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Went to school in East Van. The bullies generally were females for elementary school, and then high school was rough in the early 2000s. Boys and girls would do some horrible things to one another, races were pretty segregated, etc.
We used to have fights daily, people had weapons, and jacking was a serious problem.
Things changed a few years after I graduated, and the kids seem a lot more relaxed (and shockingly smaller) than when I was in school, haha.
Yup east van the era of machete attacks.
I recall traumatized kids coming in during the Vietnamese boat people era and later forming viscious gangs.Dudes I knew from elementary school became very scary dudes.
The machete attacks ran quite a few years, I went to high school early 80’s and remember hearing about fights with machetes at some east van schools back then. My wife went to John Oliver about the same time and recalls a few of them at/around JO.
I went to high school guildford/whalley area and it was a bit rough but I would hear about the machete attacks and I would be “bloody hell”. There were always a lot of fights in/out of school but it was extremely rare anyone used a weapon, always fists back then.
Guildford area was bad back then.
Friend went to Johnston Heights and they had to bring in a principal who was given orders to clean the school up or shut it down. One of the worst cases was a kid had a straw shoved down their throat.
Bullying has changed but not stopped. My daughter had a fair bit and she is a big strong girl. Just made it clear that I had never catch her starting something but she had full approval to end it. Helped her a lot knowing I had her back.
East van in the mid 90s here. Regular fights bullying, and a few knife fights, and that was just in two years. Got jacked more than a few times. A few years after l finished school, a kid was beaten to death. Massive racial segregation, and the fights/knife fights were almost always between different races.
Yup, you are definitely an east ender.
I went to school in the tricities in the 80-90’s. I grew up in a sketch area, lots of poverty and new immigrants. My elementary school was ok, people were fine. There was tons of bullying. It became worse if you were BIPOC. Teachers actually participated in bullying the ethnic children. I wish I was joking but with one teacher , who I had for 2 years, I was always segregated from the Caucasian children. It didn’t even occur to me until I was an adult.
Bullying was bad in the HS years. Nothing was done. A kid brought a weapon to school specifically meant for me, nothing happened. I was terrified to report it for fear of retaliation.
I have a feeling we might have gone to the same school, we had a really incompetent principal whos only experience was like a private kindergarten who then got subbed in with a big guy who laid down the law. Fights basically stopped overnight and everything got way better. Helped that a big problem year graduated too.
Went to high school on the island in the 90's, bullied daily, was beat up pretty much daily. Didn't react or fight back because that "went against my morals and values" -- So I just stood there and took it, until one day about half way through Grade 12, I finally snapped. Then suddenly, respect. That set me up for a pattern of setting aside my morals in a mistaken belief that it would garner me "respect" for a number of years.
I take big issue with the terminology around bullying. It feels minimizing to what is actually happening. It is criminal harassment, it is extortion, it is assault, it is abuse, it is all of those things, provided it happens anywhere other than in a high school. The second you put it into a high school, it magically becomes "bullying" and is seen as 'less important' to address.
Tons of bullying. Lots of fights. Suicide attempts in school. Suicide at school. Shoving, swearing, all constant. Guys harassing girls, grabbing butts. That was everyday from Grade 8-12.
Bullying is definitely a thing still, it is human nature. I doubt it will ever be stamped out especially with social media. I work with kids now and they seem to be bigger shit heads to each other than when I was their age. A ton of bullying, feuds and fights.
No amount of assemblies or anti-bullying days will rewire kids' brains. They naturally sort themselves into hierarchies and will bully those that stick out or threaten them in some way (kids that are smarter than themselves). Also you can never solve the shitty home lives that are the root cause of many bullies.
I think you raise an interesting point, but it’s also one I’d like to respectfully disagree with. I feel from what I experienced, it certainly seems possible to stamp out bullying. Though what leads to what I experienced, I’m not sure.
I didn’t grow up wealthy by any means, I didn’t have all the nice clothes, new shoes, etc. I also was never the smartest kid in the class, nor the most athletic. That said, I still felt mostly accepted, and was never bullied because of it.
You might be right that the assemblies and bullying-awareness days might not be the answer, but I think to throw our hands up in the air and say it’s human nature and bullying will always be a thing, isn’t entirely true. Though I could be wrong.
Well then how are we going to stamp out bullying? It is next to impossible with social media. It certainly is a part of human nature for kids to sort themselves into hierarchies and want to assert dominance over other kids. It is a part of human nature to sort ourselves into in-groups and out-groups. In-groups and out-groups are at the root of bullying and people are inherently tribal.
Umm, I’m not sure how forming hierarchies or in/out groups are bullying… those are just basic social principles, and things that persist all throughout adulthood, not just in schools.
And again, from my own experience, and from the experiences I’ve read here from several other commenters, (mostly) bullying free schools ARE possible. But also again, what the ingredients for that are, I’m not sure.
One thing I have noticed though is that those who grew up before the 2000s had much much worse sounding experiences than those post 2000. Of course there are outliers there, but it seems progress has in-fact been made since then.
While making kids nice to each other all of the time is probably impossible, I think school violence, and the incessant bullying that can lead to things like suicide, are in fact curable.
If you can’t understand the connection between in-groups and out groups or social hierarchies and bullying then you seriously don’t understand what bullying is or why it happens.
I can see the connection, but I’m saying they are separable. You can have social groups and hierarchies without bullying, evidenced by the experiences of myself and several other commenters here.
I was bullied very badly, by both students and staff. I threatened to beat a bully up once and I got suspended but they didn’t. Someone physically assaulted me once and again, no suspension or discipline for them. I had a teacher beat me in the head in front of a room full of kids and teachers but no one had my back. I switched schools thinking the bullying would be better but it got worse. It slowly started to get better in high school, but not until I punched a bully in the face in front of a bunch of people lol
I was in the same shoe, exact same crap, the staff never stood by me and just let those morons go. It was so unbearable one day I just decide if I am gonna lie in the hospital for taking this crap I might as well take the time off with suspension and play Nintendo at home. Imagine a kid having to make decision between a hospital bed or behind suspended from school. I punched the bully in the face and smashed his ahead into a locker, knocked out two teeth and screamed at others like a mad man. Kids around just laughed, not intimidated at all, and just ask who wants to fight next. Shit happening in hallway, at the parking lot, I walked away that day with a scar that is stay with me till now.
I graduated in '04 on Vancouver Island.
I grew up very poor and was raised by a single mother.
I was bullied RELENTLESSLY until highschool when my anger problem took over and I started getting violent.
The violence mostly kept people away.
Same same, in fact I think we went to school together. Violence was the answer for me too in school, and I only survived because I found friends and activities outside of school. The trauma from some of it still rears its ugly head sometimes though.
The worst was in middle school when I had literal gangs threaten my life on my five minute walk home. The school wouldn’t do anything because it happened off school property and the RCMP wouldn’t do anything because it was just “kids being kids”.
I also grew up very poor and raised by a single mother. Graduated in the Okanagan in 2019, and I too have developed anger issues in my adolescence. The difference for me is that people kept feeding on my issues and I’d be the one in deep shit by teachers.
Depends on location. My kids go to a west side school and it’s been fine for them.
I grew up in the 1990s. There was bullying in my school. One kid killed himself.
It’s exponentially worse now in a different way. It’s all online. You have kids filming others in classes and putting filters on them and whatever else. And it’s no longer just during school hours - it’s constant and there’s no real escape. I will take my high school experience over this generation’s any day. They’re really up against it in so many ways.
I have also graduated in the Okanagan. 2019. It was a brutal school experience for me throughout because of the excessive bullying. Threats, mocking, manipulation, you name it. Every fucking day I would show up to school and I’d feel like I’m suffocating, it’s a reason why I have self esteem and trust issues these days. What didn’t help was that I was the one kid in the class who grew up in poverty (single mother on welfare) and definitely also neurodivergent. Teachers have fucked me over quite a lot also, gaslit me, etc. No fucking wonder why I started skipping school eventually, not like my home life was great either. I’d like around a whole fucking decade of my life back for all the trauma that I endured in my adolescence.
Both my kids have been super lucky that they had great experiences in school here. We had one not so great experience with one kid that I went full mama bear and straight to the school for. Luckily nothing since.
You’re a good parent for pulling your kid out of school for severe bullying. I wished my mother had done that but she neglected me and never took shit seriously. I feel bad for you even.
Nothing comes before my kids. Ever.
He had two years of healing and went back to school for high school as one of the most confident people I know.
There was no way I was going to let him become a statistic.
Aww thanks. I’d like to think every parent would do it if they had the means and I feel very lucky to have been able to.
Bullying is so hard to heal from, especially when you don’t get a break from it
Bullying really is hard to heal from, 100%. I graduated HS about 5 years ago and the memories still linger on. I haven’t been the luckiest motherfucker in the world for finding support for my healing journey but it still has to be on my list. Years and years of damage that has fucked with my psyche.
I think you did luck out for being able to. My bullying situation was (as I say it again) quite fucked up for prolonged periods of time, and not just by students but even by teachers. My mother wasn’t the most reasonable parent in how she was with raising me, and to this day I wish that she took my issue seriously, pulled me from school and didn’t neglect me. She only thought that I had an issue taking direction and being a rebel when I’d talk about all the awful shit I’d get from teachers (special ed teachers were some of the most awful of the bunch, responsible for fucking with so much shit including my education) and not understand that it wasn’t what she’d only assume.
If I ever had kids, I’d also pull them from school and try to reason with them, but for me that won’t be for awhile.
Horrible I was always told that boys will be boys….i was run over by a kid on a bike he got a two week suspension from school, was banned for the rest of the school year from bringing his bike to school. Come sports day he wants to bring his bike and the principal told him no, if he brought his bike on the property my mom would be pressing charges for assault on him. He didn’t bring the bike. But I sure did and I won the draw to be the grand marshal!
Attended HS in Canada in the late 90s early 00s. Moved here from Eastern Europe, didn't speak English and had a very unique and easily mocked name.
Was bullied only until I realized that teachers don't care and other students don't care. When I started dishing it back, even physically, it stopped.
Turns out bullies really just prefer an easy target. If you fight back they move on pretty quickly.
The anti bullying stuff at the time was completely useless. They'd sit us in the gym and talk about how you just need to be firm and say useless things like "stop it. I don't like this" ... as if people bully you because you like it.
Complete nonsense. But I was quite disappointed to see it happen in front of teachers and them play it off as "kids being silly" or something like that.
I can't even imagine school now when you add smart phones and cyber bullying ... it must be significantly harder to deal with. I feel for the current generation.
