[Note: This blog started as a comment reply to a comment on Camp Kumoni : 31 by Anistasia Allread]
High school kids realize how much suffering 'the Plague' goes through. Every high school has one, though not called the same thing, necessarily. Usually spaced exactly 4 years apart. There is the one kid that's designated to be the target of EVERY social group. Usually a boy.
I am from a small community. We were the largest town in three counties, and several of the smaller towns didn't even have schools, so the kids were bussed to us. Now, in actuality, not-quite-3000 people isn't really all that large. But the 4 towns that sent us all the kids for schooling, and the other 5 that sent just the high school kids, were positively tiny (Easyville, for example had a population of 14).
So, in 1988, Cassville had approximately 2700 people and the Cassville School (K-12) had about 1600 students. K-4 had around 750, around 450 in 5-8 (including me), and around 400 in high school. I was in 8th Grade in the 1988-1989 school year. We had just moved back into town from my mother's latest attempt at leaving the area. Me, my younger sister (in 1st grade), my mother and my soon-to-be stepfather.
I was aware of my femaleness already, but my family was for the most part... not. I was hiding it successfully, but still wasn't apt to make friends at all, let alone with boys. However, I meet an older boy that was friendly in the month before school started.
He was smart, didn't talk down to me because I was young, and was three years older than me. He was also kinda homely and wore "Buddy Holly" glasses. He sold the "Grit" magazines folks may remember from the 1970s and 1980s ads in comic books encouraging kids to make their own money.
When school started, I discovered a few kids that at least tolerated my existence, among them were a pair of twin boys that were my age. They turned out to be Chris' (the older boy) younger brothers, Alex and Aaron. I made a few girlfriends and some of my old girlfriends reestablished contact with me after me having been gone for the better part of a year. Yes, the few friendish ones that knew my "secret" and seemed happy to see me.
This is when I started to find out about Chris.
He was a Sophomore in high school, so more than just a year older than me as I thought. He was the "mind" of the high school. He was the one that was a shoo-in for Valedictorian, and no one was even close to catching him. Ah, but he was also a bit clumsy and awkward. He didn't do anything "sporty" -- not even Chess Club. He was constantly picked on by nearly everyone. There were a couple of kids from each grade level that left him alone, but even the middle schoolers would torment him. Even. His. Own. Brothers.
They wouldn't physically abuse him, they'd reveal the "pet" names their mother used. They'd remind him of embarrassing things from childhood publicly, and they'd mess with his mind. They knew he was a numismatist (coin collector) and they'd find rare coins... superglue them to the sidewalk... and get the other kids to notice that Chris would stop and take the time to pry them up, "... and it's only a penny!" Of course, the others didn't know it was a rare penny or such. They didn't care.
The Plague of Cassville High School from Fall 1985 to Spring of 1989 was "Gritboy" -- and the closest thing I ever had to a true friend that was a boy. I actually talked him out of suicide at least once that year. In retrospect, I think I did more than the once and just didn't realize it. He is now a successful Radio Broadcast Manager, father, and husband.
However.
In the Fall of 1989, "Gritboy" was gone... graduated to a better world called "college" and a new Plague was to be christened. There were many things they called me. I had an easier time of it, though. I was able to be a social chameloid, and was eventually accepted by all the groups, and was ostensibly part of each. The Geeks, Goths, Jocks, Preppys, Cheerleaders, Band/Choir Geeks, Martial Arts Club, Forensics, Theatre, FFA, FBLA, FTA, FHA, StuCo, Knowledge Bowl, Gamerz, Sk8r Grrls (and everyone wondered why there was a boy in the group), Punks, ... the only groups I wasn't part of were the Druggies, Smokers, and Delinquents. Part of this was because they were never able to make it physical with me due to my simply not caring if I was beaten up. School was pretty hellish, but really it was better than my life at home. Part of what made it okay to pick on the chosen one was the reaction. Since I never really reacted due to a combination of not caring what happened to myself and realizing that escape was simply surviving until graduation, I was never fully indoctrinated as our school's Plague. They tried to make it stick to someone else, and while it would usually work for a bit, it never "took" while I was there. I'm sure it started again once I was gone, but for four years, there wasn't really a single kid that got picked on, because of my simply not having a self-image that felt worthy of survival.
But I've gone off-topic. The point is, usually no one notices or cares what happens to their school's version of "the Plague" and it isn't because they're an exceptionally cruel person. High School is a weird time and there just isn't enough focus in a teenage mind to attend to all the changes going on in one's life -- internal, external, emotional, physical, and more -- and to notice the plight of your peers.
