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School Haze
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With the start of school being right around the corner, I thought it might be fun to share a post in the #schooldays community started by @galenkp. While I work all summer, staff officially came back to the building this past Monday. Students start next Monday. It's crazy just how quickly the summer passed by.
Each year at the start of school employees are required to complete some online training. It's pretty much the same stuff every year, so if you have worked in the district for a while (like me) it becomes overly tedious. It's still good information, and while most folks complain about it, I recognize it is a necessary evil.
One of the components we need to complete is about bullying, and it's actually pretty interesting to see just how wrong people get it when it comes to bullying. These days it seems like everyone thinks any bad action against someone else is bullying and they are more than happy to scream it at the top of their lungs for attention. As you might imagine, there is a lot more to it than that.
Most specifically, for something to be considered bullying (according to the experts), it needs to consist of three elements. It needs to be repeated, intentional, and involve a power imbalance. As you can see, sometimes kids are just jerks. They say mean things, they do mean things, but unless it meets those three components, it's not bullying. It could easily meet the last two, but if it is just a one off case, it's not really bullying.
Which leads me to the real point of this post.
Going through this module always brings me back to my freshman year of high school. Believe it or not, I wasn't as cool as the Bozz you know here today. I was pretty shy, nerdy, awkward, and probably a bit pudgy (I guess that hasn't changed). I remember there was a group of kids who thought it would be fun to make my life hell.
Somehow they were able to get into my locker which honestly I should have went to the principal about right away. I would bring a sack lunch from home each day and they would go through my lunch bag taking the stuff they wanted for themselves and ruining the rest of the stuff they didn't want.
They would also spray things like skunk spray in my locker making it all together nasty to access my locker in general. I let my parents know of course, but there wasn't much they could do. My dad didn't seem to be opposed to me trying to fight back, but he warned me I would need to suffer the consequences if I got in trouble for fighting.
Honestly, fighting back was never really an option as I knew it was a power imbalance. There were three of them and one of me. They were much bigger than me and they were pretty blatant about their ability to shove me around. It was like a hockey match anytime they would see me in the hall, body checking me into the lockers.
I had friends of course, but you know how it was back then, everyone just kind of turned a blind eye to it. Plus like I said, it was my first year of high school. I was at the bottom of the bin, had this happened when I was a senior it would have been a whole different story.
Finally, one day, I got smart. There was a group of older kids that used to sit together at lunch. I wouldn't say they were popular, but they were maybe fringe popular. As 10th graders they still weren't at the top of the ladder as far as high school goes, but they had enough respect that people didn't really mess with them.
Looking back, I know I was just a amusement for them. Was I really their friend? Probably not, but I was good for an occasional laugh and I didn't really get in the way, so they somehow allowed me to hang out with them. It didn't take long before they became aware of the situation I was in. I don't remember ever asking them, and they never explicitly said anything, but after a few weeks of hanging out with them my locker issues suddenly disappeared.
Funny how that works right?
For the most part the rest of my high school career was pretty great. I made some good memories and had some good times with other friends. After my freshman year I didn't hang out with those other guys as much as I did before, but they were still always friendly to me.
It's funny because I am actually friends on Facebook with one or two of the guys who were my bullies back then. They seem to be very involved in their church and I sometimes wonder if they remember any of that and how they feel about it now.
Ultimately, I don't really care, I don't hold a grudge, it's still sad to think I had to go through that, but in the end, I used my head, overcame the obstacle and came out on the other side better for it.
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