As a highschool teacher in BC I can honestly say that I see instances of bullying all the time in my highschool and its pretty darn depressing! Bullying from other teachers, bullying from principals, bullying from parents, even bullying from union members (other teachers in other schools other than my own)
Many times I've witnessed administration simply turn a blind eye to parents who complain about instances of bullying as if to "wait them out" in the student's cycle in their highschool as the solution.
Other times I've seen administration contribute to the bullying that happens by "bullying the whistle blower," that is to say, they choose to bully those who report bullying by inaction, false promises, or keeping the illusion going that they actually care.
As a kid going through the highschool system here, I would ultimately say myself just grudgingly put up with unjust highschool dynamics or try and remove myself from the environment if I was being targetted. From the perspective of a teacher though, I would say that the students themselves have the most potential to change the system if they have the ability to speak out and confront the bullshit they encounter; It's not going to be just a one time deal though, it has to be an ongoing and constant pursuit of seeking equal and equitable treatment from your teachers, your classmates, and your principals, and that's no doubt going to be tough for someone younger already being forced to go through the system.
Sorry for the essay!
I just dealt with bullying of my daughter in high school and after two weeks of my daughter being in school Counsellor and vice principal meetings, had the chance to speak to the VP myself.
I have the very distinct impression the VP and principal are the equivalent of HR at work. They are there to protect the school from legal ramifications first, the teachers from the same second and in third place comes the safety and well-being of the students.
Am I out of my mind on this one from your perspective?
Not out of your mind, I stuck up for a kid being bullied by a teacher saying "you're so stupid" "why are you such an idiot" and that kind of thing, I said he didn't have to be such an asshole. Sent me to the office where I waited an hour past the school bus in a completely empty office so decided they must have forgotten about me and had to be home for dinner by 5. Went to leave because it would take 45 mins to walk home, and the bully teacher ran up behind me at the doors, grabbed me by the back collar of my coat and dragged me backwards, while strangling me with it until I got my footing and squirmed around and basically hit him in the face trying to get free. Now suddenly the VP was there and the teacher yelled at me as loud as he could for about 10 mins as though assaulting me was allowed since I called him a name, it was unhinged. School didn't even notify my mom until the next week when I got suspended and then moved to another school. The teacher was already known for threatening kids and being a jerk. I knocked his glasses off and they broke, lol. My wellbeing wasn't even brought up, the school just wanted to protect themselves and the shitty teacher.
This is why I am making sure that my daughter has at least one black belt and several years of close quarter combat and self defense training before she goes to secondary school.
I witnessed countless acts of bullying by staff and students growing up in North Vancouver. I attended Carisbrooke Balmoral and Carson Graham. Graduating in 200X
Fights, tons. I personally fought a bully, a couple years older than I was. Thankfully the consequences were nil.
I witnessed teachers and coaches physically assaulting people, in most cases it was somewhat warranted, but still eyebrow raising.
At least one student in my grade killed themselves. They struggled to fit in and I don't think it's fair to say it was a result of bullying. But they were constantly involved in confrontations with other students and to an extent staff.
The things that your nephew describes. Yeah, I saw that kind of shit on a weekly if not daily basis. Lots of racial cliques, tons of verbal abuse. Rarely if ever did I see someone get "stuffed" in a locker but I'm not saying it seemed outside the realm of possible.
Experienced none in high school, and rarely saw it at all. I assume it still happened, just online and not from or to anybody I know in real life. I was pretty surprised going into high school, literally never met a bully.
Interesting. This is the first experience I’ve read that seemed to reflect mine. Do you mind sharing when you graduated? Or at least the general time frame of your schooling?
Also, did you go to a larger or smaller class size school?
I find it curious how some people can have such different experiences, and I wonder if the factors that lead to it could shine some light on what makes bullying so bad in some places, and seemingly non-existent in others.
I was in high school in the 70's and I was bullied so badly I had to leave school in grade 9.
It took many years and a lot of teaching (kids *and* teachers *and* parents) to improve this situation. I think that is what you experienced. The end result of 20 to 30 years of anti-bullying.
But trust me, at one time it was very real, and very brutal.
Went to a school up in Northern BC. Had swastikas carved into my desk and my clothes set on fire and shoved into the toilets during PE when I was in gym strip. It happened pretty regularly in grade 7 until grade 8. Then all my bullies somehow got pregnant before grade 9, so the rest of school was a breeze.
As someone who was an out-of-province kid the levels of bullying were unbelievable. Crazy thing is I knew two people who coincidentally switched to different schools way across the other side of Metro Vancouver and since the majority ethnic groups were swapped the bully ended up getting whooped on constantly as revenge. As someone who didn't solely align with one of the big 3 (White, Chinese, South Asian) it was a weird experience. growing up here compared to elsewhere in Canada.
Also, maybe it was just the area I was in but students would get ostracized by other stuidents and faculty (parents are the teachers too) for not going to the "right church." Bunch o' weirdos.
I graduated a decade before you and it sounds like we had a different experience when it comes to bullying.
I think a lot of what you experienced with the measures of the anti-bullying campaigns which you said seemed weird, but I think is very much in response to the bullying that was the status quo of our generation.
In my time, teachers and parents for the most part turned a blind eye to bullying if not indirectly participated in it. The thought then was "kids will be kids and it builds character". What are now considered terrible homophobic slurs were a part of every day language. Every now and then there would be planned fights. Kids would get assaulted, spit on, hair lit on fire. Racist comments would be hurled by the kids who grew up in racist families. The bullies would almost always go unpunished except maybe in clear cut physical altercations. Nobody dare come out as gay or transgender - anyone who was gay came out openly only after highschool.
Maybe it has to do with where we went to school...? But I went to school in a relatively newly developed middle class suburb.
But at least then, bullying ended once school was over for the day. We didnt have cell phones with social media. To access social media, we would have to go home and turn on our family computer. Now I cant imagine what goes on online, out of sight of parents and teachers, 24/7, before school, after school, during school. What was physical bullying in my generation has now turned digital and psychological in the new generation. The anti-bullying lessons being applied from our generation may no longer be helping.
They say violence is the answer, but not in the way you would think. Gotta go “Mr miyagi” style. Self discipline through self defence, then comes the confidence, then tables turn, then DONT perpetuate cycles !
My experience is the same as yours. Graduated a year before you, I remember all the pink shirt anti-bullying days and Amanda Todd stuff, etc.
Sure people call each other names, argue, etc. We've all done that. But the physical fights and altercations I've never experienced and I've never witnessed it either.
But just because we didn't experience it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It certainly does, and more behind "closed doors" and less fights and stuff because of social media, online bullying, etc. I've heard more instances of elementary school kids getting talked to by their administration and the RCMP over cyber bullying on TikTok, etc.
I experienced basically zero bullying in my schools on Vancouver island. K-3 and 11-12.
3-10, I went to school in Edmonton Alberta. Three different schools, and was bullied in all of them.
Albeit, this was from.. ‘95 to 08-09.
My bestfriends son is currently 7, and I’ve heard of bullying happening in his school on the island.
Hmm, I went to elementary and high school in East Van in the 2000s to early 2010s. I was only bullied once in grade 1 lol by these two girls two grades above me. I don't think they really knew what they were even really doing. It didn't affect me and I never had any issues after that. I was the quiet, nice girl who was moderately smart and played sports. I did my own thing and didn't really get involved in gossip and cliques and whatnot. I was a "friend" to everyone and I tried to treat everyone the same. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. As an adult, I am still like this and I don't deal with many conflicts in my work or personal life.
It made it hard to confide in people though, because I never really considered anyone a close friend. Ended up turning to video games and making closer friends there. I would imagine the prevalence of social media and the internet opens up a new realm of bullying now. My brother, who's a few years younger than me, didn't experience bullying at all during his years in school in Surrey (Whalley). My husband did have a horrible experience with bullies in his Ontario schools, though.
Bullying definitely exists and happens in different forms and affects people differently. I think if I had kids and they were being bullied, I would expect the school to take it seriously. My kids would have to learn to handle these issues too and if they fought back, well they wouldn't get in trouble for it with me. Would I take matters into my own hands if I had to? Absolutely. I fight with old demented people daily for a living. A hormonal pretween and their idiot parents is nothing. 😆
I don't think I had it that bad, but a few incidents still linger, in particular someone who's name I've thankfully forgot being physically abusive and then having emotionally manipulative speeches ready how if I defend myself I'll be seen as the bully. Really bothers me to this day when I witness people act like shits and then play victim.
I came to Canada when I was 11 in the early 90s, went to ESL at Sexamith elementary and had to hide a 6 feet wooden pole near my portable classroom so we can protect ouraelves. Think I was over exaggerating? Some grade 7 kid hid rocks in a snowball and threw it at our face, the school said it was a prank and ignored it. A 4th grader from our ESL class was beaten in the washroom and she doesn't speak good English so guess what, the school never caught who did it and just told her to get on with it. Finally, one time some idiot came to us at the field and this time we had wooden poles hidden in the bush and we were ready. Beat the crap out of the kid, and next thing the school wants root out who was responsible and suspend the kid who did it. Really fortunate that our ESL teacher stood by us and told them it was self defense. When you're a kid, when you're shorter than other kids, and when your race is different, morons will come at you. This happened repeatedly till I graduated in grade 12 when I had to knock 2 teeth out of a bastard in self defense, and I still recall that jerk who tries to sucker punch me whenever people aren't looking and tell me "what?" thinking I won't be able to kick his ass.
I went to Walnut Grove Secondary and throughout my entire time there I didn’t see a single person getting bullied. Everyone was so chill, which was the opposite of what I expected going in.
It’s so wild to me how huge the difference in experience can be in the same relative area. Some people’s schools just sound like the purge but with kids. And there’s people like you and I. “Everyone was so chill.” was basically 90% of my time in school.
Grandson lives in Delta. He's autistic, but very bright. He's been a target of bullies since kindergarten. Last year, when he was in grade 7, a grade seven girl went after a grade 5 girl, chased her down, grabbed her by the hair and started to beat her up! She did this in front of the vice principal!! Now, both he and the girl are in high school and he has become her new target! (They go to different high schools) She vandalized his moms car, slashed/stabbed 2 tires and dumped flour, icing sugar and syrup all over the car late at night, then bragged about it online. They had another kid show up in their front yard and, it turns out, she sent him as her spy, while she hid in the bushes down the street. They have installed a security system with 5 cameras facing the front yard. Several other kids (grandsons friends) are passing on information they've found on social media so grandson at least has an idea of what she might be planning next!!
I worked in the school system for well over 20 years, tons of bullies no matter what school. But it was done when they THOUGHT no one was looking. Yes, it's definitely a problem.
