Posted on 03/23/2008 11:35:01 PM PDT by balch3
All lank and bone, the boy stands at the corner with his younger sister, waiting for the yellow bus that takes them to their respective schools. He is Billy Wolfe, high school sophomore, struggling.
Moments earlier he left the sanctuary that is his home, passing those framed photographs of himself as a carefree child, back when he was 5. And now he is at the bus stop, wearing a baseball cap, vulnerable at 15.
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 Wolfe. 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Billy needs to be a bit more pro-active. He should hunt the thugs down and beat the sh** out of them with a baseball bat.
I agree. The only way to stop bullies is to physically fight them, and even then the bullying often continues. Some kids just can’t fight well.
I intend to teach Baby Chan the secrets of dirty fighting as soon as he is old enough.
But Billy needs to be “socialized” to the laws of the jungle. He needs to be taught to do the things that the courts will punish him for in a few years.
This bullying goes on at so many schools. One of mine was the object of bullying for years. Can’t even count the number of times he was suspended after being attacked, again at one of our supposedly ‘better’ public school systems.
Like Mrs. Wolfe, I made the mistake of notifying another parent of her child’s inappropriate behavior, and my kid paid the price.
MOST teachers and administrators were less than worthless, even when the bullying and threats went on in their presence. A few were superb and went out of their way to catch and punish the culprits.
Eventually, my son grew big and strong, and started to protect other kids who were being bullied. He got suspended for that, too. We gave up and home schooled.
This was one of the saddest stories I have ever read on Free Republic. I hate bullies and always have.
The International Alliance of Guardian Angels has useful resources to help combat bullying — both in the schoolyard and online.
Here is a link to some of our resources: http://www.guardianangels.org/program_edu.php
If your child, or somebody you know, is being bullied you can and should make it stop. Try contacting your local Guardian Angels Chapter to see what they can do the help out. We are active in nine countries and about 100 cities worldwide. A list of our active Chapters can be found here: http://www.guardianangels.org/safety_full.php
If there isn’t a Chapter local to you, consider starting one. Drop me a FReepmail and I can point you in the right direction.
In New Zealand, our Chapters teach anti-bullying and basic self-defense to school children from the age of 5 up until age 13. It is one of the more satisfying and rewarding of our programs.
As to what this kid should do: it isn’t this kid’s fault and there is little that he can do, alone. The school has let him down, as have most of the adults in this story. The school principal ought to be ashamed.
bump
> A few boxing or karate lessons would do this kid a world of good...
...or just as likely get him seriously injured or killed. Bullies these days seldom carry out their dirty work in isolation, often preferring to swarm their victim many-against-one. Weapons are not uncommon.
Compounding the problem is what happens afterward: usually there is a program of humiliation that occurs — these days aided and abetted by technology. Txting, FaceBook and other social sites, chat rooms, YouTube, email.
Life has changed since we were kids: it used to be that bullies could be stood up to and eventually defeated in single combat — it worked that way for me, many years ago. It may have been that way with you, too.
Kids these days do have a more difficult time dealing with bullying. And it is a problem that only adults can fix.
My husband is a school counselor. When our boys were little, they were small-built and the target of the local bullies, especially since we were considered “foreigners” to the local Arkansans. Both my husband and myself were from northern states. My husband always told the boys that he was against fighting, and if possible they should seek ways to settle things without having to fight. However, these boys, who harrassed our boys all the way home, kept it up and started to lay hands on our boys to see what they’d do. After repeatedly asking their father what to do he told them, “You know how I feel about fighting (we are Christians), but that said, if you really feel that you are being physically threatened, then I’ll give you permission to fight one time. Just make sure you get the message across so that it isn’t repeated.” Sure enough, within a few weeks, the boys were physically assaulted and the older one took the biggest bully on and let him have it. One thing they didn’t anticipate was Jeremy’s strength. He was our athlete, but even we didn’t know that yet. He was just in 1st grade and these were 3rd grade boys. He hit them so hard that they never EVER followed our boys home again, taking a whole different route altogether! They didn’t live on our street to begin with, so it was just to taunt them that they did so, probably just to see if the counselor’s son would do what his father said to do. (There had been no counselor before we moved to this school to take the position.) Both boys were respected after that incident. The youngest was in kindergarten. Can you believe that 3rd graders would do this to a 1st grader and kindergartner? Fortunately, it ended with one fight.
