[QUOTE=haloguy234;29452945]The choices are always there even if the person who's depressed doesn't realize they are. Yeah, there is always going to be a degree of depression where a person feels completely helpless. I was there at one point. And then I snapped out of it and realized I wouldn't get anywhere if I just sat there in a saddened stupor, so I decided to do something about it.[/QUOTE]
Yeah you "snapped out of it"
Not everyone does on their own, and not everyone has someone else to spot them suffering and get help for them.
[QUOTE=Dr_Funk;29455561]Personally, I'd rather keep fighting than just give up.[/QUOTE]
Me too, but not everyone has a fighting spirit.
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;29356760]"Make you stronger"?
Really? Don't get me wrong, I know that soccer moms can go overboard, but I got bullied for a while, to the extent I practically break down into tears when I hear this one jingle that they used to taunt me with.[/QUOTE]
Pussy.
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29455873]Me too, but not everyone has a fighting spirit.[/QUOTE]
Agreed, I remember in 6th grade, I got bullied so much because of the clothes I wore. Back then I didn't believe in spending like 200$ for shoes, or 50$ for a shirt. The bullies knocked by books down, RIGHT WHEN THE TECHNOLOGY TEACHER WAS WATCHING, /caps. I couldn't fight back because they were like 6ft tall and I was short, and it was like 4 of them. I will never forget how my technology teacher stood there while I was bullied and laughed at, the whole 8th grade laughed at me all year.
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29454376]You're right. Slavery still exists in tons of places. That further proves my point that there's still no solution to bullying. Sweeping something under the table doesn't make it cease to exist. Yes, there's legal measures that are supposed to stop teachers and students from bullying, but they apparently do not work.
There hasn't been any significant progress on bullying. There just hasn't. It has always existed and it sure as hell hasn't slowed down. If anything, it's escalated when you consider that now kids have more mediums to bully people through (like the internet).[/QUOTE]
But there's [i]less of it[/i]. You can't get rid of it 100%, sure, but does that mean that they shouldn't have banned slavery in the first place, because "whelp, there's always gonna be some slavery, might as well not even bother". You don't need it to be 100% for it to have a positive effect and be worth doing.
Nope, never ever ever ever has there been progress on bullying. Ever.
Additionally, if you haven't made progress yet, you never will. And if you've made progress, you can't make more progress.
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29454650]Like I said, we should educate kids on how to properly deal with bullying instead of just blowing smoke up their asses. Teachers/administrators/parents need to be educated on how to be mentors for their kids instead of just educators and parents. Educate a kid and show him that there's help available if he needs it and suddenly bullying is no longer fun for the bullies because all the kids they pick on don't give a shit.[/QUOTE]The victims would still give a shit. But they would be more knowledgeable.
How about educate kids on several ways to deal with it, tell them why bullying is bad, be smarter and more active about punishing bullies, and make teachers actually pay some fucking attention as well? No reason you can't add on to what we already do.
Also, [b]AGAIN[/b].
It can be hard for a kid to go get help when they've had their trust broken, are afraid of just getting ridiculed more, have little self esteem, and think that their bullies might bully them more if they tell on them.
And being depressed kinda fucks up your mind. If you couldn't tell.
OP gets bullied.
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29452946]What is there to do about it? If the answer was obvious, if there was a solution, it would have been done already.[/QUOTE]
man, if there was a solution to cancer, it would have been done already
fuck researching cures
man, if there was a solution to poverty, it would have been done already
fuck helping the poor
man, if there was a solution to crime, it would have been done already
fuck the police
Man, if there was a solution to people blowing things out of context, it would have been done already.
Fuck logical arguments.
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29457499]Man, if there was a solution to people blowing things out of context, it would have been done already.
Fuck logical arguments.[/QUOTE]
No, it wouldn't have because too many kids are too disobedient to listen to others and just continue bullying.
[QUOTE=Swilly;29455197]I'm sorry that...just that is idiotic :v:[/QUOTE]
because?
ITT people with very little actual life experience stating their own personal theories about how people interact despite hardly ever leaving their own house except to go to school.
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29451156]Look, in a perfect world, nobody would have to compromise their character in order to avoid conflict. However, the world is not perfect. Yes, telling homosexual people to act straight if they don't want to get picked on sounds horrible and virtually everyone can agree that it's horrible, but just because it's horrible doesn't mean it isn't true.
