treating the problem as if it was an adult problem. They are engaging the bureaucratic channels (documenting evidence even!), and this approach is clearly failing miserably.

Bullies pick on people who they see as victims, and this kid has been turned into an uber-victim.

I'm not sure if the same machinery that we have in the real world can be effectively used in schools to stop bullying (I'm talking about bullying in general here, Billy is an admittedly extreme case). When a person takes out a restraining order, or files an assault charge, they are announcing to both the perpetrator and the legal system that they are being hurt. The need to label oneself as a victim in order to get help is why society views cases of male-on-female violence so differently then it views female-on-male violence.

An admission of victimhood is exactly the sort of thing the bully is looking for. "You're such a pussy that you had your mom come to the principal to complain about me, well I'll fuck you up real good now."

Please don't get me wrong, I'm by no means discounting the suffering of Billy or any other victim of bullying (myself included). I just think that institutionalized punishment is highly ineffective against bullying.
posted by fingo at 12:57 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

institutionalized punishment is highly ineffective against bullying.

Well, it's especially ineffective when the bullied, or their parents, are as you note forced to plead again and again for some sort of intervention or action by authorities that never materializes.

The institutions shouldn't be set up to require that pleading, or admission of victimhood, precede serious disciplinary action. Teachers, coaches, and bus drivers have eyes (and increasingly, cameras). They need to use them--and to held accountable when they choose to simply look away and let the kids "settle it among themselves."
posted by washburn at 1:11 AM on March 24 [4 favorites]

I hated bullying but I just don't see a panacea other than smaller classes, more faculty, more communication and more supervision. Defense spending needs to be transferred to education spending if we actually care about the next generation.

I think teaching is a calling that is discouraged by the very low initial pay grade for teachers and also the plain old shitty conditions that result from a lack of enough teachers being attracted to the field. To think that teachers willingly accept significantly less money to work at private schools with relatively smaller classes and significantly more involved parents ought to be quite telling...
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 1:12 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

> "Welcome to my childhood. He'll survive."
> posted by empath at 3:41 AM on March 24
>
> Eponysterical.
>
> He'll survive as what? As a failure because he can't concentrate at school for his constant
> and justified fear? As someone who spends the rest of his life with PTSD? As a bitter
> person who can't trust anyone?

Welcome to my childhood. He may very well survive--most do. Indeed, he may thrive--many do. If he does one or both of these, he may, just maybe, carry around a bit of a chip on his shoulder pretty much permanently. And when the peace 'n' love crowd gathers around the campfire for a kumbaya session he may be thinking "Bollocks. I can tell you just exactly how effective that shite is when the thugs are out looking for fun."
posted by jfuller at 1:17 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

A restraining order against anyone who harasses the kid would do nicely for starters. There's plenty of hard evidence to get that underway. Let their parents find a new school for their precious little snowflake.

Billy did nothing wrong: he, and his victimizers and the adults allowing it to happen, should be aware that as a law-abiding member of society, he has rights which must be enforced.
posted by Slap*Happy at 1:19 AM on March 24 [15 favorites]

Slap*Happy and everyone else, this is a serious question: how old should a person be in order to be charged with a restraining order?

Are restraining orders ever filed against minors?
posted by fingo at 1:33 AM on March 24

fingo writes "Please don't get me wrong, I'm by no means discounting the suffering of Billy or any other victim of bullying (myself included). I just think that institutionalized punishment is highly ineffective against bullying."

Not if the principal, the cops and the DA do their jobs.

The kid's been knocked unconscious; he's had to have multiple dental surgeries; the bullies have filmed their assaults on him. And yet the school refuses to call cops to file assault charges. Probably because the bullies on on the football team, or the bullies' parents are connected.

As noted up-thread, schools these days have no problem calling the cops over a butter-knife. So why isn't the school calling the cops over multople assults?
posted by orthogonality at 1:33 AM on March 24 [12 favorites]

Ms. Wolfe remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved.

Got what he deserved? WHAT THE FUCK?

Should he move schools? Maybe. I didn't move schools. I toughed it out and eventually the bullies found someone else to pick on or got expelled or transfered schools themselves. Early high school sucked for me, but leaving would have just taken me away from friends I did have. Then later the bullying went from physically to mental and I just wasn't able to combat that very well. And even though I was unable to socialise very well by the end of high school, there were always other social outcasts I could hang around with - tormented or ostracised for some reason or another.

He shouldn't have to move schools. And he shouldn't have to put up with school officials thinking any kind deserves this kind of treatment. And he shouldn't have to learn self-defense just to be able to go to fucking school.

I took up going to the gym in my last year of high school, which built me up and made me healthier and made me feel better about myself. It wasn't a tool to use against bullies, it was just something that improved how I looked at myself. Although I don't know whether that sort of thing helps everybody. It sounds like Billy has learning problems as well - although being bullied from the age of twelve probably doesn't help with that either.
posted by crossoverman at 1:35 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Welcome to my childhood. He'll survive.

Hell, I survived. I came out the other side unable to hear news stories about the strong abusing the weak without frothing at the mouth, and unable to trust anyone that even vaguely looks like an authority figure, but shit, who cares about emotional problems? He should just man up and turn into an emotional invalid, that'll show 'em.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:30 AM on March 24 [27 favorites]

Slap*Happy and everyone else, this is a serious question: how old should a person be in order to be charged with a restraining order?

Old enough to earn one.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:32 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

I just think that institutionalized punishment is highly ineffective against bullying.

We have juvenile halls and an entire juvenile justice system to deal with this shit. It is baffling and outrageous to me that the same beating can merit imprisonment or suspension based solely on whether or not it took place in a school.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:34 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Victims of bullying? On MetaFilter?

In school I was bullied on a scale that possibly rivals Billy's - though, we didn't have Facebook or MySpace back then. But we also didn't have any sort of anti-bullying laws back then, either, and the thought of criminal charges being filed wasn't ever really considered - though in retrospect I probably should have filed criminal charges, and often.

It was so bad for a while that if the teacher left the room, kids would line up to punch me in the back of the head. For the most part, I just sat and took it. I didn't really know any better.

Or I'd finally snap and knock the stuffing out of some kid and get left alone for a while, but that was often even worse. People like me - adult or child - don't actually want to have to fight in the first place - even if we win, it brutalizes us directly and empathically.

Because violence is really fucking stupid.