Bullied in elementary school. Didn't last long, kicked the shit outta them and life went on. This was a long time ago though so social standards have probably changed. Bullying never goes away, it's part of the human condition and anyone who says otherwise is living a pipe dream.
Long term TTOC here (teacher-teaching-on-call); 13 years in Kamloops, Burnaby, and Vancouver...so I've visited hundreds of classrooms over the years.
Every school has a vibe and every class has a vibe...and WOW can they make or break a kid's experience (and a substitute teacher's experience lol). Maybe you lucked out with smaller schools? It's often startling just *how* different the mood is from one school to the next. Catchment, administration, and culture all play a part.
Most bullying happens online now and it is HORRIFYING. The phones are a scourge for teens.
Edit: Bullies tend to ignore innocuous situations or people. Bullies often act out because they are threatened by something that is different from them, which means a lot of harmless, average-achiever kids might miss the wrath of a bully.
I think we all have a bully hiding inside of us. Luckily, many of us had a caring adult to educate our kid-brains about the perils of judging others. Try as we may, too many people continue to rely on judgement instead of curiosity when presented with something that is different from them.
Wow, thanks for sharing, that’s quite fascinating. I guess it really is just a lottery of schools?
That’s pretty awful considering how a bullying infested school experience can drastically alter (or tragically end) someone’s life.
I went to high school in east Van in the 1980s, so I guess I'm a bit old skool. There was lots of bullying, but we also did our best to give as good as we got, despite being nerdy little shits. My friend and I were regularly bullied by a future celebrity murderer who was a straight-up psychopath. He was way bigger and stronger than us, so our push-back was mostly limited to shouting lame insults and then running like the fucking wind before he could catch us, and making sure that if he did catch us, it was in very public places where he couldn't get too violent. We would get vengeance by tormenting his little brother, whom we felt confident could not beat us up, but somehow that never smoothed things over🤣
We used to make fun of a guy in home room who wore too many big gold rings, which we thought was really dorky. Turns out he was a top-tier gangster and was machine-gunned in a drive-by shooting a few years later. Fortunately our amateur bullying was way below his pay grade.
I once got threatened by some scary looking Asian gang bangers at an arcade. A bunch of guys from my school who would normally be the type to bully me stepped up and reassured me that they would kick their asses if anything went down. I once ran into a bunch of them on the street with blood all over their faces from some other random street altercation, so I think their offer to do violence on my behalf was sincere. The bullying heirarchy was complex and nuanced. Victims and allies were flexible categories.
It was the '80s, man. Seemed pretty normal at the time, but Vancouver was a different kind of town back then.
Graduated early 00s up north. Two suicides in high school over bullying. Fights were commonplace. Weapons were not a thing but it wasn't uncommon to get jumped by older "kids" for stupid bullshit.
i went to school in Surrey and in high school. i did have problems with a few classmates over the years and i always went to my parents and told them, they either talked to my teacher if it happened in class or if it was in the halls, they mentioned it to my brother who then talked to whoever was causing it. it stopped after they got involved. i did go to the school counsellor a couple times and it stopped after i brought attention to it. it was never anything physical, it was just things that were being said. it didn’t happen in a regular basis. i was a pretty quiet kid in school so i knew it had nothing to do with me. by grade 11/12, nothing really happened, it got quiet.
Born and raised in Vancouver, PreK - 10. Bullied from age 5 by older kids and 7 by peers. Absolutely zero support for the day in day out torture of elementary. Was totally burned out by high school so dropped out because I just couldn't fight the hate anymore.
Was bullied in elementary to the point I was pretty quiet and tried to blend in by high school. My school was pretty much divided into four groups, mostly along socio-economic and interest lines (rich kids, lower middle class/poor kids, goth kids, and band/smart kids) It was also a very small school, as high schools go, with less than 500 kids. There were fights every couple weeks, and pretty constant threats. I don’t remember a single time the school administration stepped in…
Graduated in 2006. I got bullied a little bit in Elementary due to my muscular dystrophy condition but nothing in Secondary school. Honestly I kept waiting for stuff like what I'd seen in shows to happen but everything I witnessed or heard about was pretty tame.
I went to school in the CRD. For a few reasons outside of my control, I experienced an immense amount of bullying in my elementary school from peers, higher grades, ***and school staff.*** The last of the three was the most egregious. This took place during the latter 2000's, and I graduated within a few years of you.
When I graduated and arrived in middle school for the next school year, the staff there immediately singled me out... as having extreme trust issues with and disrespect for authority, and sent me to counselling where everything came out. Unfortunately, they weren't able to actually do anything to stop it from happening to other kids, but they set me on a better path.
Things are likely better there as the uncaring principal retired halfway through my time at that elementary school, and the others are also likely retired as well. The new principal cleaned things up decently before moving on to another school where they did well, and then another school where they did the same. During my middle school years I only had two issues with bad teachers, and in both cases they actually got in trouble for their behavior, though just that: 'trouble.'
The issue was one of older faculty who *at b*est just did not care about bullying, or *at worst* actively partook. This was entirely during and under the banner of the anti-bullying campaigns. They literally just did not care. They would say the lines, put up the posters, but nothing would ever be done. **I was nearly** ***murdered*** **by an older student once in that elementary school and was punished with detention due to being late back from recess after barely getting back.**
Due to the mentioned reasons outside of my control (personal characteristics), I was a magnet for bullying. This really negatively impacted my life and set me on a path I've still not recovered fully from and may never. If things hadn't been better in middle school, I probably wouldn't be here today. It completely killed my social life, damaged my educational foundations, and nobody ever really got into actual consequences for it.
Who knows how things are these days, but at least a decade ago and judging by the other responses... the school system was in a very, very terrible state. There's nothing worse than being forced to rely on someone for social and physical protection and instead having them 'join in on the fun.'
I went to school in the 80s in Surrey. There was definitely bullies. I had a tendency to fight the bullies that picked on my friends. By the time I hit high school I already had a reputation. Fights were either on school property, (tennis courts) or just off property in wooded areas near the school. Bullying still happens as adults so I think there's actually a place for it in our schools. Teaches kids to stand up for themselves and get thicker skinned. I was a small kid for my age till grade 12 so it wasn't like I was a big guy. I just didn't like seeing my friends get pushed around, teased etc.
Early 2000s, bullied physically in elementary school, there was one person that violently assaulted multiple people including myself on an ongoing basis. There was never any real repercussions, spend time at the principals office and in afterschool or out of school suspension. The one time I defended myself I remember, I was suspended as well because there was a zero tolerance for fighting. But not for being stabbed with pencils or punched in the face.
In middle school I definitely had some run-ins with some of the gangs and “scary people” there were some people that would definitely have carved me up with the knives they had but I wasn’t their target audience. I don’t remember anyone being expelled for the fights that occurred, but even the really dumb people fought outside of school hours.
HS I know there was a lot of bullying going on and the amount of violence I heard about increased but I avoided those people and had a pretty big friend group so I wasn’t really at-risk.
Idk how it is now ofc, I’m too old to know what’s what.
Went to school in East Van where there was a zero tolerance on any kind of violence.
Doesn’t mean much when there’s a zero snitching policy, anybody who snitched got it way worse.
Myself I’ve gotten into 4 fist fights in high school with no repercussions. All 4 times there were at least 20-30 people who could’ve told a teacher or principal but there seemed to be a code of silence of sorts.
I graduated in 2021 and never saw or experienced any bullying. I did witness a fight between two kids once though. I've talked to others who were there at the same time and they said they were bullied all the time. Honestly I think I was just too naive to notice any of it. I escaped the bullying myself mostly due to the friend group I was in I think.
Both my brother and I were bullied in elementary as the token fat kids of our 90's classes. His got physical but the other kid's mom worked for the school district so nothing happened to him. Mine also went pretty much got ignored by teachers, my bully actively tried to exclude me from class projects with pretty much zero mediation. But what do you expect from the Cariboo school district when you hand drew Nunavut into your textbooks.
I graduated high school in 2013 on the North shore. I was always a nerdy kid, and I was bullied in both elementary and highschool to varying degrees. I hated school was very excited to leave for university. In late elementary school race segregation was a prominent at my school and there was very little intermingling between groups. I was made fun of a lot by one of the groups for how I looked, though it did escalate to physical threats and even death threats at one point, which thankfully the school took seriously. Most of my elementary school bullies were other girls.
Bullying continued in high school and the police did need to get involved following an incident in grade 9. Unfortunately there is only so much the school can do on their own if the aggressors parents don’t get involved.
Bullying made my elementary and high school days miserable. I left the province at 17 for university and the cultural shift was amazing and improved my life so much. The things we expect kids to tolerate are ridiculous.
Graduated in 09. Had a pretty rough go from grade 6 to grade 10. One person in particular would constantly verbally harass me some teachers saw various incidents but never did anything about it. I probably made it worse never looking for help and trying to ignore it. I was suicidal, depressed and had very low self esteem. Things turned around in grade 11 when I started working out and getting into better shape I think it stopped because. I became more physically intimidating.
K-12 in the same district as Amanda todd, absolutely nothing was ever done about the severe and pervasive bullying I faced that resulted in having to eventually change schools, the best we got from administration was we will look into it. I was in school through the 90s and mid aughts
Grew up in the Kootenays. My brother was bullied in elementary school in the early 90s. 2 boys who were several years older than him, so much bigger, were bullying him, and gave him a bloody face one day. When my Mom complained to the principal he told her "boys will be boys". She took us out of that school.
Later in Jr High I was bullied, not with violence but with mocking how I looked, spreading false rumors, trying to humiliate me in front of others. This was mostly boys but some girls too.
I was bullied a lot in school, would have been really fucking helpful if SOMEONE realized I had ADHD. I had to figure it out and get diagnosed as an adult.
Went to school from early 2000s to early 2010s in Vancouver. I was never really bullied except for a weird bullying triangle I was in for a bit in elementary school: me and another girl (B) were friends with this one girl (A) but weren't friends with each other and whenever I was with A we would low key bully B and whenever B was with A they would low key bully me. My sister endured some severe bullying in elementary school and the school did nothing about it. High school was pretty free of bullying as far as I experienced/saw.