The bottom line is that beggars can't be choosers. Sucks, but that's the way things are. If you're getting picked on because the other kids don't like how you're smarter than them and you aren't in a position to fight back or resist, then yes, pretending like you're dumb is a good solution. Once again, I don't think that's a good thing and I find it terribly unfortunate, but that's just the way life is.
I mean, it's evident everywhere in history. It isn't uncommon for leaders of nations/tribes/whatever to pretend like they're sick/weak/stupid so their enemies will spare their lives. Is it a good thing that they had to sacrifice their character to survive? No, but they did what they had to do.
If you're getting picked on to no end for something you can hide, then you just have to bite the bullet and hide it. If you refuse to do so, then you have to live with the consequences. I wish things weren't that way, but just because we wish they weren't and just because we have ideologies on what the world should be like doesn't magically make the world like that.
So yes, if acting dumb to pacify them was an option, you should have done that. Unfortunately, you just weren't really in a position to bargain. It was either sacrifice your character for a few years or be bullied. Neither is a good thing, but the former is definitely the lesser of the two evils. And, at the end of the day, you alone made the choice to not hide it. Therefore, the consequences rest on your shoulders. The bullies gave you the problem, but you made the choice on what solution to use.[/QUOTE]
Nice job ignoring the rest of my post yet criticising others for doing the same to you
If I had hid my brains, I wouldn't have made it into my current school as I live outside the catchment area. If I didn't make it into this school, I would be going to a school which is known for having a low average
QCS stands for Queensland Core Skills, and it is the most important piece of assessment as OP (Overall Position, 1-25,1 being the highest) is affected by how well your school does on the QCS.
What does this mean? I could ace the QCS but if I hid my brains and submitted to the bullies, my mark would be dragged down by the shit school I would have been stuck in. Meaning my future would have been severely limited. There are exceptions if you are super far ahead of everyone else, but the only way they allow that is if you are the only op ~1-5 student and the rest of the school is <18.
Stupid system, but it's the only one my state has
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29451753]Bullying people for any reason is a problem. However, it's something that is somewhat intertwined with human nature. Quite frankly, it seems ridiculous to expect bullying to go away.
It's like having your house lit on fire with some magic fuel source that can't be put out. Your house is going to burn down regardless; you can choose to sit outside and watch it burn or go running in to attempt saving some belongings. At the end of the day, you made the choice. If you get 3rd degree burns all over because you ran in to save shit, you have to accept the consequences because you made that choice. Same thing if you sit outside and lose everything.
I just find it ridiculous that people argue that there is no choice. As if something forces them to go running in or something forces them to sit outside. If you can't get yourself to go running in to save shit because you're scared, yeah you might not be able to help that you're too scared, but that doesn't mean it's not your fault for making that choice. The choice was always there, you just couldn't bring yourself to make it, which is okay, everyone is different. However, it's silly to sit there and say there was literally no choice and it's the fire's fault that you didn't have the bravery to run in there and save your stuff. At the end of the day, it all came down to you and your constitution. If you weren't brave (or stupid, depending on how much value you place in your things over your personal safety) enough to run in there, then don't blame anything else other than your lack of bravery (or stupidity, whatever).
I'm not trying to say only the brave have the ability to choose or anything like that, it's just an analogy. What I'm saying is that there's choices and the only thing keeping you from making certain choices is yourself. If you can't make a choice because you are holding yourself back, then it's your fault you can't make that choice. It sucks, but that's the way it is. If you weren't brave enough, you weren't brave enough. Like everyone has said a million times, everyone is different, but that doesn't automatically exclude people from accepting responsibility for their actions or lack of action.
EDIT:
If you try to run into the house and it fucking explodes in your face then yeah, it was something out of your control. However, people are quick to associate things that are incredibly difficult with being impossible, which isn't the case most of the time.[/QUOTE]
You actually made a sort of sensible post here.
What you don't see that kids who are scared see both options as rushing in and getting 3rd degree burns across their body
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29452760]Who says I'm not striving to get to the point where we no longer have to live life that way?
