BULLY FOR HER

In recent weeks, there have been a couple of sad news items related to bullying.

One concerned an 18 year old girl with learning difficulties and her mother. Evidently, a local gang of bullies numbering sixteen youths, some as young as 10, used to harass them whenever they could, including 'terrorising' them in their home by throwing stones at the building and so on. The mother reported these incidents and kept a written record of them but sadly, the attacks continued until the mother became driven to distraction by the stress she was under. She duly took her daughter into the car and set fire to it killing them both.

The other incident was in Gloucester, where I live, and involved a 15 year old schoolgirl who was persistently bullied in school and on Facebook. Things got to be so bad that the girl was transferred to another school. Disappointed at losing their target, the bullies then contacted friends at the new school and persuaded them to continue the campaign of bullying. The girl became so depressed over this that she took her own life by jumping from a road bridge.

The common factor is these events, is that they took place over a prolonged period of time - ample time in fact, for the authorities to stop the bullying from happening. More should have been done in these cases to take direct action to stop the taunts, the name-calling and the physical attacks before they could escalate. I doubt that anyone would disagree with this.

Consider then the case of the school meals assistant who was recently dismissed for telling some parents that their daughter had been bullied. She came upon a group of four boys who had tied a 7 year old girl up and were then proceeding to whip the helpless girl's legs with a skipping rope. Chasing them off and freeing the girl, she duly reported the incident.

That evening, she chanced to encounter the girl's father at a social event and told him how sorry she was about what had happened. It quickly became clear that the father had not been told the full facts and had reportedly been given the story by the school that his daughter had been injured during a skipping game. The woman explained the true circumstances. In doing this she was judged to have breached the school's rules on confidentiality and was later dismissed by the governing body of the school. As it happens, one of the four bullies, is the son of one of the school governors!

School staff are responsible for the safety of the children in their care and are deemed to be acting 'in loco parentis'. In my view, the woman should be praised for her actions. Bully for her! As one person has commented - there are a number of people involved in this incident who could justifiably lose their jobs, but the dinner lady isn't one of them.

SCHOOL DAZE

When I was about 16, I tried out being a bully. I was feeling a bit big for my boots having reached 6th form and one day I decided that this particular 5th former needed my attention. The attention took the form of me grabbing the school cap off his head and holding it out of his reach. You will have spotted that my attempt at bullying was extremely feeble and indeed it is questionable whether it was actually deserving of the title 'bullying'.

It was a rather impromptu act for which I had made no preparations other than a cursory glance to ensure that the basic rule of bullying was being met - i.e. that I was bigger than he was. My first foray into being a bully would have benefitted from a little research. In particular, it would have been helpful to have found out who the lad was. This elementary exercise would have revealed that Stuart, for I believe that was his name, was considered to be very talented on the rugby field. Armed with this information, I might well have left him well alone. As it was, there was a blur of action, and some time later, I regained consciousness nursing a rather sore jaw. I was alone, and my embarrassment appeared to have gone unobserved.

I relate this unflattering episode from my formative years for one reason only. That is to reveal the point at which I learned that bullying was not for me. I am against it and would never condone it. Having made that clear, I will tell you a story about an experience of my daughter's where I hope you will agree that the humour of the event, eclipses the minor act of bullying involved.

She was teaching in a school for boys who were too badly behaved to attend mainstream school. The class that lesson, aged about 14 or 15, included a giant of a boy, well over 6 feet tall and with the build of a tank. Apparently anxious to please his new and attractive lady teacher, he offered to clean the blackboard. My daughter accepted his offer.

The gargantuan lad duly stood up and approached the front where he turned and bodily picked up a much smaller boy who had been sitting quietly minding his own business. Holding him horizontally, he proceeded to clean the blackboard up and down with his human board wiper. He then turned him to a vertical position and completed the job with a side to side action.

The entire class erupted with laughter, my daughter included. I am pleased to say that the board wiper was laughing as much as anyone.