Victoria probably genuinely never noticed just HOW bad Eric had it as the Plague. The only reason Samantha did was her sister had an equal measure of it, and then she focused on what was going on.
Comments
I don't recognise this phenomenon.
That's not to say I doubt you but it just didn't happen when I was at school in the UK.
I attended an all-male grammar school (these were selective schools and I passed an exam to get there) and left in 1956 when I was 16 although there was a 6th form for boys who would be going on to university at 18. I wasn't bright enough. Discipline was strict; bolstered by the implied threat of being expelled and forced to attend a lower school without the opportunity to take leaving exams. There was virtually no corporal punishment - only the headmaster used a cane and that rarely.
There was minor bullying but there certainly wasn't any directed at one individual. Fashions didn't exist and no-one was criticised for non-conformity. There was a dress code, anyway and we were supposed to wear school caps. I wore shorts until I was 15, from preference :) Swots were envied rather than castigated and most of the top sportsmen were also amongst the brightest pupils. So the jocks versus swots syndrome often cited in stories here was a non-starter - they were often the same people.
Socially the school was fine - academically, less so. If, like me, you were bobbing along towards the bottom of the 'a' stream (there were a,b and c streams) and hopeless at sport, masters took very little interest in your progress.
I've had no involvement with schools since I left as we never had children ourselves. Perhaps it went on and I was indifferent to it. I've always found popular culture largely passed me by. Perhaps it's because I left home at 17 to work away. My wife left her home at 15 for the same reason though she lived in the YWCA while attending secretarial college. I still find it odd that teenagers are considered children and protected.
Never the less I find it fascinating to read about a culture so totally alien to my own experience
Geoff
City Ordinance
A City Ordinance made it so that to be eligible for extracurriculars a student had to maintain a "B" average. So, yeah, our jocks were some of the smarter students, too.
Maybe it's a US thing, but I highly doubt it. I've friends from the UK that have seen the same thing there. My school was always one of the tip top academically, socially, athletically, and more. We were small, but we were known in national circles.
But it's a social dynamic that there must always be someone that you regard as "lower" than your own station. Unless you're at the bottom of that hill already. I've heard it called in some school settings as being "the Greener" and the Greener is the one that is fair game for anyone in a bad mood.
I was short, rib-sticking-out skinny, stuttering (which meant Speech therapy classes), dyslexic (which meant pattern recognition classes), one of the "smart" kids (which meant advanced placement classes), wore glasses (slowly worsening over the years, currently 20/5700), had an accent (Irish brogue, courtesy of my Gran'fa), looked "furren" (foreign... I am of mixed ethnic background and when I was younger looked very Japanese), was one of the poorest kids in the COUNTY, and was a "sissy" (well, I was a girl being forced by circumstance to pretend to be a boy).
I was the biggest and best target for any of these groups.
I remember an incident in early 8th grade that almost got me killed. Physical Education ("P.E." or "Gym") was divided into boys and girls. I had to go with the boys. We went out to play flag football. I tried to avoid doing anything but running back and forth. I didn't really like football, partly because I had never had the rules explained. One day, the Coach (who served as Quarterback to both teams) threw the ball straight to me. I knew if I moved out of the way and dodged it, or dropped it, the jeers would never end. However, catching it was nearly as bad when I discovered I didn't have any idea which way to run with the ball. It was known that I walked home from school... if I was with anyone, it was with girls.
It's not that easy being Greener.
outcasts
I was the outcast in Middleschool/Jr.High. Luckily when I went to Highschool, I was accpted by my fellow band geeks. still an outcast, I at least wasn't physically picked on in band.. a few times I had to deal with verbal abuse, but in life, who doesn't.
I was tiny and slow in reaching puberty and thus the kid that always got tripped in the hallways and laughed at as my books were spewed across the floor, spit upon, the target of dodgeball, stuffed into garbage cans, or picked on by slightly larger kids to prove that they were 'someone'. (I was raised in a 'do no violence' house-hold) Only after I had been beaten up a number of times did my parents decide that I should learn to defend myself..... by that time it was too late.
I am still an outsider when it comes to the workforce. but that is my lot in life. it just teaches me to be more accepting of others. maybe the next life will allow me to be the same on the outside as I feel on the inside.
A.A.
Incidents
I was, too, but there were... incidents... that reversed the trend.
Ask me about it in private, Skype or something, sometime...
