>>I'm not sure about turning me into a victim (I was already), but I believe that they really and truly thought that if I "ignored" them, they'd go away. <<
Ignoring the bully has about a 3% chance of success. The most successful tactic against bullies, hiring a lawyer, has a dismal 16% chance of success. In light of there being no effective solutions from the victim's level, no wonder all the advice is bad. NONE of it works.
The best way to stop bullying if from above. If someone with more power physically separates the bully from the victim, imposes sanctions, and if necessary ousts the bully from the group then that is effective.
>>I'm also fairly certain that a lot of this comes from teachers and staff not wanting to have to sort out who did what when there are conflicting stories.<<
Of course.
>>Of course, having enough people to actually *supervise* the kids at recess (and *doing* so!) would eliminate that problem.<<
The best ratio is around 10 or 12 students to one teacher. Plenty of interaction and not much room to make trouble. Also, you rarely have more than one troublemaker in a group. With 35 kids you have 3 or 4.
>> Maybe video surveillance (with audio!) might help. But then you have to regulate how long the recordings can be kept. And what *else* can be done with them.<<
Not in this society. Police cameras are supposed to do that, but they are overwhelmingly used against citizens. Come on, we have video of police slowly strangling a man to death with an illegal technique in broad daylight in front of a crowd, and it was ruled perfectly okay. In a fundamentally unjust society, cameras are useless. They only help when it's widely considered wrong to hurt people -- and then you don't really need them.
Re: Well ...
Ignoring the bully has about a 3% chance of success. The most successful tactic against bullies, hiring a lawyer, has a dismal 16% chance of success. In light of there being no effective solutions from the victim's level, no wonder all the advice is bad. NONE of it works.
The best way to stop bullying if from above. If someone with more power physically separates the bully from the victim, imposes sanctions, and if necessary ousts the bully from the group then that is effective.
>>I'm also fairly certain that a lot of this comes from teachers and staff not wanting to have to sort out who did what when there are conflicting stories.<<
Of course.
>>Of course, having enough people to actually *supervise* the kids at recess (and *doing* so!) would eliminate that problem.<<
The best ratio is around 10 or 12 students to one teacher. Plenty of interaction and not much room to make trouble. Also, you rarely have more than one troublemaker in a group. With 35 kids you have 3 or 4.
>> Maybe video surveillance (with audio!) might help. But then you have to regulate how long the recordings can be kept. And what *else* can be done with them.<<
Not in this society. Police cameras are supposed to do that, but they are overwhelmingly used against citizens. Come on, we have video of police slowly strangling a man to death with an illegal technique in broad daylight in front of a crowd, and it was ruled perfectly okay. In a fundamentally unjust society, cameras are useless. They only help when it's widely considered wrong to hurt people -- and then you don't really need them.