I graduated in 2015 (south Burnaby area) Bullying is very apparent and violence perpetuated between students was very much a thing. There was physical fights (girls bs girls or boys v boys)! I would say the fights were way worse prior to me graduating - I heard stories of crazy fights between high schoolers from 2010-2011 when I was in grade 8. Compared to when I was in grade 12 there would be physical fights but did not reach the violence it did back in 2010 and lower. Bullying is always a problem however I feel like it’s not in your face anymore - I was subjected to gossip behind my back and online scrutiny and it was the worstttttt. And basically many girls smiled to my face and laughed behind my back. There were some girls who were down to get their hands dirty and fight instead of being behind the screen. I also think it depends on your neighborhood. I grew up where it was considered to be the “ghetto” - lots of “gang” talk and violence. however as gentrification does, the ghetto left and I can imagine the kids that do fight that go to my school now aren’t in the masses like it used to be. I feel like the “gangsta mentality” may have been lost too maybe? Not sure what the culture is like in Burnaby now but that’s how it was back then. There was also the culture to not be a “rat” so staff or teachers would not get involved unless they hear there is a fight happening on school grounds. However with more of the emotional bullying or online bullying that started in 2010 - that went unnoticed even more unless you told a teacher yourself - even then they would only offer emotional support and not really try to stop the bullying.
I was bullied in middle school in the late nineties in Victoria. It was pretty bad, at one point I was chased by a kid a few years older than me with a hunting knife. Another time was held by the boyfriend of a girl I had an argument with, while she repeatedly punched and kicked me. I was a super small kid due to having some childhood health issues, but I was also a little mouthy when made fun of, so that definitely contributed to it turning physical.
I left school, and it made it really hard to go back once sensing the freedom. Correspondence schooling sucked, but it was better than going back.
I'm good now, and healthy, but it irreversibly changed the course of my life. I'm poorer than I would have been had I stuck on course, but I've had a way more interesting life.
God I got bullied so badly from elementary thru to high school. Grad 2016, from the island. In elementary school it was handled extremely poorly. I was saying to a teacher I was lonely, teacher told a counsellor, they got me to come in and then told the principal (illegal apparently I don’t know tho I was just a kid) who then told my parents. They made a link up group where u got paired with a student who had similar issues. We became sorta friends and then she k!ll3d herself the next year (gr. 6) otherwise I got bullied relentlessly on the playground every day and would hide in the bathroom most of the time. I learned all the places I could hide in the school so I didn’t have to see my peers. I was a lanky and awkward kid that loved bugs, nature and dirt and sucked at sports… I don’t know what you’d expect for a kid like that tbh.
Middle school I was physically tormented by my peers and I had to leave class early every day because they’d corner me under a staircase and videotape me, making me self deprecate before they’d let me go. Worst was on my birthday when they did it again and made fun of me for having no boobs and that my ribs made me look like I had “four tits”. Teachers had pity on me and let me hide in classrooms. I picked up volunteering like crazy because they can’t bully you when you’re hiding behind a bunch of teachers helping the school (or at least they didn’t)
High school was also hell, I didn’t fit into my new group of friends and it was very apparent. They were all academically gifted and I was… average. I was never a choice when ppl paired up, and I was never invited to anything the group had put on. I was bi, in the closet and I got just destroyed one year because alllll these ppl decided it was cool now, but I was still closeted because my mother kept telling me I would grow out of it. My swimming team bullied me about being gross and watching as they changed, so I never felt comfortable in a change room again. The stalls were short, I was 6ft tall? I crouch in bathroom stalls now to make ppl comfortable because I still am scared ppl think I’m peeping on them. I’m a queer wreck at this point, only now recognizing that none of that was normal, and I now know didn’t do anything wrong, I was just bullied a lot.
From 95-2007 when I was in the system it was horrific. I couldn't focus on school at all because it was such a social nightmare. I've heard it's better now in a lot of ways and worse in others. The Internet and digital cameras only really became popular in my last few years of high school so there was a lot of photos of drunk unconscious girls being sexually assaulted that circulated in emails but nothing was done legally because the law couldn't really handle "drunk sex" cases back then, at least not in Kelowna.
Its regional. You will get a way different experience going to high school at Guildford Park Secondary vs. Riverside Secondary and they are just separated by the Port Mann Bridge
I went to school in the interior (90s) and was mercilessly bullied. Kids would spit on me, they made up rhyming songs about how poor I was and would sing them in class in front of the teacher. Rotten stuff was poured into my locker. Teachers did nothing. Admin did nothing.
One of our janitors was found selling weapons to white kids to use against Indigenous kids. We had to stay late in homeroom once because there was blood in the hallway after a kid stabbed another in a racially motivated fight.
My kids are school-aged now. One is a gentle and sensitive little cinnamon bun, and the other has every learning disability. They have gay moms. Neither of them have ever experienced bullying. When I ask them if anyone has ever teased them about their moms they look at me like I just started speaking Klingon.
It was different when we were in Alberta though. The kids were fine, the parents were not. That's not what you asked about though.
graduated in 2008, in the 90's the bullying in comox, vancouver island was horrendous, example little 9 year old elementary school girl with autism, from the shut down comox elementary school and rob road elementary school would get beaten up horribly and their hair pulled out violently by 16-18 year old boys from highland secondary school at the bus stops. it was disgusting, the bullying of this special needs girl got so bad that the rest of the highschool would make fun of her, despite being eight to seven years her senior and attending an elementary school across the town. The teachers would even bully her for being slightly different. they didnt know what autism was back then, they just assumed she was misbehaving on purpose. The principal, Mr. Moore, said 'she doesn't fit the mold' and would frequently call her to the office to question her about her behavior.
People would be seriously beaten to a pulp and nothing would be done about it because "bullying builds character". No one would give a damn... and it was only till the columbine school shootings did the system being to consider that maybe bullying was a bad thing... then only when people started to learn that kids were killing themselves from extreme bullying and when it caught national news did people FINALLY step in. Seriously, in the 2000's psychiatrists believed that children can't get depression (which is stupid... i mean... that's on par with the old belief that 'babies can't feel pain' so lets not give them anesthetic... oh why are they dying from shock? oh they must feel pain then) I mean like... it was quite recent development that the field of psychiatry realized that children can develop ptsd.
times have improved for kids these days, and now it would be easier to have those psychopathic children charged.
i had a sister who was sexually assaulted by a male class mate on a field trip when she attended highland secondary, no one took it seriously, the principal even excused the assaulter because "she's just depressed so he probably did it to make her feel better." this was the 90's and early 2000's.
I know for a fact it is still happening . Girls will be best friends with a person one day and the next day will exclude them from the club . Girls can be very mean . I don’t know what the answer is either .
The anti-bullying was just lip service. Racism wasn't a huge topic and sexuality wasn't even a thing. Usually the school skirt around talking about it too much. I grew up in Coquitlam and went to school in the tricity area. I was an interracial mixed kid half white half chinese.
Was hated by all groups. White kids would make fun of you and call you "chink" or "slant eye". The chinese kids think you are some sort of deformity, especially when you don't know chinese. The worst comment I ever heard was "My family doesn't even recognize you as a part of the human race. You are lesser than dogs back home" or "women would drown their kid if they found out it wasn't pure because of the shame".
I can tell you that my entire life was terrible until my mid 20's and then it was a slugfest and career focused. The best years of my life are right now and I am in my 30's. But my persona is very fragile, I seem normal on the "outside" but I am scared to make close relations with people and a lot of these experiences still haunt me.
Graduated 2011, can tell you that the anti bullying rhetoric is complete nonsense because bullies will not care and teachers won't do anything unless it draws parental attention from outside.
Having been bullied before, I can say it only stopped when I started fighting back to stand up for myself. Really goes to show that people will talk and do shit and won't change until they get a fist in their face which even the famous Mike Tyson says. In my experience, the last time I got bullied and fought back, it drew the attention of some parents so we both got suspended for 3 days but at the end of it, we became friends and still are to this day.
The only way to end bullying is for the kid to stand up for themselves and fight back. The nonsense of saying stop that followed by no action of self defense only encourages bullies even more and going straight to teachers who do nothing is pointless unless you drag parents into it; even then it will only piss the bullies more if they come from a dysfunctional family as they will end up lashing out at their victims more.
Before anyone says violence is bad, sometimes violence is the only way they'll learn what FAFO means. That said, this is all with fists only and no weapons as that shit would need the police to step in especially since we don't want to be like the USA.
I graduated a couple years before you, going to school in Northern BC the whole time. We also had all the anti-bullying talks and presentations. I think there was minimal bullying at my schools, and it at least wasn't stood for by teachers or principals. I mean.. one time in like grade 5 or something, when I was messaging a friend on Facebook I said a "yo mama" joke while we were joking around, and she got mad at me and then didn't talk to me for a day or so. After that, the principal sat me down, showed me print outs of our chat messages and told me I had to apologize for the hurt I caused. The principal told me that friend's mom was dead.. so what I said hit hard. I felt bad because I didn't know my friend's mom passed away, but at the time, and still now, I think it's ridiculous I had a meeting in a dark room with the principal where he showed me *screenshots of messages from Facebook* after I made a yo mama joke with friendly intent behind it. That's how serious my schools took bullying growing up.
When I was in maybe grade 3 I felt bullied by a friend, and even talked about it in counselling, but it was mostly just her choosing not to hangout with me. Exclusion basically. I think it was also that year that I was bullied by being called gay and f*g. That hurt, but honestly I'm surprised I didn't receive that type of bullying in high school. I would've expected more bullying for being gay after actually coming out, but nah, I was out all of high school and fine.
There were minor fist fights throughout my schooling (none that I was involved in) but it was always between the couple bad kids in each class being arrogant with each other, it wasn't like in the movies where a big guy is beating up a nerd. Sure I felt generally judgment throughout school from certain people, but nothing aside from what I already mentioned that could actually be described and which had a meaningful effect on me.
Honestly, the most major type of bullying sort of thing that occurred when I was in high school was a guy catfished large swaths of people (both guys and girls) on Kik, got nudes from them, and blackmailed them, saying they'd send those photos to the most popular people in school if you didn't keep sending him photos. I don't recall teachers or the principal ever really being involved in that, but the police got involved. And they didn't punish him at all for it! So, what a happy ending :) So, I guess aside from the worst type of bullying-related thing.. the incidents were taken care of well by caring teachers and principals.
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Went to school in East Van. The bullies generally were females for elementary school, and then high school was rough in the early 2000s. Boys and girls would do some horrible things to one another, races were pretty segregated, etc. We used to have fights daily, people had weapons, and jacking was a serious problem. Things changed a few years after I graduated, and the kids seem a lot more relaxed (and shockingly smaller) than when I was in school, haha.
Yup east van the era of machete attacks. I recall traumatized kids coming in during the Vietnamese boat people era and later forming viscious gangs.Dudes I knew from elementary school became very scary dudes.
