After my son made his comment about bringing his “nines” to school (in reference to his basketball shoes), his two tormentors gleefully started yelling, “Andrew said he’s going to bring a Glock 9 to school!”
The teacher, notwithstanding the fact that she knew full well that these two miscreants taunted my son relentlessly every day, told the boys to go to the principal’s office and report the incident. And, of course, they did so with great enthusiasm.
My son was immediately called to the office and questioned by the principal, “Mr. Bershitske.” As I said in my article “The Principle / Principal Problem,” Mr. Bershitske bore a remarkable physical resemblance to Adolf Eichmann – but with a much worse demeanor. The man gave new meaning to the word cruelty.
Predictably, Mr. Bershitske said he didn’t believe my son’s story, and subsequently searched his locker. Surprise! Only books and bubble gum … not even a box of ammo or, at least, a bayonet. Nevertheless, Eichmann’s reincarnation called the police. Makes perfect sense to me. After all, my son had been accused by none other than two of the most notorious bullies in the school.
While driving on the freeway, I received a call saying that my son had threatened to bring a gun to school and that the principal had called the police. I knew without hearing any of the details that it was vintage school B.S., but, even so, my heart dropped to my toes.
(When I use the term “vintage school B.S.,” I’m talking about the kind of distractions that go on nonstop in every school in the country and interfere with what the students should be doing: getting an education. One of the main reasons that home-schooled kids do so much better academically is that they don’t have to put up with this kind of teacher-inspired nonsense and can focus on learning.)
When I arrived at the school, my son was in Mr. Bershitske’s office, as was a policeman. I sat down and asked Andrew to tell me what had happened. As he started to explain, the officer stunned me by interrupting him with, “Why don’t you cut the crap? You know you’re lying.”
Have you ever kept quiet in a situation where you instinctively knew you should speak up, then kicked yourself later for not doing so? I will never forgive myself for not telling the policeman that he was out of line, that he had no evidence whatsoever that justified accusing my son of lying.
Eventually, the policeman left and the meeting was disbanded. More waste of taxpayer money and another scar on another child. Business as usual in a typical American school.
But that wasn’t the end. When my son got home after school, he told me that when he went back to the classroom, the kids were just filing out, and the two jokers who had set him up were laughing hilariously about the incident. They further taunted him by chanting the words to a rap “song” they’d cleverly come up with about his getting in trouble for a Glock 9 that he didn’t even know anything about.
I could have escalated the matter by filing a complaint against the out-of-line officer with the police department, and perhaps suing the school,. But I knew that the time and money involved would be enormous, and that the chances of anything good coming out of it were almost nil. So, as millions of other folks have done in similar situations, my wife and I simply removed our son from that particular bully safe haven at the end of the year.
As I have emphasized in earlier Cho Factor articles, some children can handle abuse from teachers and fellow students better than others. Every child is different. But what all bully victims learn is what every adult knows all too well: The world is not fair.
Criminals go free, and many even end up in government. If the meek inherit the earth, they probably deserve it, because what they have to go through day in and day out in their school years is nothing short of a living hell.
S.B., you asked for advice, but, unfortunately, I don’t have the advice you’d most like to hear: how to bring your son back. All I can tell you is that you should be grateful to God for the years you had with him. If he considered you to be his best friend, you had something special that the majority of fathers never experience.
As I said in my recent article “When Desires Collide With Reality,” when John Travolta’s son died, it was yet another reminder of one of life’s harshest realities – that no one, no matter how rich or famous, escapes the tragedies inherent in human existence.
Yes, I’m concerned about the next Cho who takes out his torment on his fellow students. But, as I have repeatedly said in other Cho Factor articles, I’m even more concerned about the millions of kids who are scarred for life as a result of school injustices – children who suffer quietly as the bullies laugh at how easily they are able to get away with their cruel, smart-aleck antics.
Even more, I am concerned about the many others – like S.B.’s son – who don’t even make it through school alive.
Guess our national leaders didn’t expect this, hmm? On Thursday, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful.
They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert. These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying out in the wilderness. Following is a portion of the transcript:
After my son made his comment about bringing his “nines” to school (in reference to his basketball shoes), his two tormentors gleefully started yelling, “Andrew said he’s going to bring a Glock 9 to school!”
The teacher, notwithstanding the fact that she knew full well that these two miscreants taunted my son relentlessly every day, told the boys to go to the principal’s office and report the incident. And, of course, they did so with great enthusiasm. Read Full Article
I recently received this disturbing e-mail from a reader:
My 16-year-old son hung himself 90 days ago because the school principal threatened him for violating a rule he didn’t break, said that “the cops are getting involved,” that “this is gonna be big,” etc. – a lot of threats.
I had to pick him up and take him home, then had to go back to work. My son hung himself four hours later, before I came home. I cut him down and started CPR before help arrived.
Now, the school says they have no records of that day and won’t produce them. Tox screening showed no use of drugs or alcohol, yet the school has led people to believe the incident was drug related.
My lawyer doubts we can do anything. What should I do? My son and I were best friends, and he even mentioned that in the note he left. Please offer me some advice on how to deal with this. – S.B.
