It's even harder in our school since it's an exclusive school for girls. While boys are known to be very vocal and outspoken when it comes to this matter, girls keep silent and it's hard for teachers to detect bullying among them. With boys, walang personalan. But with girls, it's harder to end their petty quarrels because it gets too personal. Some even span for years.
"She looked at me in a mean way."
"She ignored me when I say hi."
"She doesn't want to be friends with us."
These are just some of the bullying complaints I get to hear every single day. And as much as I would like to address them all, unfortunately, there's only so much I can do. Do I really need to process everything? Or do i just get to focus on the more valid cases?
What's even harder for the teachers is that the parents in our school are so involved. They're so sensitive to these things and it's hard for them to accept that their daughter is a bully too. To quote one parent, "My daughter is an angel." --An angel? As in someone who is perfect and sinless? Uh, last time I checked, no mere mortal is perfect!
There will always be bullies. We can even be bullies to our friends without us knowing it. I talked to my girls about this last week and I told them to toughen up. The only way not to be bullied is not to become an easy target. And most importantly, to not be the bully, because bullies creates more bullies.
Adults (and I mean the Baby Boomers) think that bullying is a part of childhood. Children who are bullied become stronger and tougher individuals as they grow up. There might be some truth to it. I was bullied before but I never let it affect me. I also bullied others (oopss...) and I learned from it as well. Experiences like these can either form us or break us apart, it depends on how you deal with it.
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