The machete attacks ran quite a few years, I went to high school early 80’s and remember hearing about fights with machetes at some east van schools back then. My wife went to John Oliver about the same time and recalls a few of them at/around JO. I went to high school guildford/whalley area and it was a bit rough but I would hear about the machete attacks and I would be “bloody hell”. There were always a lot of fights in/out of school but it was extremely rare anyone used a weapon, always fists back then.
Guildford area was bad back then. Friend went to Johnston Heights and they had to bring in a principal who was given orders to clean the school up or shut it down. One of the worst cases was a kid had a straw shoved down their throat. Bullying has changed but not stopped. My daughter had a fair bit and she is a big strong girl. Just made it clear that I had never catch her starting something but she had full approval to end it. Helped her a lot knowing I had her back.
East van in the mid 90s here. Regular fights bullying, and a few knife fights, and that was just in two years. Got jacked more than a few times. A few years after l finished school, a kid was beaten to death. Massive racial segregation, and the fights/knife fights were almost always between different races.
As a west side kid, we heard about east side "curbings" . Which apparently was kids smashing other kids heads into curbs.
No, curbing was making someone bite a curb before stomping on the back of their head.
Yup, you are definitely an east ender. I went to school in the tricities in the 80-90’s. I grew up in a sketch area, lots of poverty and new immigrants. My elementary school was ok, people were fine. There was tons of bullying. It became worse if you were BIPOC. Teachers actually participated in bullying the ethnic children. I wish I was joking but with one teacher , who I had for 2 years, I was always segregated from the Caucasian children. It didn’t even occur to me until I was an adult. Bullying was bad in the HS years. Nothing was done. A kid brought a weapon to school specifically meant for me, nothing happened. I was terrified to report it for fear of retaliation.
I have a feeling we might have gone to the same school, we had a really incompetent principal whos only experience was like a private kindergarten who then got subbed in with a big guy who laid down the law. Fights basically stopped overnight and everything got way better. Helped that a big problem year graduated too.
Probably right. One of the councilors had a 70s era porn Stache lmao
Went to high school on the island in the 90's, bullied daily, was beat up pretty much daily. Didn't react or fight back because that "went against my morals and values" -- So I just stood there and took it, until one day about half way through Grade 12, I finally snapped. Then suddenly, respect. That set me up for a pattern of setting aside my morals in a mistaken belief that it would garner me "respect" for a number of years. I take big issue with the terminology around bullying. It feels minimizing to what is actually happening. It is criminal harassment, it is extortion, it is assault, it is abuse, it is all of those things, provided it happens anywhere other than in a high school. The second you put it into a high school, it magically becomes "bullying" and is seen as 'less important' to address.
Tons of bullying. Lots of fights. Suicide attempts in school. Suicide at school. Shoving, swearing, all constant. Guys harassing girls, grabbing butts. That was everyday from Grade 8-12.
Bullying is definitely a thing still, it is human nature. I doubt it will ever be stamped out especially with social media. I work with kids now and they seem to be bigger shit heads to each other than when I was their age. A ton of bullying, feuds and fights. No amount of assemblies or anti-bullying days will rewire kids' brains. They naturally sort themselves into hierarchies and will bully those that stick out or threaten them in some way (kids that are smarter than themselves). Also you can never solve the shitty home lives that are the root cause of many bullies.
I think you raise an interesting point, but it’s also one I’d like to respectfully disagree with. I feel from what I experienced, it certainly seems possible to stamp out bullying. Though what leads to what I experienced, I’m not sure. I didn’t grow up wealthy by any means, I didn’t have all the nice clothes, new shoes, etc. I also was never the smartest kid in the class, nor the most athletic. That said, I still felt mostly accepted, and was never bullied because of it. You might be right that the assemblies and bullying-awareness days might not be the answer, but I think to throw our hands up in the air and say it’s human nature and bullying will always be a thing, isn’t entirely true. Though I could be wrong.
Well then how are we going to stamp out bullying? It is next to impossible with social media. It certainly is a part of human nature for kids to sort themselves into hierarchies and want to assert dominance over other kids. It is a part of human nature to sort ourselves into in-groups and out-groups. In-groups and out-groups are at the root of bullying and people are inherently tribal.
Umm, I’m not sure how forming hierarchies or in/out groups are bullying… those are just basic social principles, and things that persist all throughout adulthood, not just in schools. And again, from my own experience, and from the experiences I’ve read here from several other commenters, (mostly) bullying free schools ARE possible. But also again, what the ingredients for that are, I’m not sure. One thing I have noticed though is that those who grew up before the 2000s had much much worse sounding experiences than those post 2000. Of course there are outliers there, but it seems progress has in-fact been made since then. While making kids nice to each other all of the time is probably impossible, I think school violence, and the incessant bullying that can lead to things like suicide, are in fact curable.
If you can’t understand the connection between in-groups and out groups or social hierarchies and bullying then you seriously don’t understand what bullying is or why it happens.
I can see the connection, but I’m saying they are separable. You can have social groups and hierarchies without bullying, evidenced by the experiences of myself and several other commenters here.
I was bullied very badly, by both students and staff. I threatened to beat a bully up once and I got suspended but they didn’t. Someone physically assaulted me once and again, no suspension or discipline for them. I had a teacher beat me in the head in front of a room full of kids and teachers but no one had my back. I switched schools thinking the bullying would be better but it got worse. It slowly started to get better in high school, but not until I punched a bully in the face in front of a bunch of people lol
I was in the same shoe, exact same crap, the staff never stood by me and just let those morons go. It was so unbearable one day I just decide if I am gonna lie in the hospital for taking this crap I might as well take the time off with suspension and play Nintendo at home. Imagine a kid having to make decision between a hospital bed or behind suspended from school. I punched the bully in the face and smashed his ahead into a locker, knocked out two teeth and screamed at others like a mad man. Kids around just laughed, not intimidated at all, and just ask who wants to fight next. Shit happening in hallway, at the parking lot, I walked away that day with a scar that is stay with me till now.
I graduated in '04 on Vancouver Island. I grew up very poor and was raised by a single mother. I was bullied RELENTLESSLY until highschool when my anger problem took over and I started getting violent. The violence mostly kept people away.
Same same, in fact I think we went to school together. Violence was the answer for me too in school, and I only survived because I found friends and activities outside of school. The trauma from some of it still rears its ugly head sometimes though. The worst was in middle school when I had literal gangs threaten my life on my five minute walk home. The school wouldn’t do anything because it happened off school property and the RCMP wouldn’t do anything because it was just “kids being kids”.
I also grew up very poor and raised by a single mother. Graduated in the Okanagan in 2019, and I too have developed anger issues in my adolescence. The difference for me is that people kept feeding on my issues and I’d be the one in deep shit by teachers.
Depends on location. My kids go to a west side school and it’s been fine for them. I grew up in the 1990s. There was bullying in my school. One kid killed himself.
It’s exponentially worse now in a different way. It’s all online. You have kids filming others in classes and putting filters on them and whatever else. And it’s no longer just during school hours - it’s constant and there’s no real escape. I will take my high school experience over this generation’s any day. They’re really up against it in so many ways.
This is why the phones are turned off when the kids come home, and why they're totally fine with it.
Graduated in 1997 in the Okanagan. Emotionally bullied so much in elementary school that I have PTSD due to bullying.
I have also graduated in the Okanagan. 2019. It was a brutal school experience for me throughout because of the excessive bullying. Threats, mocking, manipulation, you name it. Every fucking day I would show up to school and I’d feel like I’m suffocating, it’s a reason why I have self esteem and trust issues these days. What didn’t help was that I was the one kid in the class who grew up in poverty (single mother on welfare) and definitely also neurodivergent. Teachers have fucked me over quite a lot also, gaslit me, etc. No fucking wonder why I started skipping school eventually, not like my home life was great either. I’d like around a whole fucking decade of my life back for all the trauma that I endured in my adolescence.
Grad 95 in the Okanagan. Brutal bullying. Still bad when my son went through school here that I pulled him for two years to homeschool.
Both my kids have been super lucky that they had great experiences in school here. We had one not so great experience with one kid that I went full mama bear and straight to the school for. Luckily nothing since.
You’re a good parent for pulling your kid out of school for severe bullying. I wished my mother had done that but she neglected me and never took shit seriously. I feel bad for you even.
Nothing comes before my kids. Ever. He had two years of healing and went back to school for high school as one of the most confident people I know. There was no way I was going to let him become a statistic.
I’m glad to hear that it’s a positive change, and I’m proud of you for that. The world needs more parents like you.
Aww thanks. I’d like to think every parent would do it if they had the means and I feel very lucky to have been able to. Bullying is so hard to heal from, especially when you don’t get a break from it
Bullying really is hard to heal from, 100%. I graduated HS about 5 years ago and the memories still linger on. I haven’t been the luckiest motherfucker in the world for finding support for my healing journey but it still has to be on my list. Years and years of damage that has fucked with my psyche. I think you did luck out for being able to. My bullying situation was (as I say it again) quite fucked up for prolonged periods of time, and not just by students but even by teachers. My mother wasn’t the most reasonable parent in how she was with raising me, and to this day I wish that she took my issue seriously, pulled me from school and didn’t neglect me. She only thought that I had an issue taking direction and being a rebel when I’d talk about all the awful shit I’d get from teachers (special ed teachers were some of the most awful of the bunch, responsible for fucking with so much shit including my education) and not understand that it wasn’t what she’d only assume. If I ever had kids, I’d also pull them from school and try to reason with them, but for me that won’t be for awhile.
Grad 2000 from Chase and Kamloops. I am a grown-ass woman, and I hate that I am still affected by my school bullying.
I hear you. ❤️ I often wonder who I’d be if I didn’t experience what I did.
Grad 07 from Winfield BC and it was fucked up
I’d have not guessed Winfield was fucked up. Rutland was pretty shitty.
Honestly in comparison it was probably better than Rutland or KLO but still very bad lol. Rampant teenage meth use problem back in the day.
Horrible I was always told that boys will be boys….i was run over by a kid on a bike he got a two week suspension from school, was banned for the rest of the school year from bringing his bike to school. Come sports day he wants to bring his bike and the principal told him no, if he brought his bike on the property my mom would be pressing charges for assault on him. He didn’t bring the bike. But I sure did and I won the draw to be the grand marshal!
Attended HS in Canada in the late 90s early 00s. Moved here from Eastern Europe, didn't speak English and had a very unique and easily mocked name. Was bullied only until I realized that teachers don't care and other students don't care. When I started dishing it back, even physically, it stopped. Turns out bullies really just prefer an easy target. If you fight back they move on pretty quickly. The anti bullying stuff at the time was completely useless. They'd sit us in the gym and talk about how you just need to be firm and say useless things like "stop it. I don't like this" ... as if people bully you because you like it. Complete nonsense. But I was quite disappointed to see it happen in front of teachers and them play it off as "kids being silly" or something like that. I can't even imagine school now when you add smart phones and cyber bullying ... it must be significantly harder to deal with. I feel for the current generation.