You seem to have missed a huge part of what I'm saying. I'm not satisfied with the way things are right now and I hope a long-term solution arises someday, but the bottom line is [i]that's how things are right now, whether you like it or not.[/i]
People don't actually respect each other. Do I agree with that? No. Is that the way things are? Yes.[/QUOTE]
And how do you expect it to change if you tell kids that all bullying is a trivial thing and that they should suck it up?
[QUOTE=haloguy234;29452945]The choices are always there even if the person who's depressed doesn't realize they are. Yeah, there is always going to be a degree of depression where a person feels completely helpless. I was there at one point. And then I snapped out of it and realized I wouldn't get anywhere if I just sat there in a saddened stupor, so I decided to do something about it.[/QUOTE]
You don't just "snap out" of depression. You snap out of feeling depressed, but depression != feeling depressed.
[QUOTE=haloguy234;29452992]More importantly, a utopian society would suck.
If everybody respected each other, if the world we live in was absolutely perfect, then there wouldn't be anything to fight for. Nothing to choose to believe in because, if the world was perfect, what you could choose to believe is already a reality.[/QUOTE]
tbh a world with no fighting sounds a lot better than having a war every decade as the US seems to enjoy
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29454376]You're right. Slavery still exists in tons of places. That further proves my point that there's still no solution to bullying. Sweeping something under the table doesn't make it cease to exist. Yes, there's legal measures that are supposed to stop teachers and students from bullying, but they apparently do not work.
Still, bullying has never been an "okay" thing like slavery. It has never been institutionalized, it's not like teachers and kids were encouraged to pick on the smaller kids with glasses.
There hasn't been any significant progress on bullying. There just hasn't. It has always existed and it sure as hell hasn't slowed down. If anything, it's escalated when you consider that now kids have more mediums to bully people through (like the internet).
Bullying is an ugly part of human nature. It's what happens when a kid's brain understands that they must compete with everyone else in the world, but doesn't understand how exactly to do that. So they naturally assert themselves over weaker kids because that's what competition is to them.
As people get older, the concept of bullying remains, just the means of it changes. It changes from the big kids picking on the little kids to the rich shitting on the poor. Quite frankly, that's the way things have always been. I'm not saying that's the way things will always be, but there sure as hell hasn't been any progress toward changing that. Instead of burning resources with all kinds of stupid anti-bullying campaigns that never work, kids need to be educated on how to react properly to bullies in realistic ways. Right now, they simply preach shit like saying "Leave me alone" and walking away, which we all know doesn't work.
It's just like sex education and whatnot. Kids are going to fuck each other whether you like it or not. You can be ignorant of that and keep preaching abstinence or you can be smart and educate them on how to safely have sex.[/QUOTE]
I would like to see an independent authority, completely independent of the schools that is easy to contact and has the authority to punish the kids properly, and to even expel the bullies from their current school if necessary. You can get fired for doing it in the workplace, it needs to be consistent with the punishment right from the start.
Ideally it wouldn't include teasing and exclusion automatically as bullying, but soccer mums will be soccer mums. Not wanting to play a game with someone you don't like isn't bullying, but excluding them from everything and telling others to do so is.
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29455446]That's taking what people say and using it in a very extreme context.
There's a handful of options one can employ when they are bullied. Appeasement is one of them. You can take the bullying and retain your character but be tormented every day or sacrifice your character and appease them in order to escape it. Which one you choose is up to you to decide, based on what your personal values are. Even kids have values as simple as those.
However, if you choose one of those things and don't get the results you wanted, there's really nobody to blame but yourself. If you appease the bullies and end up feeling like a coward, you can't really blame anyone for the choice you made except yourself.
However, it's important to understand that most bullying takes place while people are in the lower levels of schooling as kids. It's not like you have to pretend to be stupid/straight/whatever for the rest of your life, just as long as you're at whatever school you go to. Yeah, it sucks, and yeah, I wish there was some kind of end-all magical solution that involves zero sacrifice from the person being bullied, but there isn't.[/QUOTE]
There needs to be a way introduced. I'm sure there are flaws with my idea, but I'm not the best at thinking of ideas for that sort of thing .