There are a LOT more than just one
"Plague" in schools, high school, middle school, and even grade school. They aren't just males, they are both male and female..see the movie "Mean Girls" for instance. These days we have cyber-bullying which is purely mental cruelty and seems to be happening with girls mostly from what I've seen and read about it.
I was a "plague" case for being fat in my middle school and high school days...
Huggles
Alexis
the Plague's Plague
Of course there are. But there's always the one kid that even the Outcasts make fun of.
We've all been guilty of it, even if by accident.
One of the kids I hung out with in high school was one of those that was essentially my replacement when I became more iron-clad. His name was Christjan Bee. He was WAY nice, and didn't understand that some people were making fun of him. I was playing around and teasing him as he sat with me and a couple of friends at lunch one day.
Me: "Chris... your haircut needs updating. You've had the same "bowlcut" as long as I've known you, man!"
Christjan: "It's not a bad haircut!"
Me: "Yeah. It's not a bad haircut, his head's just SHAPED that way!"
This was, unfortunately, overheard by some of the more cruel jocks and soon was THE joke to be told around school. "Bee's haircut isn't funky, his head's just shaped that way!"
I never forgave myself for that.
I Was The "Plague" At School
But in my case, it was because of my obesity. I have always been overweight and as a child, the other students tended to call me names and pull silly pranks on me.
Luckily, I had a few friends that accepted me for who I am and they would pal around with me making the odd prank tolerable. The only thing that the tormentors could never really succeed in was breaking my spirit.
I would either escape into a world of "Make-Believe" or at times actually retaliate because the Principal and teachers said that if I ever got into a fight that I would not get into trouble.
It was in my Senior Year in High School that things changed for me, my tormentors had finally all graduated and the other students treated me fair.
That is the main reason that I accept a person for who they are and where I get my story ideas from as well.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
I was closely treated like The "Plague"
There were at least 2 times where I was cornered and almost physically beaten, but something always came around and scared the bullies off. I vividly remember one time having to run the mile from school to my house to avoid a fight as I was and still am not keen on physical confrontations. I have wittnessed first hand the wickedness and deviousness of some of my peers. Some people are naturals at finding any way to turn an ordinary object into a device of pain. A football to the temple causes physical and emotional pain to the victim... I know for it really happened.
There were times I swore there was a target on my body somewhere taht screamed " Pick on me" while I was in school.
Jayme
The answers to all of life's questions can be found in the face of a true friend
The answers to all of life's questions can be found in the face of a true friend
"Bummer of a birthmark, Hal"
The words that caption one of Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons. I have always identified with it. Here it is:
Yes I know what you are talking about
Not a plague, a display of testosterone
My endeavors in school were not fonldy looked on by other boys. I was small and I was not a fighter. I fought like a girl, so they say. I was each boy who was trying to prove his toughness target.
Plague never, there were others in the class who also got singled out, the skinny kid, the bottle cap glasses kid, and the lisper. I was also smart.
I learned to defend myself by improvising. when I knocked the buck toothed kids two front teeth out I was considered the aggressor although I was being attacked by ten boys. I had a paper route and put my school books in the burlap paper bag. While in the middle of the wolves circle I swung my bag at them all. I managed to hit the kid with the buck teeth. I was alone as he screamed, the real toughies all ran away.
Needless to say that was my last attack for a while.I often wonder what would have happened had they known I was intersexed. Maybe they did and that was why I was attacked, one never knows. I grew up in a small mid-western town where when a baby was born a guy left town.
I still don't get involved in physical altercations.. but I'm smart enough to know how to get out of them.
Jill Micayla
May you have a wonderful today and a better tomorrow
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
a fight won
In the 9th grade a former friend and I got into an argument. he was a lot more athletic and stronger than I, but I felt I was in the right. I blocked his escape asking for him to give back what was rightfully mine and made him face me for the first time in the many years that we had been friends. Unknown to him, I had been taking boxing lessons at the local golden gloves club.
He swung at me, I ducked his swing and came back up with a combination that landed both punches, not hard but enough to stun him. he swung again and again I dodged and landed a combination. but he wasn't done.... he tried a third time and the same thing happened. he then refused to continue the fight unless I took off my glasses. (he didn't want to get into trouble for breaking them) I refused to do so, because it would obscure my depth perception. we argued verbaly for a minute or so longer then he gave up, and gave me what was rightfully mine.... we never played, or fought again.