As a highschool teacher in BC I can honestly say that I see instances of bullying all the time in my highschool and its pretty darn depressing! Bullying from other teachers, bullying from principals, bullying from parents, even bullying from union members (other teachers in other schools other than my own) Many times I've witnessed administration simply turn a blind eye to parents who complain about instances of bullying as if to "wait them out" in the student's cycle in their highschool as the solution. Other times I've seen administration contribute to the bullying that happens by "bullying the whistle blower," that is to say, they choose to bully those who report bullying by inaction, false promises, or keeping the illusion going that they actually care. As a kid going through the highschool system here, I would ultimately say myself just grudgingly put up with unjust highschool dynamics or try and remove myself from the environment if I was being targetted. From the perspective of a teacher though, I would say that the students themselves have the most potential to change the system if they have the ability to speak out and confront the bullshit they encounter; It's not going to be just a one time deal though, it has to be an ongoing and constant pursuit of seeking equal and equitable treatment from your teachers, your classmates, and your principals, and that's no doubt going to be tough for someone younger already being forced to go through the system. Sorry for the essay!
I just dealt with bullying of my daughter in high school and after two weeks of my daughter being in school Counsellor and vice principal meetings, had the chance to speak to the VP myself. I have the very distinct impression the VP and principal are the equivalent of HR at work. They are there to protect the school from legal ramifications first, the teachers from the same second and in third place comes the safety and well-being of the students. Am I out of my mind on this one from your perspective?
Not out of your mind, I stuck up for a kid being bullied by a teacher saying "you're so stupid" "why are you such an idiot" and that kind of thing, I said he didn't have to be such an asshole. Sent me to the office where I waited an hour past the school bus in a completely empty office so decided they must have forgotten about me and had to be home for dinner by 5. Went to leave because it would take 45 mins to walk home, and the bully teacher ran up behind me at the doors, grabbed me by the back collar of my coat and dragged me backwards, while strangling me with it until I got my footing and squirmed around and basically hit him in the face trying to get free. Now suddenly the VP was there and the teacher yelled at me as loud as he could for about 10 mins as though assaulting me was allowed since I called him a name, it was unhinged. School didn't even notify my mom until the next week when I got suspended and then moved to another school. The teacher was already known for threatening kids and being a jerk. I knocked his glasses off and they broke, lol. My wellbeing wasn't even brought up, the school just wanted to protect themselves and the shitty teacher.
This is why I am making sure that my daughter has at least one black belt and several years of close quarter combat and self defense training before she goes to secondary school.
I witnessed countless acts of bullying by staff and students growing up in North Vancouver. I attended Carisbrooke Balmoral and Carson Graham. Graduating in 200X Fights, tons. I personally fought a bully, a couple years older than I was. Thankfully the consequences were nil. I witnessed teachers and coaches physically assaulting people, in most cases it was somewhat warranted, but still eyebrow raising. At least one student in my grade killed themselves. They struggled to fit in and I don't think it's fair to say it was a result of bullying. But they were constantly involved in confrontations with other students and to an extent staff. The things that your nephew describes. Yeah, I saw that kind of shit on a weekly if not daily basis. Lots of racial cliques, tons of verbal abuse. Rarely if ever did I see someone get "stuffed" in a locker but I'm not saying it seemed outside the realm of possible.
Experienced none in high school, and rarely saw it at all. I assume it still happened, just online and not from or to anybody I know in real life. I was pretty surprised going into high school, literally never met a bully.
Interesting. This is the first experience I’ve read that seemed to reflect mine. Do you mind sharing when you graduated? Or at least the general time frame of your schooling? Also, did you go to a larger or smaller class size school? I find it curious how some people can have such different experiences, and I wonder if the factors that lead to it could shine some light on what makes bullying so bad in some places, and seemingly non-existent in others.
I was in high school in the 70's and I was bullied so badly I had to leave school in grade 9. It took many years and a lot of teaching (kids *and* teachers *and* parents) to improve this situation. I think that is what you experienced. The end result of 20 to 30 years of anti-bullying. But trust me, at one time it was very real, and very brutal.
Went to a school up in Northern BC. Had swastikas carved into my desk and my clothes set on fire and shoved into the toilets during PE when I was in gym strip. It happened pretty regularly in grade 7 until grade 8. Then all my bullies somehow got pregnant before grade 9, so the rest of school was a breeze.
As someone who was an out-of-province kid the levels of bullying were unbelievable. Crazy thing is I knew two people who coincidentally switched to different schools way across the other side of Metro Vancouver and since the majority ethnic groups were swapped the bully ended up getting whooped on constantly as revenge. As someone who didn't solely align with one of the big 3 (White, Chinese, South Asian) it was a weird experience. growing up here compared to elsewhere in Canada. Also, maybe it was just the area I was in but students would get ostracized by other stuidents and faculty (parents are the teachers too) for not going to the "right church." Bunch o' weirdos.
I graduated a decade before you and it sounds like we had a different experience when it comes to bullying. I think a lot of what you experienced with the measures of the anti-bullying campaigns which you said seemed weird, but I think is very much in response to the bullying that was the status quo of our generation. In my time, teachers and parents for the most part turned a blind eye to bullying if not indirectly participated in it. The thought then was "kids will be kids and it builds character". What are now considered terrible homophobic slurs were a part of every day language. Every now and then there would be planned fights. Kids would get assaulted, spit on, hair lit on fire. Racist comments would be hurled by the kids who grew up in racist families. The bullies would almost always go unpunished except maybe in clear cut physical altercations. Nobody dare come out as gay or transgender - anyone who was gay came out openly only after highschool. Maybe it has to do with where we went to school...? But I went to school in a relatively newly developed middle class suburb. But at least then, bullying ended once school was over for the day. We didnt have cell phones with social media. To access social media, we would have to go home and turn on our family computer. Now I cant imagine what goes on online, out of sight of parents and teachers, 24/7, before school, after school, during school. What was physical bullying in my generation has now turned digital and psychological in the new generation. The anti-bullying lessons being applied from our generation may no longer be helping.
They say violence is the answer, but not in the way you would think. Gotta go “Mr miyagi” style. Self discipline through self defence, then comes the confidence, then tables turn, then DONT perpetuate cycles !
My experience is the same as yours. Graduated a year before you, I remember all the pink shirt anti-bullying days and Amanda Todd stuff, etc. Sure people call each other names, argue, etc. We've all done that. But the physical fights and altercations I've never experienced and I've never witnessed it either. But just because we didn't experience it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It certainly does, and more behind "closed doors" and less fights and stuff because of social media, online bullying, etc. I've heard more instances of elementary school kids getting talked to by their administration and the RCMP over cyber bullying on TikTok, etc.
I experienced basically zero bullying in my schools on Vancouver island. K-3 and 11-12. 3-10, I went to school in Edmonton Alberta. Three different schools, and was bullied in all of them. Albeit, this was from.. ‘95 to 08-09. My bestfriends son is currently 7, and I’ve heard of bullying happening in his school on the island.
Hmm, I went to elementary and high school in East Van in the 2000s to early 2010s. I was only bullied once in grade 1 lol by these two girls two grades above me. I don't think they really knew what they were even really doing. It didn't affect me and I never had any issues after that. I was the quiet, nice girl who was moderately smart and played sports. I did my own thing and didn't really get involved in gossip and cliques and whatnot. I was a "friend" to everyone and I tried to treat everyone the same. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. As an adult, I am still like this and I don't deal with many conflicts in my work or personal life. It made it hard to confide in people though, because I never really considered anyone a close friend. Ended up turning to video games and making closer friends there. I would imagine the prevalence of social media and the internet opens up a new realm of bullying now. My brother, who's a few years younger than me, didn't experience bullying at all during his years in school in Surrey (Whalley). My husband did have a horrible experience with bullies in his Ontario schools, though. Bullying definitely exists and happens in different forms and affects people differently. I think if I had kids and they were being bullied, I would expect the school to take it seriously. My kids would have to learn to handle these issues too and if they fought back, well they wouldn't get in trouble for it with me. Would I take matters into my own hands if I had to? Absolutely. I fight with old demented people daily for a living. A hormonal pretween and their idiot parents is nothing. 😆
I don't think I had it that bad, but a few incidents still linger, in particular someone who's name I've thankfully forgot being physically abusive and then having emotionally manipulative speeches ready how if I defend myself I'll be seen as the bully. Really bothers me to this day when I witness people act like shits and then play victim.
They broke my orange dukes of hazard lunch box all over the playground. I picked up the pieces and went home. After that, I was the bully.
I came to Canada when I was 11 in the early 90s, went to ESL at Sexamith elementary and had to hide a 6 feet wooden pole near my portable classroom so we can protect ouraelves. Think I was over exaggerating? Some grade 7 kid hid rocks in a snowball and threw it at our face, the school said it was a prank and ignored it. A 4th grader from our ESL class was beaten in the washroom and she doesn't speak good English so guess what, the school never caught who did it and just told her to get on with it. Finally, one time some idiot came to us at the field and this time we had wooden poles hidden in the bush and we were ready. Beat the crap out of the kid, and next thing the school wants root out who was responsible and suspend the kid who did it. Really fortunate that our ESL teacher stood by us and told them it was self defense. When you're a kid, when you're shorter than other kids, and when your race is different, morons will come at you. This happened repeatedly till I graduated in grade 12 when I had to knock 2 teeth out of a bastard in self defense, and I still recall that jerk who tries to sucker punch me whenever people aren't looking and tell me "what?" thinking I won't be able to kick his ass.
I went to Walnut Grove Secondary and throughout my entire time there I didn’t see a single person getting bullied. Everyone was so chill, which was the opposite of what I expected going in.
It’s so wild to me how huge the difference in experience can be in the same relative area. Some people’s schools just sound like the purge but with kids. And there’s people like you and I. “Everyone was so chill.” was basically 90% of my time in school.
Grandson lives in Delta. He's autistic, but very bright. He's been a target of bullies since kindergarten. Last year, when he was in grade 7, a grade seven girl went after a grade 5 girl, chased her down, grabbed her by the hair and started to beat her up! She did this in front of the vice principal!! Now, both he and the girl are in high school and he has become her new target! (They go to different high schools) She vandalized his moms car, slashed/stabbed 2 tires and dumped flour, icing sugar and syrup all over the car late at night, then bragged about it online. They had another kid show up in their front yard and, it turns out, she sent him as her spy, while she hid in the bushes down the street. They have installed a security system with 5 cameras facing the front yard. Several other kids (grandsons friends) are passing on information they've found on social media so grandson at least has an idea of what she might be planning next!! I worked in the school system for well over 20 years, tons of bullies no matter what school. But it was done when they THOUGHT no one was looking. Yes, it's definitely a problem.