One of the few times I fought back was in the beginning of the 7th grade. I'd a homeroom teacher who was, frankly, a drunk. There was a jock-type bully in her class. She'd placed his seat directly behind mine at the back of the class. After three months of taking punches to the back of my head and getting jumped by this clown, after three months of requesting that I at least get assigned to a different seat, or that she would do something about this idiot hitting me, I snapped. I turned around. I grabbed him by his shoulders, and proceeded to drag him bodily to the front of the room over desks and students to demand she do something about this guy. She proceeded to lie to my face that she had no idea what I was talking about, even insinuating that she would say I'd beat him up.

I simply walked out of that school that day, walked home, bawling, and didn't go back. My mom let me home school for a couple of years, which mainly consisted of a self-directed education at the (thankfully) gigantic library I was fortunate enough to have in my hometown.

(This is incidental, and I've half a mind to leave it out, but I was getting beat up at home as well, by a stepdad. I didn't really have any refuge at all, growing up, at home or at school. Which makes me wonder what Billy's home life is like, and the home life of a lot of kids who end up vulnerable at school to the point that they're outright brutalized - not just bullied.)

Or maybe I really was an insufferable know-it-all and I deserved it.

Kids like me don't really understand or even grasp that one until years later, if ever, because we value learning and knowledge-sharing above pretty much everything else, and can't fathom why anyone else wouldn't worship the font from which all radness does flow, for physics and engineering beget skateboards, ramps, slingshots, robots, rockets and laser beams - and thus we never shut the fuck up.

And yet, here I am making excuses - for bullies - twenty years later. Perhaps if only as a demonstration of the pattern of abuse for those following along at home, but still. Fuck that shit.

So, we're talking about deeply disturbing, brutally psychological shit. As in Stanford Prison Experiment brutal - day in, and day out - right under our unassuming noses in schools all over the US.

In our schools. In our goddamn schools. It's probably in your child's school, right now, just boiling like a bad David Lynch subplot beneath the thin veneer of normalcy. Chances are better than not, unless you attend some sort of exceptionally enlightened private or public school that is unnaturally blessed.

And what are we teaching our children, really? Violence? Bureaucracy? How to file paperwork and fit in? How to bend the rules of the system so you can slide by? And we wonder how we've ended up with not just one leader but an entire leadership that advocates perpetual war?

If you have a child in school, public or private, I beg you to take heed and listen to me and really use open eyes to inspect what's going on. Listen to your kids. Make your home a place they can speak freely as the adults they're rapidly becoming.

Your child may not be the direct victim, but this victimizes all of us.

I saw teachers - multiple teachers, not just one bad teacher, not all of them, but far too many for it to be acceptable or statistical noise - totally complicit in this abuse, often engaging in verbal abuse themselves, or directly being physically abusive. I've seen them permit bullying and abuse, encourage it, or otherwise maliciously allow it by intentional design. Leaving the room at opportune moments, not seeing specific incidents, misreporting incidents.

The problem isn't any one thing - rare is the simple problem. It's not just the schools - the schools are just a reflection of our institutions and ideals - but the schools reinforce these institutions and ideals.

These institutions are a reflection of our collective character - or at least the ones who manage to wield the power.

Speaking as a Humanist and an Objectivist, the values that I see reflected in our institutions and our schools are often ones of fear, of control, of malice and ill intent and, frankly, unhealthy. More succinctly, not nurturing to people.

Changing these things about our schools would probably be the best way to accomplish any lasting, real change in our culture and collective spirits.

Speaking personally, no, sometimes you don't just "get over it". Sometimes it stays with you for the rest of your life. Public school damaged me in a way I don't know if I'll ever really heal over, and I was a bright, strong kid.

I was even smarter, back then, before the school system taught me to adapt and dumb down - or perish. I was well on my way to being whatever I wanted to be. My IQ levels were nearly unrecordable, early on. I would have been a world-class scientist, or an incredible engineer, anything.

I wanted to build new computers for the world, incredible things, I wanted nothing more than to invent new, delightful things for everyone to share - but I let it all be smashed out of me, to fit in, to survive - simply to avoid something so stupid and senseless as pain.

Such a waste.

Today, I don't have much, but what little I do have is due to picking myself, my own spirit up out of the garbage-heap of society from where I was, more or less, thrown away. But, fuck it - this isn't about me, right here and now, at all.

I'm whining and baring my soul to you because this stuff is still happening. Forget me. It's happening to someone else. You can help them.

Right now, somewhere, there's some bright kid being thrown away - unable to fit through the educational system. Too bright, too threatening to teachers or peers. This kid might cure AIDS, or cancer. He or she might finally invent a really clean, cheap energy source, or perhaps simply the greatest toy since Lego.

But they're being thrown away, just because they don't fit into some damn machine. Imagine that, a human not fitting into the limited scope and parameters of a machine.

Yes, goddamnit, we should protect and coddle our children this way. That's called teaching.

What are we? Mere apes!? What other purpose does "survival of the fittest" even mean if we aren't to actually use these marvelous tools of society and culture we've discovered? What other point of civilization is there!? How the hell else do you expect us to evolve as a culture if we can't even have civilized schools and education? What do you people think the word civilization even means in the first place!?

We need to look out for all kids, smart or not - but we should especially be watching out for those bright, sensitive ones that seem to be magnets for getting the shit kicked out of them because they're different.

We should know, by now, that most of these kids are our artists, our scientists, our writers and engineers. Our architects. Our philosophers.

Because, you know, they're different.
posted by loquacious at 2:46 AM on March 24 [182 favorites]

I remember when I was young and in school in a rural and conservative community (not to say such things are restricted to such areas). I'm a rather physically small man; the average male in the United States is around six feet tall, I'm 5'6" but 5'7" in the morning (I like mornings).
I was the blunt end of bullying, harassing, and other maltreatment.

I'm a rather intelligent, witty individual. I found that the people who bullied me where horrified of public humiliation, especially when exposing what I thought was that drove them to how they acted. Although never always accurate, publicly berating them around their peers worked wonders for me. It also made me feel godly.

Flashing to them my most powerful weapon not only seemed to disarm the plebeians that attempted to use me to fill some deep seated well of unworthiness and self loathing, it bolstered my own feelings about my own capacities. I never once had to return a blow or have a second altercation with assailants during school.

A bolstered confidence and unwillingness to endure pain from assholes pulled me to the person I am today.
posted by ZaneJ. at 3:15 AM on March 24

The WSJ ran an excellent piece a while back in which the writer went back and looked up his town's bully.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 3:17 AM on March 24 [5 favorites]

I went to a high school where bullying essentially didn't exist. (I got plenty of it in elementary school and I only got gayer and nerdier, so I would know.) I don't know how it is now, but this wasn't too long ago. A peer-counselling program put grade 12s in immediate contact with grade 8s and provided a safe haven for the "weirdos" to spend their free time between classes / at lunch, and perhaps more importantly provided them and their would-be oppressors with role models as well as hall monitors. A lot of 17 year olds, even the jockish/cheerleaderish ones, are mature enough to not desire bullying in their school and are ecstatic to participate in a little social activism, and put it on their university applications to boot. Grads are also the coolest people alive to new kids, and command much more respect than the average teacher/administrator. I don't know if the program exists anymore, but it was undeniably effective.

