How bad is the life of US middle and highschool children ?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I think we have a few different types of school systems represented too.

Scumpup talks of being in his position long enough to have taught the children of former students. He is active in his community and lives where he teaches. I get the feeling his town is smaller and his school system better taken care of by the town.

Where I went to school many of the teachers were laid off at the end of the school year and didn’t know if they would have a job the next year until school started. Paper was rationed two sheets per kid for assignments or tests. Most of the supplies were broken or shared between 4 or 5 kids.

We had to have assemblies to address issues like gangs from rival cities coming to invade the school and do various things. More than once I got to school and was turned away at the gate because there were bomb threats. One day I went to the bathroom during class only to run into the police who were looking for a child loose in the school with a gun. The kid in the locker next to mine in high school had a gun and drugs hanging in his locker. We had a very well publicised at the time hazing incident where the hazed children were supposedly forced to eat pubic hair.

Classes were very large, supplies scarce, and teachers did not get a lot of support from administrators or parents. If the teachers disciplined the children then parents would complain about why their kid was being singled out by the teacher. Detention was a joke since it was virtually unenforceable as parents could mandate that their kid could not be kept after school.

I have a kidney disease I have had since I was a small child. I had my doctors write all my teachers a notice because I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom to pee since they considered me a chronic time waster. (I asked to go to the bathroom too frequently so I must be goofing off) Even with the notes they insisted I was making things up. Even after I had a biopsy done and was mandated not to have to carry my books for 2 weeks (again with doctor notes) not one of my teachers would let me leave class the 5 minutes early or send someone to carry books for me… no crutches obviously no need for help. Instead I did it all myself and the pain was unbelievable! They just belittled my tears. Telling my parents wasn’t really an option as my father didn’t obey the doctor notes either and my second day home from the hospital was spent doing the laundry that accumulated during my week long stay. (up and down basement steps all day)

42

What about other countries ? Here in Brazil this hassling thing is usually pretty minor… and humiliation by several people even rarer. Less competitive environment possibly. “Nerds” and such do suffer discrimination of sorts… but since everyone helps each other cheating in school exams people tend to be nice to the smarter kids so as to have acess to good answers.

I was pretty dumbfounded when I noticed americans kids didnt ever help each other in exams or let others see their test answers .... talk about "culture" shock.  :)

(Not that I needed to cheat of course… was pretty good student.)

43

Minor is subjective, of course. And when you note that “nerds” do suffer discrimination, I think you need to remember that, at least among the U.S. contingent, “nerds” (or “geeks,” to say nothing of Goths and other groups) are probably over represented on the SDMB. (Just as Dopers have a higher percentage of people who are atheistic or Libertarian or openly GLBT than will be found in the general population of the U.S.)

So while I suspect that there is not a pandemic of abuse in the U.S., it is going to be rather easier to find people who have actually suffered abuse, here, than throughout the general population. (Note that it is rare to find people who have been abused mentioning their active participation in sports–the great American social elevator in schools.) So you have seen it occur in Brazil, and, while not apparently suffering it yourself, you have seen it in a “minor” way directed toward social misfits. (It may not have been quite so minor to those nerds.) I would guess that if you asked many U.S. survivors of school how they viewed persecution among their classmates, most would have a view similar to yours. On the SDMB, where more of the abused wound up, you get a somewhat different perspective.

44

Most of the bullying I experienced in junior high and high school – and virtually all of the incidents that really left scars – involved verbal and emotional harrassment rather than physical violence. Nasty, hateful, humiliating, and damaging to the mind and spirit, but not illegal. And mostly invisible to adults. How are you going to put a kid in “lock-up” for that?

45

I know any “survey” is distorted… still I went thru an American School and a Brazilian school. I was a nerd in both… and I hanged out with “social misfits” in both. So I got both “sides”.

As an adult I have contact with nerdish and geekish types overhere and in the US (thru the SMDB). The SMDB lot sure are higher in nerdish/geek factors possibly than some of my current friends… still I never heard any of my brazilian friends complain this much about school time the same way I have heard americans and british. Besides the traditional “title” for brainy kids: “Iron Ass” (from sitting down to study so much) … its pretty light over here for some of the reasons I posted above.