A.A.
may your fist forever find it's mark
Cluelessness and Violence
I'm not sure kids set out to be cruel on purpose. A lot of what goes on in group bullying behavior is peer pressure, a need to conform, and a sense that they have "permission" to have "fun." Clueless isn't a strong enough word. A complete lack of empathy essentially depersonalizes the victim. The tormentors are playing a game, as far as they know, completely forgetting that their victim is a person, too. Worse than that, given male competitive behavior, even a striving for perceived "points" by doing something meaner than the last guy.
Some of this is changing. Many schools now have student committees and intervention groups who seek out and intercede with bullying, and seek to educate those who need it, or rat them out to the dean, if necessary. I've also heard of groups who seek to mediate the more typical student disputes, spreading peace, tolerance, and understanding. And, GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) supports school gay-straight alliance groups with educational materials and workshops. Visit glsen.org if you get a chance. (At present, they're featuring a splash page honoring Lawrence King, the 15-year-old shot in school recently, and promoting vigils in his memory. There's a link to their home page at bottom.) I think they're wonderful.
So, while understanding, tolerance and the desire to spread peace certainly isn't as widespread as we would like, the trends are not all bad. There is a spark of goodness which we should all treasure and support.
I was the goofy brainless kid that everyone ignored.
I was probably one of the most hysterically happy kids in High School. Years later, I realize I really was hysterical.
At home, my step father terrorized and beat me nearly every night. I'd go to bed sometimes as soon as 6:30 to hide from him. I once got beaten for staying in my room too much. There literally was no escaping that man and I was too timid to run away; they had me totally cowed.
So, when I went to school, I was the happiest, funniest kid I could be; no one was going to beat me, or yell at me. I never did a lick of homework, being too torn up emotionally to concentrate. I graduated with a 1.95 average; third from the lowest in the school. In the 60's all the attention went to the achievers, and they pretty much consigned people like me to the gutter. The presure was relentless from some of the teachers; they thought the same thing that my parents did, I must be trash.
When it came time for graduation, I found out it was not alphabetical, it was by GPA, so the lowest person would go last. I decided that was the final insult I would take from those assholes. I told them I was not going to graduation. They said that they would not give me my Diploma. I told them I was going to Vietnam soon; that they could kiss my ass.
I sometimes think that adults can do a much better job of degrading a person than any kid. I'll never know.
my being the plague was plaguier than yours was!
I'm talking 'bout the times that you were cruel for cruelty's sake..."
~~~Warren Zevon
I could trot out my highschool horror stories, I've got some beauties. But I think what's important for those of us who were brutalized for sport back when is what we LEARNED from the experience. While being victimized is awful, how much more horrible to discover that given the right circumstances we can be a VICTIMIZER; joining in; possibly in the belief that "as long as this person here is the plague, then maybe I won't be." ..... There's somebody periforally in my life that I've been a real bitch to, whose sometimes un-cooly clumsy and desperate bids for acceptance seem to bring out the worst in me, all that horrible unthinking atavistic pack behavior. I can't say I'll want to be his-or-her bestest buddy for life, but I really need to cool the reflexive combatitiveness toward and catty gossip about them. I'm well past the age when I had any excuse for that...
~~~mea culpa, baby! LAIKA
What borders on pure insanity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
not always physical
My worst moment of abuse by peers came when one of the burnouts in my junior high homeroom nominated me for student council representative, as a joke. But I figured: sure, why not? It wasn't like the student council really did anything, and it might look good on a college application. When they voted, I won. I was up against a girl on the pep squad and a snooty rich girl, but me the "joke" candidate got the most votes. Our outgoing class rep (she'd been elected to some higher office) who was running the election insisted that we do a revote. We three candidates had to go wait in the hall and when we came back, wouldn't you know it pep squad girl had the most votes this time! I hated junior high.
Democracy
...Some people only like it if it gives the results they want. I guess the powers in charge of your election weren't very committed to accepting an outcome they didn't like. Were that this behavior was only limited to Junior High, but alas, it isn't.
sounds like
you're talking about the Evergreen State. Where a few years ago, we voted for Govenor. when the votes were tallied, the loosing party called for a recount. when they lost again, they called for another.... each time a recount was called for, they happened to 'magically' find uncounted votes that were 'hidden' away. They won 1 of 3 recounts and went to the courts. the courts decided for the intital loser.
I Do not nor will I ever claim that person as an elected official, and I have since lost all faith in this state's politics. I don't plan on voting here again, becaue obviously MY vote doesn't count as much as a judge's.
A.A.
Whenever I read posts like these
I get the impression that the other posters would have detested me in school. I was a chronic overachiever academically (except in maths and woodwork), and fairly sporty (tho mostly second XV). I cannot remember ever physically bullying anyone, but I certainly joined in with name calling, and probably lead it some of the time too.