There was something else at that school though. In a psych 11 class, someone once presented a video documentary on the "after-school fight", a relatively frequent phenomenon at this school. If two people had a grievance (though generally the actual grievance was forgotten before the fight began), a fight would be scheduled for after school, and by the end of the day anyone who cared to know, would. In this video, something like 50-100 kids gathered at a park about ~10min away from the school, and basically formed a circle and watched two kids beat the shit out of each other. Afterwards, nobody who was questioned by the cameraman (including the fighters) apparently cared enough to remember why the fight had occurred.

So maybe student counselling is the answer. Or maybe it's just letting the violent kids beat the crap out of each other. I don't know, I'm not an expert, but something worked. Expecting teachers to stop it doesn't.
posted by mek at 3:23 AM on March 24

So why isn't the school calling the cops over multople assults?

It's just kids wildin', yo.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:29 AM on March 24

I was shunned as a child (not physically bullied unless a few times where I got hit during gym were misinterpreted as accidents -- I was probably socially retarded) and people here don't have realistic advice for what is probably a large segment of the population.

enroll kids in karate classes: I am not a coordinated person and have never been good at sports. I'm not sure I would have been competent enough at martial arts to defend myself. There are probably a lot of kids llke that. cost would be another factor--good that someone mentioned that.

listen to your kids: No one knew how miserable I was because I never told them. It didn't even occur to me. And I quit the gifted school on my own because I hated the taunting and that was one way to avoid it. No one asked why I didn't want to go to that school--perhaps listening should switch to being astute enough to notice signs of trouble even if the child does not communicate directly.

Maybe if those around a child who has these problems can be taught to recognize them, they can try to help the child learn skills to cope -- not necessarily physical ones. I also think bullies should try to be taught to cope as well.

But I am skeptical that it is easy to recognize these things, or that the adults would be motivated to do much (see above), and I am not even sure there are interventions that are effective. Are there interventions that reasonably help the bullied (and the bullies)? interventions beyond teaching physical defense.
posted by bleary at 3:30 AM on March 24

The story is about how bullying in school and elsewhere is overlooked, tolerated, or encouraged as a way of enforcing social conformity... ~~which is unacceptable in the modern day.~~ which is the same as it ever was.

FYP.

Besides Girard, another author who's written about this dynamic is Jay Haley (I can't remember the title). Every social group has (needs?) a negative example, someone that allows the group to define themselves by being different from. He wasn't writing explicitly about bullying, but rather education. Still, I think it goes deeper than that, there's a bonding that comes into play between the tormentors. Nothing engenders friendship like the sharing of enemies.

I wonder what can be done about situations like this. Obviously there's no simple solutions or they would already be in place. Unlike a few of you, I don't think the teachers or administrators are necessarily evil or extraordinarily incompetent. More likely they want to do as good of a job as they can with the resources available. I dislike large institutions, including the public school system, partly because of situations like this. There's no answer to it other than lots of adult involvement. And that is adults who have discretion to act. When everyone has to be treated the 'same' (which is never the case; 'same' is an illusive abstraction), and every decision has to be justified a dozen times over to all the parents and administrators, not to mention being in line with official policy, it makes it tough to act. Effective takes a back seat to proper. Punishing both students in a fight equally is probably the best example of a rule that poses as some sort of effective policy but does little for the victim.

On a more personal level, the story turns my stomach. I was bullied and shunned for a number of years as well. The self hate I collected stayed around for a couple of decades. My family moved a lot, and changing schools did help. But it isn't a complete answer. The idea that we can somehow all get along, and resolve our differences without any recourse to violence is a fantasy. Clinton made some remark to this effect when commenting on the school shootings. Slap*Happy points out that not every victim has the potential to ever make an effective physical stand. True, and still there is something to be said for knowing you can respond, that your losses come from being in a mismatch not from some sort of emotional paralysis or denial of reality. Even if you lose, and no one thinks you were right to fight back, you are showing up for yourself and endorsing your own experience. This is pretty big. I used to think that any sort of public exposure in cases like this was a horrible idea, but now I see some value in taking the story to a newspaper. It isn't going to do much to change the situation, it will likely make it worse, but naming it for what it is, no matter the consequences, has some of the value of fighting back.

Finally, I am deeply grateful that I went through the school system before video recording devices were widely available to school children. Unfortunately, I have been all too capable of replaying some of my worst moments, over and over again in my head. If those moments had been captured and transformed into spectacle for other's continuing amusement, I really don't know how I would have made it. Somewhere on the web there's some video of a kid being bullied in perhaps Taiwan. The physical abuse is actually pretty mild, but you look at that kid's eyes and the emotional abuse is anything but. I can't help but to think that him seeing the camera and knowing the attitude of most of the future viewers of that video, is a substantial intensifier of his experience. Collecting footage of someone where they are at their worst, in their own eyes, and making that into entertainment is a deeply hostile act. It's a reduction of who the person is and what they can be. I won't say that the community perception of who and what a person 'is' can stop growth, but it can certainly inhibit it. It's a hell of an obstacle. And that's something that I think collectors of embarrassing photographs, and those who endorse shaming, mockery, and the like just don't get.

Good post, thanks.
posted by BigSky at 3:51 AM on March 24 [5 favorites]

Welcome to my childhood. He may very well survive--most do. Indeed, he may thrive--many do.

Indeed, he might become a bully when he's able. After all, based on his own experiences, it's what's expected.

Just because something unpleasant happened in your childhood, that's no justification for letting it continue.

My childhood was like that for a while, until I started attacking my antagonists like a crazy person: breaking one kid's nose with a glass-handled umbrella, hitting another with a chair, slashing with scissors, etc. I quickly became worse than them. This was not a good outcome, although I never became a bully. I started to act preemptively. Needless to say, this caused major problems in school for me. It required a significant adjustment on my part not to see every interpersonal problem as solvable by extreme violence. Had guns been freely available, I'm sure it would have been much worse.