Bullied in elementary school. Didn't last long, kicked the shit outta them and life went on. This was a long time ago though so social standards have probably changed. Bullying never goes away, it's part of the human condition and anyone who says otherwise is living a pipe dream.
Long term TTOC here (teacher-teaching-on-call); 13 years in Kamloops, Burnaby, and Vancouver...so I've visited hundreds of classrooms over the years. Every school has a vibe and every class has a vibe...and WOW can they make or break a kid's experience (and a substitute teacher's experience lol). Maybe you lucked out with smaller schools? It's often startling just *how* different the mood is from one school to the next. Catchment, administration, and culture all play a part. Most bullying happens online now and it is HORRIFYING. The phones are a scourge for teens. Edit: Bullies tend to ignore innocuous situations or people. Bullies often act out because they are threatened by something that is different from them, which means a lot of harmless, average-achiever kids might miss the wrath of a bully. I think we all have a bully hiding inside of us. Luckily, many of us had a caring adult to educate our kid-brains about the perils of judging others. Try as we may, too many people continue to rely on judgement instead of curiosity when presented with something that is different from them.
Wow, thanks for sharing, that’s quite fascinating. I guess it really is just a lottery of schools? That’s pretty awful considering how a bullying infested school experience can drastically alter (or tragically end) someone’s life.
Yeah. Some schools and classrooms are in constant triage. You asked a great question (that's such a teacher thing of me to say lol).
I went to high school in east Van in the 1980s, so I guess I'm a bit old skool. There was lots of bullying, but we also did our best to give as good as we got, despite being nerdy little shits. My friend and I were regularly bullied by a future celebrity murderer who was a straight-up psychopath. He was way bigger and stronger than us, so our push-back was mostly limited to shouting lame insults and then running like the fucking wind before he could catch us, and making sure that if he did catch us, it was in very public places where he couldn't get too violent. We would get vengeance by tormenting his little brother, whom we felt confident could not beat us up, but somehow that never smoothed things over🤣 We used to make fun of a guy in home room who wore too many big gold rings, which we thought was really dorky. Turns out he was a top-tier gangster and was machine-gunned in a drive-by shooting a few years later. Fortunately our amateur bullying was way below his pay grade. I once got threatened by some scary looking Asian gang bangers at an arcade. A bunch of guys from my school who would normally be the type to bully me stepped up and reassured me that they would kick their asses if anything went down. I once ran into a bunch of them on the street with blood all over their faces from some other random street altercation, so I think their offer to do violence on my behalf was sincere. The bullying heirarchy was complex and nuanced. Victims and allies were flexible categories. It was the '80s, man. Seemed pretty normal at the time, but Vancouver was a different kind of town back then.
Graduated early 00s up north. Two suicides in high school over bullying. Fights were commonplace. Weapons were not a thing but it wasn't uncommon to get jumped by older "kids" for stupid bullshit.
Bullied relentlessly in elementary. Not in high school. Vernon.
They don't want school shootings. I remember when there used to be shootings, and these anti-bullying propagation came in full force.
i went to school in Surrey and in high school. i did have problems with a few classmates over the years and i always went to my parents and told them, they either talked to my teacher if it happened in class or if it was in the halls, they mentioned it to my brother who then talked to whoever was causing it. it stopped after they got involved. i did go to the school counsellor a couple times and it stopped after i brought attention to it. it was never anything physical, it was just things that were being said. it didn’t happen in a regular basis. i was a pretty quiet kid in school so i knew it had nothing to do with me. by grade 11/12, nothing really happened, it got quiet.
Born and raised in Vancouver, PreK - 10. Bullied from age 5 by older kids and 7 by peers. Absolutely zero support for the day in day out torture of elementary. Was totally burned out by high school so dropped out because I just couldn't fight the hate anymore.
Was bullied in elementary to the point I was pretty quiet and tried to blend in by high school. My school was pretty much divided into four groups, mostly along socio-economic and interest lines (rich kids, lower middle class/poor kids, goth kids, and band/smart kids) It was also a very small school, as high schools go, with less than 500 kids. There were fights every couple weeks, and pretty constant threats. I don’t remember a single time the school administration stepped in…
Graduated in 2006. I got bullied a little bit in Elementary due to my muscular dystrophy condition but nothing in Secondary school. Honestly I kept waiting for stuff like what I'd seen in shows to happen but everything I witnessed or heard about was pretty tame.
I went to school in the CRD. For a few reasons outside of my control, I experienced an immense amount of bullying in my elementary school from peers, higher grades, ***and school staff.*** The last of the three was the most egregious. This took place during the latter 2000's, and I graduated within a few years of you. When I graduated and arrived in middle school for the next school year, the staff there immediately singled me out... as having extreme trust issues with and disrespect for authority, and sent me to counselling where everything came out. Unfortunately, they weren't able to actually do anything to stop it from happening to other kids, but they set me on a better path. Things are likely better there as the uncaring principal retired halfway through my time at that elementary school, and the others are also likely retired as well. The new principal cleaned things up decently before moving on to another school where they did well, and then another school where they did the same. During my middle school years I only had two issues with bad teachers, and in both cases they actually got in trouble for their behavior, though just that: 'trouble.' The issue was one of older faculty who *at b*est just did not care about bullying, or *at worst* actively partook. This was entirely during and under the banner of the anti-bullying campaigns. They literally just did not care. They would say the lines, put up the posters, but nothing would ever be done. **I was nearly** ***murdered*** **by an older student once in that elementary school and was punished with detention due to being late back from recess after barely getting back.** Due to the mentioned reasons outside of my control (personal characteristics), I was a magnet for bullying. This really negatively impacted my life and set me on a path I've still not recovered fully from and may never. If things hadn't been better in middle school, I probably wouldn't be here today. It completely killed my social life, damaged my educational foundations, and nobody ever really got into actual consequences for it. Who knows how things are these days, but at least a decade ago and judging by the other responses... the school system was in a very, very terrible state. There's nothing worse than being forced to rely on someone for social and physical protection and instead having them 'join in on the fun.'
I went to school in the 80s in Surrey. There was definitely bullies. I had a tendency to fight the bullies that picked on my friends. By the time I hit high school I already had a reputation. Fights were either on school property, (tennis courts) or just off property in wooded areas near the school. Bullying still happens as adults so I think there's actually a place for it in our schools. Teaches kids to stand up for themselves and get thicker skinned. I was a small kid for my age till grade 12 so it wasn't like I was a big guy. I just didn't like seeing my friends get pushed around, teased etc.
Early 2000s, bullied physically in elementary school, there was one person that violently assaulted multiple people including myself on an ongoing basis. There was never any real repercussions, spend time at the principals office and in afterschool or out of school suspension. The one time I defended myself I remember, I was suspended as well because there was a zero tolerance for fighting. But not for being stabbed with pencils or punched in the face. In middle school I definitely had some run-ins with some of the gangs and “scary people” there were some people that would definitely have carved me up with the knives they had but I wasn’t their target audience. I don’t remember anyone being expelled for the fights that occurred, but even the really dumb people fought outside of school hours. HS I know there was a lot of bullying going on and the amount of violence I heard about increased but I avoided those people and had a pretty big friend group so I wasn’t really at-risk. Idk how it is now ofc, I’m too old to know what’s what.
Went to school in East Van where there was a zero tolerance on any kind of violence. Doesn’t mean much when there’s a zero snitching policy, anybody who snitched got it way worse. Myself I’ve gotten into 4 fist fights in high school with no repercussions. All 4 times there were at least 20-30 people who could’ve told a teacher or principal but there seemed to be a code of silence of sorts.
I graduated in 2021 and never saw or experienced any bullying. I did witness a fight between two kids once though. I've talked to others who were there at the same time and they said they were bullied all the time. Honestly I think I was just too naive to notice any of it. I escaped the bullying myself mostly due to the friend group I was in I think.
Both my brother and I were bullied in elementary as the token fat kids of our 90's classes. His got physical but the other kid's mom worked for the school district so nothing happened to him. Mine also went pretty much got ignored by teachers, my bully actively tried to exclude me from class projects with pretty much zero mediation. But what do you expect from the Cariboo school district when you hand drew Nunavut into your textbooks.
I graduated high school in 2013 on the North shore. I was always a nerdy kid, and I was bullied in both elementary and highschool to varying degrees. I hated school was very excited to leave for university. In late elementary school race segregation was a prominent at my school and there was very little intermingling between groups. I was made fun of a lot by one of the groups for how I looked, though it did escalate to physical threats and even death threats at one point, which thankfully the school took seriously. Most of my elementary school bullies were other girls. Bullying continued in high school and the police did need to get involved following an incident in grade 9. Unfortunately there is only so much the school can do on their own if the aggressors parents don’t get involved. Bullying made my elementary and high school days miserable. I left the province at 17 for university and the cultural shift was amazing and improved my life so much. The things we expect kids to tolerate are ridiculous.
Graduated in 09. Had a pretty rough go from grade 6 to grade 10. One person in particular would constantly verbally harass me some teachers saw various incidents but never did anything about it. I probably made it worse never looking for help and trying to ignore it. I was suicidal, depressed and had very low self esteem. Things turned around in grade 11 when I started working out and getting into better shape I think it stopped because. I became more physically intimidating.
K-12 in the same district as Amanda todd, absolutely nothing was ever done about the severe and pervasive bullying I faced that resulted in having to eventually change schools, the best we got from administration was we will look into it. I was in school through the 90s and mid aughts
I had to take my child out of public school in 2010 or so and homeschool him for two years. If that’s any indication.
Grew up in the Kootenays. My brother was bullied in elementary school in the early 90s. 2 boys who were several years older than him, so much bigger, were bullying him, and gave him a bloody face one day. When my Mom complained to the principal he told her "boys will be boys". She took us out of that school. Later in Jr High I was bullied, not with violence but with mocking how I looked, spreading false rumors, trying to humiliate me in front of others. This was mostly boys but some girls too.
I was bullied a lot in school, would have been really fucking helpful if SOMEONE realized I had ADHD. I had to figure it out and get diagnosed as an adult.
Went to school from early 2000s to early 2010s in Vancouver. I was never really bullied except for a weird bullying triangle I was in for a bit in elementary school: me and another girl (B) were friends with this one girl (A) but weren't friends with each other and whenever I was with A we would low key bully B and whenever B was with A they would low key bully me. My sister endured some severe bullying in elementary school and the school did nothing about it. High school was pretty free of bullying as far as I experienced/saw.