My experiences were far from what some posters have put here of course... cliques exist everywhere... they just dont seem as bad as they are in the US. Having recently travelled with two young canadians (18 yrs) I was aghast at how concerned the girl was with "cool or not cool" issues. Which reminded me of how high school was pretty dictatorial on these issues. (I know canadians hate to be compared to US... still pretty similar).

 To make a story short I think I can reasonably compare both sets of people and see that there is quite some difference...
46

School authorities ignore them as long as possible and if forced to deal with them work as hard as they can to blame the victims for everything.

47

That’s right. Bullying never happens. My arm was never broken as a joke. Nope. I made up the X-rays and put the cast on all by myself.

48

Oh, yes, I forgot ALL about the implication that “you encourage them by reacting.” I get the feeling that my parents felt pretty helpless, as did the school.

If somebody treated me like they did in middle school now, I’d have their ass charged for sexual harassment and any other number of forms of verbal harassment. And it would be entirely justified!

I deliberately avoid groups of kids around that age if I see them out and about. I don’t trust them in groups. Individuals, yes, but groups, no. I don’t think I’m alone in that.

49

See, this is what I am talking about. Nobody, especially me, ever said you weren’t bullied. Go back and review the thread. The fact that you were bullied does not equate to bullying being a problem of epidemic proportions in the educational system. Not to sound too cold about what was, no doubt, a scarring experience for you, but not everything is about you.

50

Rashak, part of the problem is indeed the highly-competitive environment – not so much for the goal of school (an education) but for placement in a social pecking order within the school. If your position in your primary social group is determined not by birth or objective merit but by hustle, you will hustle hard – and if you can’t hustle to get yourself on top, you hustle to tear others down. There is a certain acceptance of “Social Darwinism” at work.

Still, for a large proportion of Americans, school was not such a horrible Purgatory. Just another part of life that involves accepting a large truckload of crap daily, combined with some good times now and then. Just as is their work, when they become adults. I’d wager this is pretty much so in every part of the world. The difference is that among adults, you can hold someone accountable if he becomes abusive about it; as a minor, you are expected to shut up and not disturb the statu quo. And a big problem is that the person who succesfully navigated the mildly-crappy version of school, will be skeptical when you report it’s Hell-on-Earth. Even if it is.

Here in PR we have less “partisan” Jock-Nerd or BM(W)OC-Misfit polarization than the media portrays as existing in the USA, but just about as much direct interpersonal violence for whatever X Y or Z cause (gang activity, individual grudges, direct strong-to-weak bullying, etc.). Me, I was a quiet nerd and it was accepted. Had a .000 average with the girls the whole time (frozen in terror, I was!) but that’s about the worst part of it.

51

hehe… great post JR. I did a bit better than you… I got a .002 average with girls at that time. My current girlfriend doesnt beleive me when I tell her that.

Still I was wondering if these things are worse than 10+ years ago when we were at school…

52

Well, yes, there is a perception of things getting worse. Though that in itself means little since I’m sure our parents thought OUR generation was going to hell in a handbasket, we do have to wonder if it’s so in absolute terms (severity of individual incidents), in relative terms (frequency of incidents), or an effect of a greater willingness to actually report the incidents and a (painfully slow) increase in willingness to believe it could be that bad. e.g. the recent hazing-atrocity reports from various schools. And then we’d have to worry about causes.

53

It is a process, not an event, but we do it. It involves an escalating punishment scale. Thwe behavior you describe falls under the school discipline cade as harassment. Here is what might befall a bully who harasses another student.

  1. 1st offense- detention
  2. 2nd Offense- Out of school suspension 1 to 3 days. Parent must accompany child on return to sign student back in.
  3. 3rd offense- 5 day OSS. Possible hearing before school board.
  4. 4th Offense- 9 day OSS. Possible hearing before school board, placement in alternative school. They are in a separate wing and have no contact with the GP
  5. 5th Offense- expulsion. If criminal charges are also filed, placement in a youth center is a possibility.