Is this the lesson you want taught to your kids?
posted by me & my monkey at 3:56 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

WTF are cops doing in schools if they're not arresting these bullies? Fuckit, this isn't bullying, this is motherfucking assault. It's really fucking simple: our authorities are pussies, it's already Lord of the Flies in this country, and we are obviously not a Christian nation, despite all the crowing.
posted by DenOfSizer at 4:02 AM on March 24 [7 favorites]

Bullying is everywhere, including here in Fayetteville, a city of 60,000 with one of the country’s better school systems.

That's part of the problem right there. School administration faces no consequences for their failures--they're even called "one of the country's better school systems" in the same freaking article.

Set it up so that Fayetteville's precious little snowflakes stop getting into the college they want because their school system is actually crap, and you'll see something done about it.
posted by gimonca at 5:18 AM on March 24

Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness. [His mother] remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved.

Didn't the parents call the police themselves?

When I read this article, I felt helpless, wondering what I would do if I had a child who was bullied. I was bullied and picked on too as a child, and I know I always felt that anything well-meaning adults tried to do just made things worse. But there is some good advice in this thread. Changing schools can help, as can martial art classes. And if school officials are plainly falling down on their jobs as Billy's are, I'd give them hell. Report them to the Ministry of Education, sue, whatever it took.
posted by orange swan at 5:18 AM on March 24

Changing schools, at the right moment, can be fantastic for a kid. It's not just bullying... you can reinvent yourself completely. Nobody knows the first thing about you in the new place. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it can reboot a childhood.
posted by unSane at 5:24 AM on March 24 [3 favorites]

This kid goes to school about three miles away from me and to my knowledge, this hasn't made it into the local news circuit yet. There is a neighboring town's high school which is relatively close (his parents would have to drive him about ten to twenty minutes depending on where they live), if he could some how transfer there. I'm not aware of a local private school, but there might be one nearby. Otherwise, it'd be about 25 to 30 miles away in the Bentonville/Rogers area.

I was never bullied, but simply on principle, I detest bullies and I detest even more the people in authority who permit bullying to continue. I'll keep an eye out to see if the local news picks this up at all or not.

On another note, I wish the article had been written better. The continual use of "Heh heh" seemed like some college journalist attempt at injecting a message that better writing and content alone could have accomplished.
posted by Atreides at 5:29 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

This story is, largely, a description of American society writ small. The bullies, be it physical or otherwise, are generally rewarded, promoted, worshipped and generally seen as "ah he's a good ol boy, sometimes he's just a little...edgy...". These people then grow up and continue their bullying ways.

Goof for the parents to fight this as much as possible, and good (I guess) for not moving away. Bad for the kid...

The school administrators are the saddest part of this story. They should be ashamed of themselves and probably should all be fired. I can't believe that these parents aren't suing the bejesus out of the school district.
posted by damnitkage at 5:43 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

If he's in Fayetteville, he's near a very good BJJ/Muay Thai/MMA school: Team Roc Fayetteville
posted by Comrade_robot at 5:43 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

To anyone saying, "Next time, kick the bully in the balls," or whatever: in my experience, this is the point where the school finally steps in and punishes someone. Unfortunately, that someone would be the kid who finally fought back and kicked someone in the balls, not the kid who deserved to be kicked in the balls for the last six months.
posted by naoko at 5:46 AM on March 24 [15 favorites]

It is baffling and outrageous to me that the same beating can merit imprisonment or suspension based solely on whether or not it took place in a school.

Fucking A. If a kid goes up to an adult on the street and punches them out, you can bet your arse something will be done about it. If a kid goes up to another kid and punches them out...no-one gives a shit, because they're "just kids". That's bullshit. Since when do we punish a crime less because the victim is weaker?

My memories of bullying stem from 15 to 20 years ago, I guess. And fundamentally, the way it was dealt with was as if both kids involved were equally to blame, as if it's just a disagreement between them. Kid A torments Kid B for months on end, beats him up, causes him huge stress until Kid B is living in fear, doesn't want to come to school, is constantly watching his back. Eventually Kid A and Kid B both land in the principle's office, where he wants them to "Discuss their differences, come to an agreement, shake hands and make up." It's not a fucking disagreement, it's bullying, it has a victim and a perpetrator, and should be treated as such.
posted by Jimbob at 5:51 AM on March 24 [7 favorites]

Just reading the comments here makes me want to go beat up the "responsible" adults in this story.

I survived some mild bullying in the 5th and 6th grades - in the 5th grade by fighting back (although I ended up never having to throw a punch; long story), and in the 6th by running away. Every day. In 7th grade, we moved (again), and so I was the New Kid (again), and was challenged to a fight by one of the girls in the class (yeah, girls do this too). "Why?" I said. "To prove you're not so tough," she told me. "Well, I'm not, okay? I'm not going to fight you." And that was that. She gave me mean looks the rest of the year, but nothing more.

So yeah, I lived through it, like others in this thread. But we're not going to hear from the kids who didn't survive - the ones who killed themselves because they couldn't take it anymore, or the ones who are so psychologically damaged that paying $5 to interact with people on the Internet is too frightening to contemplate.

My advice: take the poor kid out of school, get him some counseling and a new school, and handle the rest of it the old-fashioned American way: sue the fuck out of the school administration and maybe the parents of the bullies as well.
posted by rtha at 6:04 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

I agree with the "Why haven't the Parents taken legal action, called the police, filed a civil suit, against the bullies and the bullies parents?" crowd...

And, in addition, why hasn't the school contacted the police?

I direct an alternative education program, during the initial interview when a student enrolls, the word they get is that any physical violence initiated against another person results in removal from the program and police involvement.

The adults here (school and parents) are not doing their jobs.
posted by HuronBob at 6:08 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

Most of the people involved in raising kids are other kids. That is stupid.
posted by Jpfed at 6:23 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

Is our children learning?

Given the topic, I have to giggle a bit at that, though I'm not sure if it's intentional humor or an amusing typo.

and you have been living on which planet for the past eight years????
posted by quonsar at 6:25 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Yeah, bullied people on MeFi -- whooda thunk it?

I went to a high school where physical bullying was really rare, but verbal/mental bullying was really common -- harassment, shunning, yelling "hey faggot, I'm going to kick your ass!" and other threats. At the time it was really miserable; about halfway through I changed schools (because my family moved, not because anyone intervened) and I was able to start over from scratch in a new place, and had no more problems.

