Another voice weighs in on the recent Parma story . Dont know whether this Letter saw print : Subject: Letter to the Editor---Bullying This letter is in response to the article Parma schools still investigating bullying incident; substitute placed on unpaid leave. cleveland/parma/index.ssf/2014/03/school_district_still_investig.html In a word: Nauseating. So to five Parma Senior High School students {and a substitute teacher?} a fellow student with a developmental disability was the perfect victim to take out your {family-induced dysfunctional} frustrations on just so you could make yourselves feel tough and superior to another human being. Lets hope you end up with a criminal record handed down by a juvenile court so you can spend the rest of your lives explaining this to future employers who may not look so kindly on such aberrant behavior. Better yet perhaps you should be expelled and see how good of a job you can find without a high school diploma. And now to the issue at hand: I can recall various times in my life when I experienced bullying first hand. It never really bothered me until I began to worry about the next episode. It was the anxiety formed by the anticipation of it that created the real fear. In retrospect I think some of it was nothing more than someone trying to get my attention perhaps to form a friendship. But there were times when I remember going to school and feeling absolutely terrified of what was about to befall me that day. It was in the eighth grade when the anxiety began to consume me to the point of not being able to eat, sleep or enjoy everyday things. That was the year a new federal program initiative rolled out; it was called the focus group. The purpose was to re-enter juvenile malcontents into the general population of students. Needless to say they wreaked havoc on the students by bullying and starting fights with them. They were also instrumental in disrupting class. Unfortunately for me my locker was assigned next to one of them who resembled {in looks, words and actions} none other than Charles Manson himself. The dude was just plumb crazy {or at least emotionally disturbed}. He also sat in front of me during most classes so I spent more time worrying about what he was going to do to me than trying to learn the subject matter. We scuffled once during gym class but when the teacher broke us up he blamed me for the incident. There were other students as well who began to pick on me when they recognized my vulnerability. Finally, after having watched {and grown tired of} my whimpering and weeping my Father decided it was time to teach me how to defend myself. Every night after school we would go down to the basement and practice three boxing moves; the left jab, left hook and right cross. I was not allowed by my Father to use these techniques until he was convinced that once a fight started it would end quickly {hopefully with me as the victor}. Until then he trained me to develop a certain mental toughness so as to ignore those who were just kidding around compared to those who had malicious intent. I engaged in eight fights during the second semester, was suspended for three days and broke one knuckle. Nobody ever bullied me again. Fortunately for my chief antagonist he was expelled so we never did have that super fight. I would have leveled him. My troubles continued in high school though when the second focus group initiative allowed for a eighteen year old drug dealer to be admitted into the freshman class. He too did everything he could to intimidate me but this time I was ready. Unbeknownst to me my Father called the school principal before the start of class one day and told him I have directed my son to seek out and annihilate this worthless slime ball before he has the chance to do the same to him. Evidently the dude was causing problems in other places as well and was expelled before we could have fought. I would have leveled him too. Bullying is one of the most demeaning things one person can do to another. It is as though the perpetrator has so much disdain for another human being they just have to act out on them in one form or another. Where does this inner hate come from? What is accomplished by disrupting someone elses life {sometimes permanently}? Perhaps one solution is the reality show called Bully Beatdown whereby a bully is paid $10,000 cash if they can defeat the victims proxy in what appears to be a ultimate fighting championship type venue. As expected the bully talks tough until they realize what they got themselves into. The proxy usually makes quick work of them and the money is then awarded to the victim followed by an apology from the bully. This would make for a great fund raiser for schools {given all the budget cuts} and perhaps restore order to a place that is supposed to be reserved for learning. Sometimes some of the greatest lessons in life can only be learned the hard way. To the victims out there across the country; I got your back. To the bullies get out of our face or someday we will level you too. Joe Bialek Cleveland, OH
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 13:27:52 +0000