Note: Depending on the nature of the harassment, criminal charges can actually be filed anywhere in the process. We’ve had more than one student have restraining orders placed against them over the years.

54

It is a process, not an event, but we do it. It involves an escalating punishment scale.

Unless the bully has money and/or an important last name in the community, then it’s “boys will be boys.”

55

Like norinew’s daughter, I was made the special target of many girls for no reason at all. However, when they started saying they were going to get me before/after school, I started walking into and out of school with my boyfriend and 2-3 of his big, senior guyfriends. I never felt threatened again. :smiley:

56

You know, SnoopyFan, it must get to be quite a burden plugging up that SnoopyFan-shaped hole at the center of the universe. You were bullied. That’s sad. Doesn’t mean you know shit about how things work in my district.

57

It also must be nice to live/work/teach in such a wonderfully perfect place.

Let us all move to nirvana so we may never be bullied again.

58

With this post, I am bowing out of this thread because it is rapidly turning into a festival of “since I was bullied, bullying happens everywhere and nobody ever does anything about it.” Several of you have already made up your minds that that is the case and nothing anybody tells you is going to change your mind. I feel bad that you were victimized, but that isn’t going to make me any more patient with your “my experience gives me the only valid POV” attitude. I know how things work in my district, your belief or approval isn’t a pre-requisite for me to consider what we do a success.
See ya in the funny papers.

59

Interestingly enough, tomndebb, I managed to be both a jock and a dork/geek/dweeb/lame-o etc. During football practice I wasn’t bullied as much, and within the confines of the football field/game I didn’t experience as much negative stuff as I certainly did otherwise. My senior year, when we went undefeated, I didn’t experience much bullying while I was at football practice or within about five minutes after the game ended/people found out we won. After that time, though…

Similar things happened with track, though not with (JV) baseball.

Scumpup, banking on the possibility that you are like the at least 75% of those who say “I’m leaving this thread” and do not, lemme just say that for the majority/plurality of us here, the notion that effective systems are being used (with any amount of zeal) to stop bullying is so far-removed from the mindsets, reactions and behaviors of those who knew they had students who were being bullied and did nothing about it that it is quite difficult to envision such a plan even being the official policy of a school system, let alone actually enforced. The notion that, for example, teachers are no longer taking their lunch breaks in a place where they are specifically prevented from seeing what a bunch of fourth-graders are doing to their whipping boy is, while delightful, more than a little hard to swallow.

Do you know that children are not getting bullied in your paragon of school districts where eyes cannot, or do not want to, see them? The head of my HS had little to no idea what was happening to me, which I considered more than a little odd considering how many faculty members had seen firsthand what was being done to me … and had heard the names being used (and if he did know about it, he did JACK to let me know).

Bullying happened a lot at my schools (grade and high school). Little was ever done about it. Had there been measures taken, even in vain (just seeing that somebody cared would have been nice), I probably would not have gotten to the point of wanting to kill myself. I would like to think that there are better things I could have done with my time than thinking up the most surefire way of killing myself.

My experiences are not the only valid POV, obviously. But they are every bit as valid as those of someone who, though associated with a school, is not currently a student (the amount of stuff you don’t see going down, regardless of how many eyes you have in every room…). And when I get daily (not in about a week, though, since the person who runs that list is on vacation) emails about kids killing themselves because of the bullying they experience, and kids’ parents suing school systems (and winning) because their kid got such shit treatment in school, and kids getting stitches from hazing incidents and etc. … it does not give me the sort of hope and confidence I’m sure you have.

I am only now at the point, 4+ years removed from high school and 800+ miles removed from my high school, where I can be on a high school campus and not instantly start being anxious/worried/afraid etc. that something is going to happen. And that is only because whenever I have been at such a place I’ve been with someone who made me feel safe. The same is true of grade school.

60

Ok so here’s a question … what can be done to help?

I don’t expect teachers to have all the answers. They’re paid to teach, not make everyone hold hands and love each other.

Schools definitely aren’t doing anything (in general), but then again neither are parents.

How can you get through to your kids that bullying is not acceptable?