Looking back, I have really mixed feelings. On the one hand, I think most of the teachers and administrators deserve a long stay in Dante's inferno, because they were supportive of, not just complicit with, the bullying. That high school was just like the schools in movies like Heathers -- sort of a social Lord of the Flies, sharp distinctions between jocks and nerds and preps, and so on. I was told that a few years before physical bullying had been really prevalent, but then a prank went too far and a kid ended up in the hospital, and the school enacted a zero tolerance policy on the physical stuff that really did stop it in its tracks. There were the usual fights after school, and a few fights in the lunch room, but not the tolerated physical abuse that you read about in this article. That, to me, says that if they had cared they could have made some minimal intervention in the other kinds of bullying -- that interventions can actually work. Provide some consequences (suspension, calling parents and police, etc), rewards, and safe spaces, and some of the worst of it can be moderated.

That said, though, in retrospect I have to acknowledge how much I brought on myself. That doesn't mean that I deserved it, just that it was as if I was seeking it out. Those witty comebacks? Mostly served to emphasize the us/them distinction that the bullying depended on. My social ineptness? Got worse the more defensive I got, into a nice vicious cycle where my own behavior got pretty weird and worthy of laughing at.

I would love to be able to go back to the 15 year old me and tell him to just chill the fuck out. Stop feeling so superior all the time, find more friends and allies, and get a fucking clue that the whole knee-jerk rejection of what "normal" people do was causing all of my problems. There was no way in hell I was ever going to be a cool kid, wearing the right brand of clothes and rocking out at the party to the Bon Jovi mix tape. But a medium or large high school has a lot of safer spaces within it -- there was the drama club where all the gay guys were; there was a whole panoply of social and academic groups that I rejected before they could reject me... except that now I realize most of them wouldn't have rejected me, and so I missed out on some really cool people.

So... if the article is giving an honest depiction of events, those administrators need to be jailed. But the parents need to be kicked in the pants for sending him back there every day when it is clear he is just going to get his ass kicked again. Almost every town has an alternative highschool, as well as usually Catholic and Protestant religious schools. Not to mention home schooling, residential highschools, and some places have alternative programs that work more like a traditional apprenticeship, where you spend more time out working or whatever rather than in school. If you kid is having that tough of a time, you need to be trying every other option that exists, plus hooking him up with supportive settings (like karate club, or the GBLTQ group, or the Sierra Club, or whatever the kid enjoys) outside of schools where he can meet people, maybe older than him, who just aren't part of the bullying. There just isn't any excuse for keeping him in that school system if it is going to so openly hurt him.
posted by Forktine at 6:28 AM on March 24 [3 favorites]

The parents of this kid deserve to get slapped across the face for not doing something to protect their kid. They need to put the kid into a different situation like a private school, home-school, or whatever.

Then they need to sue the school district for so much money that they get somebody's attention. Complaining to a principal who doesn't particularly care is just performance art. They way you get situations like this to change is to make changing less painful, in terms of financial settlements or whatever, than maintaining the status quo.

As for this poor kid, I'd say that his abusers are extremely lucky that he hasn't yet gone rogue and put a stop to the situation with a gun, knife, or some other tool. I'd bet that the thought has crossed his mind.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 6:33 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Isn't the whole point of living in the US that you can buy guns and shoot people, and if that's not your cup of tea, sue the shit out of them? You would think after dental surgery number 1 the parents would be suing the school board or the families of these bullies for damages. For real.
posted by chunking express at 6:33 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

I suppose there's an explanation for this in anthropology or primatology, that every social grouping needs a runt or a scapegoat to serve as an outlet, as the base of the school's rough herrenvolk democracy,

Oh good god.

Ever notice how "zero tolerance" policies make sure honor-roll kids who have a kitchen knife in a milk-crate full of cooking utensils locked in their car get expelled a month before graduation, but Biff Beefneck who's been sucker-punching and cramming kids upside down in their own locker gets a stern talking to from the vice principle? Yeah. That's gotta stop.

Well, they are both problems but I guarantee you they happen at different schools. In fact, I would argue that thoughtless "zero tolerance" policies are largely caused by things like this.

And the problem with "take some martial arts classes and fight back" is that once you do that, from a school administrators perspective you're just as much at fault as your tormenter. If one kid beats up another kid, then it's obvious who the aggressor is, but if you fight back the school is just going to punish the two of you for "fighting"
posted by delmoi at 6:38 AM on March 24

My IQ was nearly unrecordable...

Jebus, you still haven't learned that this is not a rad thing to say? You should see how many friends I lost the last time I bared my soul about my enormous, prehensile penis (I just thank His Noodly Appendage that they didn't kick my ass).

That said, bullying sucks. It really, truly does, and I can't stand even the ostracism-only version that exists where I teach.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:40 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

I'd have to agree with delmoi, and point out that zero-tolerance is a stupid idea. How does removing problem children from the school system help them? And I realize it's hard to have sympathy for little psychopath 12 year olds, but really, those kids probably need more help sorting their shit out then the kids they are beating on.
posted by chunking express at 6:43 AM on March 24

Actually, if you read the article all the way though it's clear they are suing the school.
posted by delmoi at 6:51 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

I wonder what can be done about situations like this. Obviously there's no simple solutions or they would already be in place.

There are plenty of simple solutions that would work. They'd merely be unpopular with connected people, including, apparently, the school staff.

(1) Put up video cameras throughout the school, assuming it hasn't been done. Suspend on the first instance of bullying. Expel on the second. This isn't rocket science.

(2) Sue the school. I would not be shocked to find that the parents are laying the groundwork for a dramatically punitive suit by continuing to work within the system and give the school notice that it is failing to protect their son and is endangering his lifelong earning potential. Let everyone's property taxes go up $500 to pay for the school's legal fees and settlement. This happens a couple of times, and suddenly bullying isn't so cute.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:58 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Man. Here's what I'm struck by, which I'm surprised no one's mentioned yet: Billy's cute!

If he could survive all this, get his grades up and get to college, he'd have girls clamoring for his attention.
posted by limeonaire at 7:06 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Nothing stops bullying like a front page story in the NYTimes.
posted by null terminated at 7:15 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Changing schools doesn't help. I was teased and beaten up mercilessly for 8 years at catholic school, moved to another county and different school and started getting beaten up and teased by neighborhood kids before the school year even started. Some kids just seem to have 'victim' written all over them. It didn't stop for me until my senior year of high school, but by then I was an emotional disaster and needed to start taking huge amounts of recreational drugs before I could properly trust people enough to form close emotional bonds again.

It's not the school, it's the kid. I'd actually go further and say it's probably the parents fault for not teaching the kid to socialize properly. Kids like these are usually victims in school because their parents first taught them how to be victims at home. I'd be willing to bet his parents were either verbally or physically abusive to him before he even got to school.
posted by empath at 7:17 AM on March 24 [3 favorites]

I feel bad for billy, he is in a TERRIBLE groove. But I can't stop thinking about when Judge Smails calls for "old billy baroo" oh billy billy billy billy. maybe he needs to bring a putter to school come to think of it
posted by MNDZ at 7:20 AM on March 24

If the point of the story is to raise awareness of bullying, I suppose that's important. Why this story is distinct enough to merit its own extended NYT article is beyond me. As this thread suggests, bullying is a significant and underreported problem for many kids.