[QUOTE=mikfoz;29460256]ITT people with very little actual life experience stating their own personal theories about how people interact despite hardly ever leaving their own house except to go to school.[/QUOTE]
yeah p.much right on the money there pal
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29455873]Me too, but not everyone has a fighting spirit.[/QUOTE]
But, that's the point, though - these people deserve to be protected, and free from bullying. Hell, all people deserve to be free from that sort of harrassment; not going to harp on about personal experiences but it obviously doesn't do any good. Just because human beings will always be pricks doesn't mean we should just say "welp, what can ya' do?". People will always kill, and steal, and we'll NEVER be able to prevent every iota of this - but does this mean we should abolish the laws against murder and theft, and replace them with government-sponsored physical training so that if someone comes at you with a knife, you can run away faster? No, that's preposterous, and so is the declaration that we should tolerate bullying.
[QUOTE=Dr_Funk;29462431]But, that's the point, though - these people deserve to be protected, and free from bullying. Hell, all people deserve to be free from that sort of harrassment; not going to harp on about personal experiences but it obviously doesn't do any good. Just because human beings will always be pricks doesn't mean we should just say "welp, what can ya' do?". People will always kill, and steal, and we'll NEVER be able to prevent every iota of this - but does this mean we should abolish the laws against murder and theft, and replace them with government-sponsored physical training so that if someone comes at you with a knife, you can run away faster? No, that's preposterous, and so is the declaration that we should tolerate bullying.[/QUOTE]
I read his point as saying we should help victims and not attack bullies, which makes a lot of sense. That's not the same as tolerating bullying, it's just acknowledging that what we've been doing hasn't worked so maybe if we address the people being bullied more than those who are bullying we'll have more success.
I highly doubt the kids made fun of you because of your test grades, mokkan. You could have [b]acted[/b] stupid and still done well on tests. As long as you didn't go around bragging about your test grades, they never would have known.
I "ignored" the rest of your post because that little part was the only part I had something to say on. That doesn't mean I disregarded it, though.
[editline]27th April 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=Dr_Funk;29462431]But, that's the point, though - these people deserve to be protected, and free from bullying. Hell, all people deserve to be free from that sort of harrassment; not going to harp on about personal experiences but it obviously doesn't do any good. Just because human beings will always be pricks doesn't mean we should just say "welp, what can ya' do?". People will always kill, and steal, and we'll NEVER be able to prevent every iota of this - but does this mean we should abolish the laws against murder and theft, and replace them with government-sponsored physical training so that if someone comes at you with a knife, you can run away faster? No, that's preposterous, and so is the declaration that we should tolerate bullying.[/QUOTE]
Once again, I'm not saying we shouldn't try to stop bullying.
I'm saying that the [b]focus[/b] of our efforts should be to educate kids about how to handle bullying. Sure, there could be anti-bullying programs going on as well and whatnot, but we should focus on what's most effective, and those bullying programs sure as hell aren't effective.
I'm not declaring that we should tolerate bullying. I'm declaring that approaching it head-on with anti-bullying programs isn't the best way of getting rid of it.
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29465716]I highly doubt the kids made fun of you because of your test grades, mokkan. You could have [b]acted[/b] stupid and still done well on tests. As long as you didn't go around bragging about your test grades, they never would have known.
I "ignored" the rest of your post because that little part was the only part I had something to say on. That doesn't mean I disregarded it, though.
[editline]27th April 2011[/editline]
Once again, I'm not saying we shouldn't try to stop bullying.
I'm saying that the [b]focus[/b] of our efforts should be to educate kids about how to handle bullying. Sure, there could be anti-bullying programs going on as well and whatnot, but we should focus on what's most effective, and those bullying programs sure as hell aren't effective.
I'm not declaring that we should tolerate bullying. I'm declaring that approaching it head-on with anti-bullying programs isn't the best way of getting rid of it.[/QUOTE]
Not true about the test grades.
Teachers often notify the class about grades, or pass out tests with the grades highly visible, or even just praise students on their grades, especially in lower levels such as middle and elementary.
Then say you guessed or got lucky.
I've always done that ever since being a little kid, not to avoid bullying, but to avoid people asking me for help/answers/whatnot.
1.See Spiraling Thread
2.Kill it with Fire
3.Realize you just set your computer on fire
4.????
5.PROFIT
It has actually leveled out now that everyone isn't just spouting "YOU'RE ARROGANT YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE YOU'RE IGNORANT" and is actually discussing things.
