Bullying The Bully Into Submission

(During my first year of senior school there is a girl that doesn’t like me. She does things like hide my bag, take the band out of my hair, etc… Some teachers are good about it and punish her, but most tell me to ‘ignore her and she’ll stop.’ When we start school the next year my former head of year is with us again. He has been useless at sorting problems out and knows the situation with me. He is giving a talk about bullying and asks if there were any questions.)

Me: “What do you count as bullying?”

Teacher: “Anyone who hurts or upsets another pupil physically, emotionally, or verbally.”

Me: “And how will the bully be punished?”

Teacher: “That depends on the situation.”

(He tries to carry on the assembly but I’m not letting him off that easily.)

Me: “Let’s say, for example, someone did things like pull my hair, take my stuff, hide my books—”

(The girl starts crying but I just talked louder.)

Me: “—what if, for example, she wasn’t allowed to go to the toilet on her own during P.E because she would move my bag and uniform. If I told a teacher would she get in trouble and be punished?”

(The teacher glares at me, knowing full well what I am doing but also knowing that he didn’t do anything to help me last year.)

Teacher: “Of course. Anyone who bullies will be punished.”

(The girl is still crying, quite loudly now.)

Me: “By every teacher? No matter how many times she did it?”

Teacher: “Yes.”

Me: “I don’t suppose it’ll be a problem now though.”

(Neither the girl nor that teacher spoke to me for the whole year. Lots of other teachers and pupils thought what I had done was brilliant though!)