It surely wouldn't have killed the reporter to try to generalize the story beyond one sentence to the effect of "Bullying is everywhere" -- but it's not too surprising considering the overall quality of composition. This is a poor article, particularly in light of the importance of the subject matter.
posted by spiderwire at 7:20 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

I read pretty much any and all advice columns that cross my path. While I don't agree with John Rosemond on much, this column stuck in my head a few years ago when I read it. What made an impression was his unequivocally taking the side of the victim and pointing out the stupidity of the administration's solutions. I also appreciated the attribution of the school's half ass measures to the administration's reluctance to deal with the bullies' parents.

-----

ROU_Xenophobe,

I don't think those are tenable solutions. Video cameras might work for the rather severe physical violence in this instance, but what about off campus? This kid is being pummeled and humiliated before 8:00 in the morning. Sometimes boys can play rough but those particular kids are thick skinned or are in a good natured relationship and it's fine. You have to have adults who know the kids and who have the discretion to discriminate based on their knowledge of the relationship not just what happens on video tape.

Suing the school is appropriate here, but I'm skeptical that every bullied child has the plethora of evidence that the parents do in this case. Girls, in particular, don't have to be as overt. Finally, not every parent is interested in leaving their child in such a situation long enough to acquire the evidence to make a case.
posted by BigSky at 7:20 AM on March 24

It didn't stop for me until my senior year of high school, but by then I was an emotional disaster and needed to start taking huge amounts of recreational drugs before I could properly trust people enough to form close emotional bonds again.

Heh.

Not quite the same situation for me, but yeah, the huge quantities of recreational drugs helped like nothing else. Somehow I don't think that's the advice that anyone who's outside the situation would be willing to hear. And I'm not claiming it's the healthy road to take, just a common one that may actually do more good than harm.

It's not the school, it's the kid. I'd actually go further and say it's probably the parents fault for not teaching the kid to socialize properly. Kids like these are usually victims in school because their parents first taught them how to be victims at home. I'd be willing to bet his parents were either verbally or physically abusive to him before he even got to school.

And I wouldn't go quite this far, but there's something to it. My bet is that most victim's parents don't do much to teach a child how to establish and enforce personal boundaries. Their own abuse of the child might be one reason why, but there are other explanations as well: personal difficulty with those issues, neglect, ignorance of their importance, belief that children shouldn't be allowed to say 'No', etc.
posted by BigSky at 7:29 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

I would have to agree with everyone who says that things like zero-tolerance policies for violence are a bad idea. Every scuffle between teenagers is not a bully-victim situation. These are still kids, they lack impulse control, and should have the chance to acquire some in a safe setting. (i.e. not getting expelled when an argument escalates to a could of shoves.) Kids have friendly wrestling matches at that age, too - hell, I know 35-year olds who still do it.

And in true bullying situations, the victim will always get punished along with or instead of the bully. Because the victim gets picked out for being "weird," socially inept, or nonconformist in some way. And teachers have the same impulses that make them side with the "normal" kids. Even if they're borderline violent psychopaths. Or in some cases, teachers may be actively afraid of the bully, and not want to provoke a confrontation.

It seems like the best solution is safe spaces for the "weird" kids - at my school, sympathetic teachers' classrooms would fill up at lunchtime for socializing and board games - or clubs and other productive channellings of weirdness.

And if there is actual violence, teachers should not be in the middle of it. It should be professionals with real training in defusing such situations... Not that that will ever happen.
posted by Mr Bunnsy at 7:31 AM on March 24

There's something sad about the naiveté and earnestness of the parents here. Ultimately, they're resorting to a lawsuit, which is probably warranted, but they seem just unable to understand the intractability of bullying and how it can be enabled by the adults at the school. Billy is learning not just to distrust the authority figures at his school, but also learning to distrust his own parents.
posted by deanc at 7:41 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

The parents are dumbshits for not transferring the boy to another school. What does making him a martyr prove - other than fucking him up?

And putting it in the paper? Yeah, smart move there too.

I was absolutely picked on in school - glasses, I was missing teeth from a bike accident, I was small for my age, and I was smarter than most kids. The best thing my parents could have done was fixed my appearance issues and sent me to a different school, but they couldn't be bothered. So I found my own crowd and spent 6 years stoned out of my mind.

I don't think we've got the full story on Poor Little Billy either. I think there's a real possibility he's fighting back in misdirected ways and causing more problems for himself. That's the other reason he needs a fresh start.

I could get my Moral Outrage hat on and really get my hate going against society for creating the conditions that make this stuff happen. OR I could say honestly that if I were Billy's parents, I'd have moved out of town well before it got to this point. TI'd be an involved parent. I don't think his parents are as involved as we are led to believe.
posted by disclaimer at 7:50 AM on March 24

Excellent post loquacious. Thank you for sharing. I was home taught myself. Pretty much for the same reasons you were. However I was blessed with a loving set of parents. It sounds like you turned out good despite everything that happened to you. I'm sure you don't need someone on a forum saying it's good to see you turned out that way but it's good to see that you turned out to be a good person.

The only reason a bully is a bully is because something in their own life is causing it. (or in the minority of the time they are just assholes). What schools should do is see what is causing this behavior and instead of school being a place where they are pass on the abuse, have the school become a safe haven where the bully can feel free to drop his guard a little and try to learn something. Because just the like nerd who gets picked on can grow up to do great things... so can the bully. All they need is a little encouragement that they are obviously not getting at home.

Another jokingly and more drastic approach would be to give people convicted of domestic violence more than 2 times the three strike .357 treatment in a back alley. That might end the problem in about 30 years.

that is all

Mastercheddaar
posted by Mastercheddaar at 7:52 AM on March 24

Schools are toxic. Don't send your children there. Even if they aren't the targets of bullies, they witness the violence and learn to accept it as OK. Or worse, they learn to join in on the bullying themselves.

Sending your child to school is a decision to turn your child into either a victim or a bad person. Homeschool! If anyone asks you, "but what about socialization?" tell them that you don't want your children socialized into the values and behaviors taught in schools.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:52 AM on March 24 [3 favorites]

I really don't like how many responses about what should be "done" are in the form of clamors for vengeance, be it physically or legally. I don't really see how that remedies the situation as opposed to merely, once again, making all of us feel better about the thing that happened to the people we've never even met.

