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Just Ignore It
Oct. 6th, 2016 03:43 pmI had an epiphany about school administrators and their faulty advice of "just ignore it" in reference to the relentless bullying I suffered in grade school. It came from two odd sources.
The first was an ongoing bullying of a friend's son in junior high school. This has resulted in actual arrests, and requests for transfer to another school, which was denied. Why would anyone deny that? It seems self evident to me that, if a kid is being bullied so bad that it's resulted in the bully being arrested, there's a real problem here.
(my own advice would be for the kid to respond with sufficient violence to put the bully into the hospital, preferably with injuries that will take a long time and therapy to treat. I recognize that this isn't the best advice, but it comes from my inner lizard, and it's one of the few topics I let my inner lizard express an opinion on. Also, this is a big part of why I will never have children. I am incapable of dealing with this sort of thing rationally)
The second source was a thread on Captain Awkward. One of the mods of the site wrote this:
And now my epiphany: It's actually great advice.
Oh, not for me, and not for any other kid being bullied. It's great advice for school administrators. After all, if the kid isn't bitching to them, they don't have to do anything. Doesn't matter that they may be enduring abuse that will lead to a lifetime of mental problems. What a great idea for avoiding work and responsibility - and it makes the victim complicit in their own bullying.
Remember, to a teacher, all kids are temporary. If you can stall long enough, even the worst cases of bullying go away as the kids move to higher grades or graduate. It might take a whole term for bullying to become a problem. Then another year of stalling tactics like telling the kid to ignore it, or to tell the parents that there's nothing they can do. Year three (for a junior high, or high school kid), you can just say "well, they'll be going to a different school/graduating, and you don't want to disrupt them at this late point, and it'll all be over soon anyway, why make waves". Boom, problem resolves itself and you didn't have to do anything. It's a wonderfully banal sort of evil.
My actual advice? Don't let them get away with it. Fight. Escalate. Don't give up. Make them understand that you're not going away, and follow through. They're counting on you giving up.
And again, I am so glad I'm not a parent.
The first was an ongoing bullying of a friend's son in junior high school. This has resulted in actual arrests, and requests for transfer to another school, which was denied. Why would anyone deny that? It seems self evident to me that, if a kid is being bullied so bad that it's resulted in the bully being arrested, there's a real problem here.
(my own advice would be for the kid to respond with sufficient violence to put the bully into the hospital, preferably with injuries that will take a long time and therapy to treat. I recognize that this isn't the best advice, but it comes from my inner lizard, and it's one of the few topics I let my inner lizard express an opinion on. Also, this is a big part of why I will never have children. I am incapable of dealing with this sort of thing rationally)
The second source was a thread on Captain Awkward. One of the mods of the site wrote this:
What they teach in schools is “just ignore it.”I got Just Ignore It a lot. A lot! It was years before I could put my finger on why this was bad advice (Captain Awkward nails it though), but I always recognized that it was bad advice.
“Just ignore it” = “Just shut up about it.”
“Just shut up about it” = “Shady, irritating people getting away with no-good.”
And now my epiphany: It's actually great advice.
Oh, not for me, and not for any other kid being bullied. It's great advice for school administrators. After all, if the kid isn't bitching to them, they don't have to do anything. Doesn't matter that they may be enduring abuse that will lead to a lifetime of mental problems. What a great idea for avoiding work and responsibility - and it makes the victim complicit in their own bullying.
Remember, to a teacher, all kids are temporary. If you can stall long enough, even the worst cases of bullying go away as the kids move to higher grades or graduate. It might take a whole term for bullying to become a problem. Then another year of stalling tactics like telling the kid to ignore it, or to tell the parents that there's nothing they can do. Year three (for a junior high, or high school kid), you can just say "well, they'll be going to a different school/graduating, and you don't want to disrupt them at this late point, and it'll all be over soon anyway, why make waves". Boom, problem resolves itself and you didn't have to do anything. It's a wonderfully banal sort of evil.
My actual advice? Don't let them get away with it. Fight. Escalate. Don't give up. Make them understand that you're not going away, and follow through. They're counting on you giving up.
And again, I am so glad I'm not a parent.