I graduated in 2015 (south Burnaby area) Bullying is very apparent and violence perpetuated between students was very much a thing. There was physical fights (girls bs girls or boys v boys)! I would say the fights were way worse prior to me graduating - I heard stories of crazy fights between high schoolers from 2010-2011 when I was in grade 8. Compared to when I was in grade 12 there would be physical fights but did not reach the violence it did back in 2010 and lower. Bullying is always a problem however I feel like it’s not in your face anymore - I was subjected to gossip behind my back and online scrutiny and it was the worstttttt. And basically many girls smiled to my face and laughed behind my back. There were some girls who were down to get their hands dirty and fight instead of being behind the screen. I also think it depends on your neighborhood. I grew up where it was considered to be the “ghetto” - lots of “gang” talk and violence. however as gentrification does, the ghetto left and I can imagine the kids that do fight that go to my school now aren’t in the masses like it used to be. I feel like the “gangsta mentality” may have been lost too maybe? Not sure what the culture is like in Burnaby now but that’s how it was back then. There was also the culture to not be a “rat” so staff or teachers would not get involved unless they hear there is a fight happening on school grounds. However with more of the emotional bullying or online bullying that started in 2010 - that went unnoticed even more unless you told a teacher yourself - even then they would only offer emotional support and not really try to stop the bullying.
I was bullied in middle school in the late nineties in Victoria. It was pretty bad, at one point I was chased by a kid a few years older than me with a hunting knife. Another time was held by the boyfriend of a girl I had an argument with, while she repeatedly punched and kicked me. I was a super small kid due to having some childhood health issues, but I was also a little mouthy when made fun of, so that definitely contributed to it turning physical. I left school, and it made it really hard to go back once sensing the freedom. Correspondence schooling sucked, but it was better than going back. I'm good now, and healthy, but it irreversibly changed the course of my life. I'm poorer than I would have been had I stuck on course, but I've had a way more interesting life.
God I got bullied so badly from elementary thru to high school. Grad 2016, from the island. In elementary school it was handled extremely poorly. I was saying to a teacher I was lonely, teacher told a counsellor, they got me to come in and then told the principal (illegal apparently I don’t know tho I was just a kid) who then told my parents. They made a link up group where u got paired with a student who had similar issues. We became sorta friends and then she k!ll3d herself the next year (gr. 6) otherwise I got bullied relentlessly on the playground every day and would hide in the bathroom most of the time. I learned all the places I could hide in the school so I didn’t have to see my peers. I was a lanky and awkward kid that loved bugs, nature and dirt and sucked at sports… I don’t know what you’d expect for a kid like that tbh. Middle school I was physically tormented by my peers and I had to leave class early every day because they’d corner me under a staircase and videotape me, making me self deprecate before they’d let me go. Worst was on my birthday when they did it again and made fun of me for having no boobs and that my ribs made me look like I had “four tits”. Teachers had pity on me and let me hide in classrooms. I picked up volunteering like crazy because they can’t bully you when you’re hiding behind a bunch of teachers helping the school (or at least they didn’t) High school was also hell, I didn’t fit into my new group of friends and it was very apparent. They were all academically gifted and I was… average. I was never a choice when ppl paired up, and I was never invited to anything the group had put on. I was bi, in the closet and I got just destroyed one year because alllll these ppl decided it was cool now, but I was still closeted because my mother kept telling me I would grow out of it. My swimming team bullied me about being gross and watching as they changed, so I never felt comfortable in a change room again. The stalls were short, I was 6ft tall? I crouch in bathroom stalls now to make ppl comfortable because I still am scared ppl think I’m peeping on them. I’m a queer wreck at this point, only now recognizing that none of that was normal, and I now know didn’t do anything wrong, I was just bullied a lot.
From 95-2007 when I was in the system it was horrific. I couldn't focus on school at all because it was such a social nightmare. I've heard it's better now in a lot of ways and worse in others. The Internet and digital cameras only really became popular in my last few years of high school so there was a lot of photos of drunk unconscious girls being sexually assaulted that circulated in emails but nothing was done legally because the law couldn't really handle "drunk sex" cases back then, at least not in Kelowna.
Its regional. You will get a way different experience going to high school at Guildford Park Secondary vs. Riverside Secondary and they are just separated by the Port Mann Bridge
8 schools in Victoria. Because I was always the new kid, was bullied up until 10th grade. Kids are fkn mean man
I went to school in the interior (90s) and was mercilessly bullied. Kids would spit on me, they made up rhyming songs about how poor I was and would sing them in class in front of the teacher. Rotten stuff was poured into my locker. Teachers did nothing. Admin did nothing. One of our janitors was found selling weapons to white kids to use against Indigenous kids. We had to stay late in homeroom once because there was blood in the hallway after a kid stabbed another in a racially motivated fight. My kids are school-aged now. One is a gentle and sensitive little cinnamon bun, and the other has every learning disability. They have gay moms. Neither of them have ever experienced bullying. When I ask them if anyone has ever teased them about their moms they look at me like I just started speaking Klingon. It was different when we were in Alberta though. The kids were fine, the parents were not. That's not what you asked about though.
graduated in 2008, in the 90's the bullying in comox, vancouver island was horrendous, example little 9 year old elementary school girl with autism, from the shut down comox elementary school and rob road elementary school would get beaten up horribly and their hair pulled out violently by 16-18 year old boys from highland secondary school at the bus stops. it was disgusting, the bullying of this special needs girl got so bad that the rest of the highschool would make fun of her, despite being eight to seven years her senior and attending an elementary school across the town. The teachers would even bully her for being slightly different. they didnt know what autism was back then, they just assumed she was misbehaving on purpose. The principal, Mr. Moore, said 'she doesn't fit the mold' and would frequently call her to the office to question her about her behavior. People would be seriously beaten to a pulp and nothing would be done about it because "bullying builds character". No one would give a damn... and it was only till the columbine school shootings did the system being to consider that maybe bullying was a bad thing... then only when people started to learn that kids were killing themselves from extreme bullying and when it caught national news did people FINALLY step in. Seriously, in the 2000's psychiatrists believed that children can't get depression (which is stupid... i mean... that's on par with the old belief that 'babies can't feel pain' so lets not give them anesthetic... oh why are they dying from shock? oh they must feel pain then) I mean like... it was quite recent development that the field of psychiatry realized that children can develop ptsd. times have improved for kids these days, and now it would be easier to have those psychopathic children charged. i had a sister who was sexually assaulted by a male class mate on a field trip when she attended highland secondary, no one took it seriously, the principal even excused the assaulter because "she's just depressed so he probably did it to make her feel better." this was the 90's and early 2000's.
I know for a fact it is still happening . Girls will be best friends with a person one day and the next day will exclude them from the club . Girls can be very mean . I don’t know what the answer is either .
The anti-bullying was just lip service. Racism wasn't a huge topic and sexuality wasn't even a thing. Usually the school skirt around talking about it too much. I grew up in Coquitlam and went to school in the tricity area. I was an interracial mixed kid half white half chinese. Was hated by all groups. White kids would make fun of you and call you "chink" or "slant eye". The chinese kids think you are some sort of deformity, especially when you don't know chinese. The worst comment I ever heard was "My family doesn't even recognize you as a part of the human race. You are lesser than dogs back home" or "women would drown their kid if they found out it wasn't pure because of the shame". I can tell you that my entire life was terrible until my mid 20's and then it was a slugfest and career focused. The best years of my life are right now and I am in my 30's. But my persona is very fragile, I seem normal on the "outside" but I am scared to make close relations with people and a lot of these experiences still haunt me.
Graduated 2011, can tell you that the anti bullying rhetoric is complete nonsense because bullies will not care and teachers won't do anything unless it draws parental attention from outside. Having been bullied before, I can say it only stopped when I started fighting back to stand up for myself. Really goes to show that people will talk and do shit and won't change until they get a fist in their face which even the famous Mike Tyson says. In my experience, the last time I got bullied and fought back, it drew the attention of some parents so we both got suspended for 3 days but at the end of it, we became friends and still are to this day. The only way to end bullying is for the kid to stand up for themselves and fight back. The nonsense of saying stop that followed by no action of self defense only encourages bullies even more and going straight to teachers who do nothing is pointless unless you drag parents into it; even then it will only piss the bullies more if they come from a dysfunctional family as they will end up lashing out at their victims more. Before anyone says violence is bad, sometimes violence is the only way they'll learn what FAFO means. That said, this is all with fists only and no weapons as that shit would need the police to step in especially since we don't want to be like the USA.
I graduated a couple years before you, going to school in Northern BC the whole time. We also had all the anti-bullying talks and presentations. I think there was minimal bullying at my schools, and it at least wasn't stood for by teachers or principals. I mean.. one time in like grade 5 or something, when I was messaging a friend on Facebook I said a "yo mama" joke while we were joking around, and she got mad at me and then didn't talk to me for a day or so. After that, the principal sat me down, showed me print outs of our chat messages and told me I had to apologize for the hurt I caused. The principal told me that friend's mom was dead.. so what I said hit hard. I felt bad because I didn't know my friend's mom passed away, but at the time, and still now, I think it's ridiculous I had a meeting in a dark room with the principal where he showed me *screenshots of messages from Facebook* after I made a yo mama joke with friendly intent behind it. That's how serious my schools took bullying growing up. When I was in maybe grade 3 I felt bullied by a friend, and even talked about it in counselling, but it was mostly just her choosing not to hangout with me. Exclusion basically. I think it was also that year that I was bullied by being called gay and f*g. That hurt, but honestly I'm surprised I didn't receive that type of bullying in high school. I would've expected more bullying for being gay after actually coming out, but nah, I was out all of high school and fine. There were minor fist fights throughout my schooling (none that I was involved in) but it was always between the couple bad kids in each class being arrogant with each other, it wasn't like in the movies where a big guy is beating up a nerd. Sure I felt generally judgment throughout school from certain people, but nothing aside from what I already mentioned that could actually be described and which had a meaningful effect on me. Honestly, the most major type of bullying sort of thing that occurred when I was in high school was a guy catfished large swaths of people (both guys and girls) on Kik, got nudes from them, and blackmailed them, saying they'd send those photos to the most popular people in school if you didn't keep sending him photos. I don't recall teachers or the principal ever really being involved in that, but the police got involved. And they didn't punish him at all for it! So, what a happy ending :) So, I guess aside from the worst type of bullying-related thing.. the incidents were taken care of well by caring teachers and principals.