I wish there were more programs to handle bullies and abusive students that were community service-based: 20 hours helping out at a retirement clinic, or an inpatient facility, or a homeless or battered women's shelter. Not hard labor, I'm not saying they have to scrub toilets or do the jobs orderlies have to do but just anything that forces them to actually be exposed to the weak and/or abused in a context devoid of peer pressure or the need for social dominance. Of course, while I'm at it I'd like the "corrections system" in this country to actually be about "rehabilitation" and also a pony.

I understand people feel they want to punish someone, but it would be so much better if we taught them something. It's amazing that of all the places people refuse to consider this, it's a school.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:56 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

There's actually a lot that can be done. But it is clear from the article that the school condones the bullying and it is part of the school's culture. If the administration, the teachers and the parents choose to focus on reducing bullying-- and they ensure that the teachers, especially, aren't complicit in it, these kinds of situations can change.

But many school administrators and teachers actually support the student social structure, favoring the jocks and the cheerleaders and the others at the top of the status ladder, while disfavoring the others. This gives the "go ahead" signal to the bullies, and the business about the kid "asking for it" is classic evidence of that.

Whereas if you have a school culture that genuinely values diversity in all its forms-- that different kids are good at different things, not just race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.-- while there will still be incidents, there won't be an ongoing culture of this kind of thing.

The "cool" teachers in school are either a great force for good or ill in these situations-- if they act inclusive, the kids take their cues there; if not, they do as well. People don't think teachers have that much influence on teens and not all of them do-- but certain teachers play a huge role in condoning or condemning this stuff.

Zero tolerance actually tends to reinforce this kind of atmosphere as it comes out to another arbitrary demonstration of power over the kids and makes the school community less friendly and cohesive.

Btw, every single high school shooting occurred in a school with a culture of bullying in which the teachers, admins and students collectively decided who was "in" and who was "out" and reinforced that with violence and emotional abuse.
posted by Maias at 7:57 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Also, Billy probably has Asperger's-- which will mean that he will be socially clueless and respond in ways almost guaranteed to escalate the bullying. Social skills training for him could potentially make a big difference-- if he were sent to a different school after a summer of such instruction, for example.

but his parents are insanely cruel to keep him there-- if he does have Asperger's, they may have it as well which might also explain their insistence on staying where they are.
posted by Maias at 8:00 AM on March 24

My IQ levels were nearly unrecordable

Were you masturbating in front of the mirror as you planned this post?
posted by autodidact at 8:10 AM on March 24 [6 favorites]

When parents and authority figures get involved, the intensity of the bullying only increases. I thought that everybody knew that.

The only solution to bullying is to fight back. It's the only thing that works.

However, I wonder if it's too late for this poor kid. It seems like the kids at his highschool really do hate him. If I were his parents, I'd find a sympathetic aunt or grandparent in a different part of the country to take care of Billy. He could go to a new school that wasn't so set on bullying him.
posted by Afroblanco at 8:14 AM on March 24

Maias, what points you to Asperger's?
posted by lizzicide at 8:16 AM on March 24

Because it's MeFi, and every nerd gets diagnosed with Asperger's here.
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:18 AM on March 24 [11 favorites]

Oh my god.

I forgot about bullying. It wasn't so long ago that I hated high school, junior high school, and everything about college, I even hated elementary school, preschool...I distinctly remember hating it. I don't think I was ever a bully, nor was I ever seriously bullied, but I shunned and was shunned. Maybe I had a paranoid gleam in my eye that kept people away. Bullies included. I was an antisocial kid from the start, and I still have problems with that, but I don't ever remember distinctly being bullied.

Except by my father, who I got a restraining order against when I was 15 (14?). I bullied him back, and told him to go fuck himself every chance I got. I denied him any chance I could to let him be a father. And I may have bullied some people unintentionally, though in my life I've never been in a fight, or beaten up. That didn't win me any friends either. I was the kid who tried too hard, but who impressed some people, so I got away with a lot of stuff other kids didn't. I brought Jacke Martling books to school and showed them around, to anyone who would look. I made lists of condom slogans and solicited suggestions. I even got a bit of a name going for myself around the school as somebody funny, but aloof. And I quit "the system" in disgust when I was 16, got into an alternative school and didn't really talk to anybody, and never really made any permanent friends until I came to China and started living my life here.

I've never been bullied, but I know what it's like to feel alone, and to reach out and not really have anyone sincerely touch back. That pain, at least, I understand, even if I don't have any right to empathize with the way he's been violated. I've gotten off relatively scar-free from my childhood, I think, which makes it hurt all the more when I see someone so alone.

Bill, I'm sorry they do this to you. And if you ever see this, and you want to talk, my email is in my profile. All I can say is what they're doing isn't right, you don't deserve it, and I'm here. I'm sorry I can't be closer.
posted by saysthis at 8:20 AM on March 24

washburn: "I'm not sure how much good it will do, but I went ahead and sent Mr. Wolfe a brief message of support via his Facebook profile."

Facebook says:

"Billy has one friend."

Let's remedy that and all friend him on Facebook as a show of support.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:25 AM on March 24 [11 favorites]

The parents of bullies and victims both are often just as screwed up/violent/socially clueless as the kids. Obviously. But you can't change the parents - that's beyond the reach of the school. And what about the kids whose parents are working multiple jobs to stay afloat, and don't have the time or money to be involved? Or immigrants who have limited understanding of American school culture? In this kind of situation, the kids have been failed by both their parents and the school - and changing the culture in the school can help a lot more kids.
posted by Mr Bunnsy at 8:26 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

It's not just bullying... you can reinvent yourself completely. Nobody knows the first thing about you in the new place

Unless, of course, there was an article about you in the New York Times.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:29 AM on March 24 [4 favorites]

Seconding empath -- I never knew a kid who got bullied that didn't have either some kind of home problem or very poor socialization. Judging by the comments here, this is not likely to be well received news, but it's the truth.

School is mostly about socialization, and human society in general tends to punish those who are different to an unacceptable degree. Kids do this with special ferocity, being both semi-powerless themselves and also lacking in most of the empathy that most of them will develop later on.

Here are some things that will not help at all:

Suing anyone, or pursuing legal action: Doesn't anyone else here remember that one kid whose parents would sue anyone, any time, for any reason? Yeah, that kid got bullied even worse.

Moving / changing schools: Bully magnets remain just that, even at a different school.