Should have posted it earlier then :smith:
Holy shit my thread is still going.
I was bullied a lot at school, teachers did basically nothing about it, one even blamed me for it for being too shy (she honestly said that it was my fault). This thread leaves me in the middle.
On one hand, I became stronger. I will never be a confident person but I have improved a lot. I learnt to stop letting people treat me like a bitch, to stop trying to be invisible, stop being so passive, to adapt better with my peers. I learnt because I had to. I'm not that awkward, passive, acne ridden kid anymore.
On the other hand I also developed some really bad traits. An extremely short and aggressive temper, I used to be extremely mild and passive but I just snapped and now I flip like a switch. I say hurtful things I don't really mean to people I really care about. I also have an inferiority complex and I am ruthlessly harsh about my own appearance to the point where it is unhealthy. I felt crap about the fact that there wasn't really anyone on my side and just a little encouragement would have been nice.
So yeah, kids shouldn't be wrapped in cotton wool and treated like special snowflakes because when they leave school and enter the real world they'll meet people who just plain don't like them. They need to learn how to deal with people who dislike you when they don't have someone protecting them. On the other hand, bullies do need to be punished and not ignored. Instincts are instincts but kids need to be taught it isn't ok to act upon them. Teachers shouldn't laugh along with bullies or blame those who are bullied, feeling like nobody gives a shit when you're that young in particular can really leave scars.
Victims need to be taught coping strategies, bullies need to be taught to control themselves.
[QUOTE=st0rmforce;29445967]Why the fuck should you change to please some little shit? They're the ones with the problem
Also there are quite a lot of exceptions along with race and religion.
I've seen someone bullied constantly [b]because his family is poor[/b], there wasn't much he could do about that and he didn't have the option of changing school. He was quite lucky in a sense, he was only called names and beaten up.[/QUOTE]
That's interesting: Over here the poorer groups of people tend to be more violent.
I grew up in a really poor neighborhood and there were alot of stabbings and violent deaths nearby.
[i]bricking someone isn't fun.[/i] :ohdear:
[QUOTE=Treybuchet;29457453]
man, if there was a solution to crime, it would have been done already
[b]fuck the police[/b][/QUOTE]
[i]why am I laughing so much?!?[/i]
[QUOTE=MaverickIB;29465716]
I'm saying that the [b]focus[/b] of our efforts should be to educate kids about how to handle bullying. Sure, there could be anti-bullying programs going on as well and whatnot, but we should focus on what's most effective, and those bullying programs sure as hell aren't effective.[/QUOTE]
The best way to help kids deal with bullying is to tell them that if you [b]can't[/b] handle it, the school's staff will be there for them and will deal with the bullies.
When the bullied see the bullies getting a total pass they're discouraged from getting help.
"Man up" attitudes like yours discourage kids from getting help as well.
I think this thread is funny as hell, I remember being back in middleschool, I got picked on a lot and was pretty depressed about it.
This is something that a shitload of people go through, but then you grow the fuck up, get out of school, and nobody gives a shit anymore, everyones pretty chill. You still have people who are massive dickheads, but nobody gives a shit about them anymore, things like "popularity" don't exist, and dickheads can just be ignored.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;29470447]The best way to help kids deal with bullying is to tell them that if you [b]can't[/b] handle it, the school's staff will be there for them and will deal with the bullies.
When the bullied see the bullies getting a total pass they're discouraged from getting help.
"Man up" attitudes like yours discourage kids from getting help as well.[/QUOTE]
That and teachers should actually have to decide on blame rather than simply punishing both parties [B]every time.[/B]
[QUOTE=Megafanx13;29478838]That and teachers should actually have to decide on blame rather than simply punishing both parties [B]every time.[/B][/QUOTE]
I never had that problem in my school, instead nobody got punished
[QUOTE=Zeke129;29479605]I never had that problem in my school, instead nobody got punished[/QUOTE]
Most of the schools here punish everyone involved in bullying, even the victims.
[QUOTE=Sublata;29479721]Most of the schools here punish everyone involved in bullying, even the victims.[/QUOTE]
I actually help start a riot in our school against the 0 tolerance policy after a gay kid was punished along with the assholes that kicked his ass. No we're a few steps away from abolishing it :3:
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