Boomers, what were expected of victims of bullying when you were in school?

[Jimbo302]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

The "zero tolerance" liberal policies in schools now punish the victim more than the perp if they fight back. Usually because the victim actually wants to graduate.

Agreed. "Zero tolerance" is what Aristotle described as, "Law is mind without reason".
Without equitable judgement, everyone could be assumed guilty.
Zero tolerance is mindless bs.

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

Yes, it ain't liberal and it ain't conservative, it's "cowards running things." It's the lawyers talking.

As far as the "old days" I don't know to what years you are referring. I would consider 1964-72 to be the "old days and that was far from clear-cut. Though I am successful now I was among the people who was "picked on." "Bullying" was not yet in the lexicon. Three examples among the more egregious but they are far from the only incidents:

1. In 6th Grade I was often the victim of being picked on (I hate the word "bullying"). To blunt my complaints the school called my parents and reported, totally falsely, that I had whacked a pick unloading his locker from behind. The result; mandated "Family Counseling";
2. In 7th Grade Spanish, "Richie" often put chewing gum in my hair when I tried to contribute to the class. I turned around, and was promptly sent to the principal. The response when I complained about the obvious unfairness; well, you should learn to ignore those things.
3. In 9th Grade, in June 1972 I was chased by "Charlie" through the school corridors and barricaded myself behind doors I could hold closed. Then to comfort myself I went outside and petted a dog, and was bitten. Lousy day? It got worse. My parents were asked to see the school principal the next day. They were asked to find a private school for me. I refused to cooperate and the next year was better. They would have expelled me but had no grounds. I waited home that day in a house without power as advance rains of the remnants of Hurricane Agnes pounded and flooded the area. Depressing enough?

In all three cases I had no opportunity to rebut the accusations. I still remember them to this day though I have a poor memory and an IQ of 79.

Originally Posted by creepy

As a liberal, i have to say those policies are not liberal. How could you say that? Liberal for who-the bully? It is called "fear of lawyers" or "cowards running things".....It disgusts me they don't punish the bully, they hold their effing hand, cryin; for them. the victim gets re-victimized. happened to my kid for several years, we tried all the things they said, put him in martial arts, etc. Without them doing their part=it fails. They are changing tho-cause of all the suicides.
FINALLY!

I laid out three incidents. I don't think it was "fear of lawyers." I think it was fear of having to do real work, and get to the bottom of what was happening in class and in the school.

[Ralph_Kirk]

Originally Posted by jbgusa

I laid out three incidents. I don't think it was "fear of lawyers." I think it was fear of having to do real work, and get to the bottom of what was happening in class and in the school.

That, too. Yeah.

[Phil75230]

Early Gen-Xer here (which is close enough).

Before I start, I’ll get the school administrative and legal aspects of a bullied student’s self-defense out of the way.
Some state statutes, like Texas but I’m sure others as well, do have a self-defense exception. Texas. SB 179, Enacted 2017

https://locker.txssc.txstate.edu/394...2a9/SB-179.pdf
(c) The board of trustees of each school district shall adopt a policy, including any necessary procedures, concerning bullying that:
(7)prohibits the imposition of a disciplinary measure on a student who, after an investigation, is found to be a victim of bullying, on the basis of that student’s use of reasonable self-defense in response to the bullying;

Fight back works ONLY if the bullied person both (a) actually can fight well enough to at least make the bully’s victory physically costly, and (b) high enough social pecking order status to gain sympathy from the larger student body even if he or she loses the fight (IOW, even if the bully wins, the social blowback goes to the bully, not to the target).
If the bullied lacks one and even more so both advantages, then fighting back will yield only limited improvements at best.

First, many kids and even immature adults see fighting ability as a necessary precondition for respect-worthiness, no doubt due to their kneejerk distaste for weakness from the most primitive parts of their reptilian brainstem (which even mammals have). This means even if a really poor fighter does fight back and loses decisively, no matter how spiritedly he or she physically confronts the bully, the social penalties for losing the fight still remain – which only makes the situation worse.

Second, even if the bullied person does win the fight, if the student is somehow a square peg or otherwise deemed distastefully different, the bullied student will still have to confront half the student body (often literally half, if not more) to teach the whole school a lesson. The student body will still say and think “Yeah, you may have won the fight, but you’re still a _______!” That means the bully has more social clout, status, prestige, etc. than the bullied – even if the bullied one can kick his or her tail.So the bully can more easily find social support than the bullied, simply find a stronger person to protect him or her from the bullied student. This clearly can easily demoralize bullied student anyway. Why fight back if you are going to get such limited results at best?

Result: We do need stricter anti-bullying conduct codes and even laws, not to mention swift and certain enforcement of them, but this without changing the student (and even adult) cultural attitude creates a neverending treadmill: strict rules and their enforcement, but without social penalties attached to the bullying toward the square pegs, misfits, “weirdoes”, “wimps”, “socially clueless”, etc., let alone strong stigma about those kinds of acts and attitudes. So to achieve a truly steep and sustainable drop in bullying, you need to change the culture - and legislation and formal rules can only do so much to change that.