Sounds idyllic I suppose, but while it in no way compares to the abuse many suffer, I didn't have an entirely easy ride... there was always someone pushing me to do better, to try harder, to get into the first XV, to join the Oxbridge class... and while I was trying to please everyone else I had cope with the bombshell of my emerging sexuality, and how to hide it.
Chameleon
I was a big achiever, too. But if I hadn't been so blend-into-surroundings, I'm pretty sure I would have been thumped on way more.
My school had an 11 point scale instead of 4:
My graduating GPA was 13.24601, I was second in my class. The above 11 was due to "weighted" classes and broken curves. The Valedictorian, by the by, had a 13.24605 GPA. Being the geeks we were, we figured out that his GPA advantage was due to a single test in 11th grade (Junior year, 6th Form, etc) wherein he scored an A and I an A- on it.
I was also involved in just about every organization, part of every social group, involved in choir, and was even in sports -- Basketball my 9th grade year, Track and Field all 4 years of high school (Long Jump, Triple Jump, 110m High Hurdles, 330m [High] Hurdles), Cross Country all four years, Cycling for the one year they had it (my 10th Grade year). And I did well. I received letters, I was considered a pace car in Cross Country.
So it isn't about achieving. Some people just naturally give off a "prey" aura or something.
it's been twenty years or so since I left school
so things might have changed, but we never had anything that formal... the 'Oxbridge class' had no wider distinction, you were picked out by the teachers as potentially suitable and did a few hours extra each week on interview technique etc, and sat a higher 'S' level in addition to 'A' level exams in the sixth form. I don't think anyone outside the group knew who exactly was in it... similarly, sports results were read out each morning, but I doubt if anyone who wasn't involved gave a rat's arse. :)
As Geoff says above American schools culture seems wholly alien to many of us in the UK. Going by what I've seen on screen, and newsprint it does seem like a culture designed to socially label children as winners or losers, with few shades of grey.
yeah, I'm behind on the story
So I don't know what sparked this...but for gods sake. This sounds like some sort of Monty Python skit where we take turns to boast about how much punishment we took as kids. High School sucked... big news. You go from kid to teenager to semi adult and it has it's moments. I'm fairly sure that most that come here have some horror story to tell. Let's rate them out of ten and decide who 'wins'. I could tell a few...do they 'beat' whoever's in relative pain or trauma? Perhaps not, still don't make it fun and if the memory is still tight 20 years later that says something, but so what, lots of things are. I remember High School, I did not enjoy it all that much, but that was nearly 20 years ago and whatever influence it had, formative good or bad is hardly all that relevant to me now. It's there along with everything else I've lived through and that is who I am.
I guess that means AA tells a mean story and gets people in, but why make it a competition as to who was the most vilefied? Bullying happens in all cultures at all times. Boys and girls, only the methods differ. So let us not pretend we're all that special...everyone has pain somewhere some time.
Kristina
Not saying that at all
I'm not saying that I had it worse than anyone else. I'm just saying that it's something that happens pretty universally in every high school -- someone gets to be the one person that EVERYONE takes their baggage out on.
Villified???
When the abuse follows you from school into your adult life there are measures one takes to overcome the bullying. Some seek therapy, some turn to alcohol and some to drugs. Others become societal loners.
I am not telling a war story, because war stories unlike fairy tales start with this aint no s**t.
I have been the recipient of sexual harassment long before it was defined to the general public. Soldiers and Sailors can be oh so more cruel than kids in school.
Nothing like being in a military unit and tagged with a nickname that is derogatory and will somehow follow you to another command.
What did I gain from this internally? Fortitude, low self esteem, alcohholism, over eating, fear of people, ability to project doom to the point I believe it. All of those wonderful things I lived with.
Now I'm in therapy trying to learn how to live and not exist. No pain, no gain is a term that certainly plays an important part in my life right now. I don't go to gyms or spas for fear of being laughed at. Gee all of those kids I grew up with who used me for the personal expression either verbally or physically certainly made my life a whole lot better.
Alas, I regress. I've been very careful with whom I associate with, one bad remark about me, I tell them it was unnecessary and ask why they have to dig at me for their pleasure.
I've been getting a regrowth of my spine, each day it gets stronger and each day I stand taller.
From the bottom of the food chain I have climbed slowly to the point I am on level with a lot of people who are not into debasing others.
Jill Micayla
May you have a wonderful today and a better tomorrow
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.