There is no such thing as “dirty fighting” in self defense.
There is no such thing as a “fair fight” in self defense..
The ONLY way to fight in self defense, is to win...
It’s a good fight when YOU win and the other guy loses...
Never give the other guy an even break.....
If he is the aggressor, he doesn’t deserve anything but his ass handed to him — in pieces if necessary.
Every boy should be taught to avoid a fight when possible.
But if the fight comes to him - he should become a monster to be feared by all.
The school janitor had to mop up a lot blood after the fight. My son, who was three years his younger, broke him of liking to fight.
My kids are in private school and they have a zero tolerance to this activity. I thought long and hard about this issue since I went to public schools and had to deal with bullies.
I don’t think bullying has any place whatsoever in school. Also, I don’t think I learned a damn thing by having to fight in school: I am glad my kids will be spared from it.
IMO, we need a zero tolerance policy to bullying and fighting in schools. School should be for learning academics and not for learning how to survive.
Let’s see, this kid gets beat up at a government school. When his family moves, he gets beat up at another government school. When he graduates from one government school, he gets beat up at another government school.
His family, who are “trying” to do something about the problem, don’t seem to see any pattern going on.
His reward? He was suspended for twn days under the school's zero tolerance policy. He was also threatened with criminal charges. He's 14 and has never been in any sort of trouble at school. He did everything "right" but no one helped him. He helped himself. I'll bet that bully will think twice though about messing with him again. Joseph walks a little taller now. He holds his head up a little higher too. He goes back to school soon and he says the suspension was worth it, but he has absolutely no faith in the teachers or administrators at the school.
For good or ill, every kid needs to learn that basic lesson of life: If someone hits you, you hit them twice.
I graduated in 95; by then, the old “defeat the bully by single combat and never have to worry about it again” were long, long, long gone by then, and the early days of the modern humiliation campaign had just started.
Schools these days have no-fault policies on fighting/bullying at worst, “punish the person that threw the first punch/started it/provoked it by suspending them” at best - the latter is no punishment because all the kids I knew viewed it as a free vacation. So, basically, the worst that will happen is that both people will get suspended or punished and the best is that you get a free vacation from school. This will never deter a bully, but it will seriously mess with a kid’s head about what the proper social behavior is.
I was the subject of a little bullying in school. The advice of “fight back directly” does not work. First, the bully’s friends/fellow creeps will then gang up on you and beat you. Second, the school won’t do anything worthwhile and will probably actually make it worse.
What seemed to work for myself (and others so afflicted) was to make the bullies think I was the craziest, most psychotic m-f’er that they’d ever come across if they attacked me. Smile and grin while getting booted by the group of thugs - then arrange for “accidents” to happen to each of the people responsible. LAUSD schools have so many old, unsafe staircases and students can fall down them so easily. Chem lab accidents are easily arranged, as are locker fires.
Another technique that worked well for some was to find out where someone lived, ditch school, wait for them to come home by themselves (almost everyone walked; if not, you could still find some point at which the bully would be alone), ambush them, and beat the crap out of them with an aluminum baseball bat. Say nothing. Repeat it again the next day. Then, in a low growling whisper next to their ear before they pass out or you knock them unconscious, tell them that the next time they bully someone you’ll be back and kill them. And their friends. And their families. And anyone else they associate with.
Most bullies just get off on the beatings and power trip. Beating them up doesn’t solve anything. Putting them in honest to God fear for their lives because you’re one crazy psychotic killer and they need to leave you the hell alone or you will kill them and their entire world? Yeah, that gets them to stop damn quick.
Remember - under 18, won’t be doing any time.
There are already zero-tolerance policies for bullying in schools. They don’t work. The good kids get punished; the bullies get a free vacation and don’t care.
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