Karate classes: Oh Jesus H Christ. It's one thing if the kid just enjoys the activity, but doesn't anyone else remember the archetypal karate nerd? Third-degree black belt whatever whatever. That kid got bullied. That was usually also the kid who was always stealing his uncle's throwing stars and switchblade and bringing them in to school. The karate nerd was usually the kid who was transparently being abused or at best neglected at home by a violent family.

What might work:

Change our school system to be much less like large jails for the young. Ha. As if. Moving on...

Teach the smart kids who get bullied (the big-word types), something about sociology and group dynamics and encourage them to figure out the social mores they're violating to attract all the negative attention, and stop doing it. It's all well and good to say that everyone should be as nerdy as they wanna be, but come on. No one here acts professionally when at work, regardless of how much of a hell raiser you are after hours? Acting appropriately for the environment is part of life. It's not different just because they're kids. I would have been the world's biggest bully magnet if I hadn't figured this out early. There are people around whom a 10 year old can casually use the word "lethargic" and there are people around whom he cannot.

The kids who are being bullied and are not notably brighter that the ones doing the bullying probably have something wrong at home. There's little that teachers can do about that. Sucks, but it's the truth. If anyone can solve this one, start drafting your Nobel speech.

Chip away at the neutrals -- the kids who aren't bullied themselves and don't want to be, and thus don't object when someone else gets bullied. They understand why it's happening, but they don't really want to be involved. This majority of neutral kids are the only ones who have any prayer of actually stopping it. Bullying is a mechanism of enforcing social conformity. The only real way to prevent it is to use the same powerful force to make it unacceptable. But it has to be done by the kids. Parents and teachers are not part of the social dynamic that produces bullies and victims. This is difficult to achieve in practice, but where the neutral bystanders are willing to stick up for the nerd, bullying basically ends.
posted by rusty at 8:31 AM on March 24 [7 favorites]

Wow, good talk friends.

I went to school in a slice-of-americana hometown where I went to kindergarden with about 1/2 of my 110 person graduating class. In elementary and middle school, my weapons against bullies were, in order, wit and a small group of friends. I knew a few guys who went the karate route with good results; from all reports its a good way to build up a child's confidence.

5th grade can be a nightmare, but I don't think that public school is inherently a toxic environment. I don't really think home schooling is the answer. The most interesting, well-adjusted people I know have been shaped by a wide variety of experiences, and they've grown to learn from those experiences and take them in stride. I don't know what the difference is between one of those people and someone who would be scarred by the same experiences. Maybe it's something inherent, maybe it's something learned early on, I'm not really sure. The experiences we live through make us the people who we are, but it's not an entirely passive process. I think we all have a say in how we let those experiences affect us.
posted by craven_morhead at 8:32 AM on March 24

This story is, largely, a description of American society writ small. The bullies, be it physical or otherwise, are generally rewarded, promoted, worshipped and generally seen as "ah he's a good ol boy, sometimes he's just a little...edgy...". These people then grow up and continue their bullying ways.

One of the notorious bullies from my junior high is now a weekend news anchor for a major American broadcast network.

So watching World News Sunday on ABC News hosted by DAN HARRIS always reminds me that adulthood isn't quite the utopia of comeuppance I had youthfully envisioned.
posted by dyoneo at 8:33 AM on March 24 [13 favorites]

Jeebus, bleary, I'm with you there. No one was stupid enough to try to harm me physically (I was taller than every single boy in my school until nearly 8th grade, and quite a few teachers, too), but damn, I got shunned like a naughty Amish girl. And not in the movie-friendly Mean Girls kind of way, either. The no-one-will-let-you-sit-by-them-on-the-bus-and-the-bus-driver-yells-at-YOU way.

Our own experiences make us extra-sensitive to these kinds of stories, sure, but I'm not exactly impressed with what I'm hearing about public schools these days. My friend's stepson, who is a sweet and clever 9-year-old, has been put in a corner, apart from all the other kids, and told -- BY HIS TEACHER, NO LESS -- that she's doing it because the other kids "don't like him." I mean, what the fucking fuck is that about? Did she go to the Marquis de Sade School of Education or something?
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:45 AM on March 24

Jacqueline, I just friended him as well.. that's a great idea and it would be so cool if zillions of people did so as well.

Regarding Asperger's, the victim-blaming stuff seems very frequently to redound on people with Asperger's because people on the spectrum do exactly the wrong things in response to bullying: cry, respond with arrogance about intelligence, try to hang out with people who are rejecting them, persist in behavior that is annoying without realizing it, obsess about stuff that bores people and refuse to be quiet or take turns in conversation-- and consistently do so seemingly perversely despite all attempts to help them change.

I probably would have been diagnosed with Asperger's as a child-- and that is exactly what I did for most of elementary and junior high school until I discovered in high school that obsessing about drugs is an interest many people share ;-)

This was not your healthiest response... but it certainly made me much more popular.
posted by Maias at 8:47 AM on March 24

This article and thread make me want to home school my future child. Either that or add socialization to the things that I plan to try to teach her. "Daddy has to wear a suit and tie and pretend to be interested in law when he is at work or he will get fired. You have to do a version of that at school. Both of us can be as weird as we want when we get home."
posted by ND¢ at 8:54 AM on March 24 [15 favorites]

Okay, so I was twelve when I started working on the potato farm as a shaker, running behind the harvester shaking the potatos from the potato plants and DS started ragging on me because I was fat and because I liked "Photograph", by Def Leppard, a fag song if there ever was one.

DS was a year ahead of me at junior high school. He was short and scrawny and looked like a more simian version of Eddie Van Halen, but he wore Metallica "Metal Up Your Ass" shirts and listened to Venom, and smoked with the others at the Hole in the woods behind the school.

DS bullied me for about half a year, taunting and punching me until finally I had had enough. We scuffled in the halls one Monday in January after school. A large crowd gathered to see us push and shove each other. DS headbutted me and my nose started to bleed.

But then DS had to go. "I got to go to drum practice," said. Eggy gave DS a double on the back of his bike. Everybody chased after Eggy and DS and jeering at them.

The next day, Tuesday, DS came up to me and said: "We fight after school on Friday". I said sure. For one week I was popular.

By Friday, the entire school had heard about our fight. DS came to school wearing combat boots. I changed into some old clothes and put my school clothes, including a sweater I had got for Christmas, into a gym bag.

"We're going to take your gym bag to make sure you fight DS," said one of the tough kids. Then it seemed like the entire school started (or at least one hundred kids) trekking to an abandoned vacant lot near my house, about a fifteen minute walk away from the school.

When I got to the vacant lot, a circle of kids had formed. DS was som

"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?" March 23, 2008 11:05 PM Subscribe

"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"
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