S.B., your story not only saddened me, it brought back old memories and made me see red. I am all too familiar with this kind of terror being wreaked upon students by teachers and principals. While I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of the facts in your case, based on my own experience, I would be inclined to believe your son’s side of the story without even having known him.
While pundits and politicians continue to brainwash the public with blather about how heroic “our” teachers are, I stand firm with John Stossel on the subject: Both teachers’ unions and public schools should be abolished. They are the biggest terrorist threat in America, because they harm children every single day.
While there are certainly teachers who are both well-educated and well-meaning -and who make a sincere effort to help, rather than hurt, children – they are most decidedly in the minority.
Over the years, I’ve received many e-mails from teachers and ex-teachers who have a genuine loathing for the National Education Association (NEA) – which is, in reality, nothing more than a professional lobbying organization for teachers who ruin the lives of millions of children. Their motto should be “No Child Left Unscarred.”
As to principals, I have clearly expressed my views on their ilk in previous articles, particularly in my article “The School Principle/Principal Problem” (The Cho Factor, Part XV). As I said in that article, I had many meetings with principals over the years with regard to bullying and other outrageous behavior by teachers, and, without exception, they tenaciously defended the teachers in question.
In a perfect world, every school board would make it clear to the principal that he works for, and is answerable to, the parents of his students. In other words, the principal would understand that he is not there to defend the teachers. But with the professional vote-buyers who are now at the controls in Washington, bad teachers, bad principals, and bad schools are certain to remain untouchable for a long time to come.
S.B.’s story resonated strongly with me because of a similar incident that occurred when my son was in middle school. He has a particular kind of “learning issue” that made him vulnerable to both student and teacher bullies. (This is a sensitive subject, so I want to guard my words carefully. You’ll have to do some reading between the lines.)
My son had the “misfortune” of being the kind of kid who was, and still is, exceptionally kind and nice to everyone, very well mannered, and always anxious to please. His gullibility and naiveté, along with being one of the smallest kids in his class, made him a delectable target for bullies – of both the student and teacher varieties.
There were a number of eminently bad kids who teased and bullied my son day in and day out. And why not? They never got punished for it! If there are no consequences to a bully’s actions, the message is clear: “The victim is fair game.”
On this particular day, two of the punks who constantly gave my son grief, knowing how much pride he took in his basketball skills, started taunting him about how they could beat him in basketball. As usual, they wouldn’t let up, and, as usual, he took the bait and exchanged words with them. It’s not easy to teach a twelve-year-old to ignore obnoxious kids who are trying to provoke you.
At one point in the back-and-forth gibberish, my son pointed to his shoes and said, “I’ll bring my nines to school tomorrow, and we’ll see how good you are.” (Note: He wore size 9 basketball shoes.) What happened from that point on was like something out of an NEA training film, the kind of thing that has resulted in many students ending up like S.B.’s son … and has brought out the worst in disturbed young people like Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho.
The rest of the story continues in Part XXXIV of this article …
I recently received this disturbing e-mail from a reader:
My 16-year-old son hung himself 90 days ago because the school principal threatened him for violating a rule he didn’t break, said that “the cops are getting involved,” that “this is gonna be big,” etc. – a lot of threats.
I had to pick him up and take him home, then had to go back to work. My son hung himself four hours later, before I came home. I cut him down and started CPR before help arrived. Read Full Article
So, what is the insidious two-headed snake that plays havoc with our children’s lives throughout their school years? I am referring to none other than (1) the government and (2) the National Education Association (NEA).
One time, loud and clear: The government should get out of the education business, and the NEA, arguably the most coercive and intimidating organization lobbying our shameless lawmakers in Washington, should be outlawed. These two entities form the foundation that makes it possible for unthinkable atrocities to go unchecked day in and day out in our schools. They are at the heart of the flawed American education system.
Let’s take them one at a time …
First, government. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the government the right – let alone the duty – to educate anyone. Government is a contract between those who want their lives and property protected and those who want power.
The Founding Fathers’ original idea was that those who aspire to power were to be given limited power in exchange for protecting the lives and property of those who granted them that power. Never was it stated, or even implied, in the Constitution or in any other document, that government would have the right to plunder at will, violate the constitutional rights of its citizens, or engage in any other kind of activities not expressly spelled out in the Constitution.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised that if he were elected he would abolish the Department of Education. I believe Reagan’s intentions were sincere, but, like almost all politicians, he was corrupted by the system. Once elected, his advisors quickly “rehabilitated” his “misguided thinking.” As a result, not only is the Department of Education still in business, but government mischief has brought us one misleading education program after another, the latest and most misleading of all being George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” scam.
In my view, public schools should cease to exist. John Stossel summed it up well in his 20/20 segment titled “Stupid in America” when he said:
“Competition brings accountability. Private schools may be ‘unmonitored’ by bureaucrats, but they face the most demanding kind of supervision our society provides: a market full of freely choosing individuals. Parents’ desire for a good education for their children is a much more powerful check on schools than any politician’s law or union rule.
“The people who want to control every young American’s education like to talk about accountability, but what they want is to make schools accountable to anointed bureaucrats who think they know what’s best for all of us. They evade real accountability – the kind of accountability where if a student or parent realizes a school isn’t doing its job, he can find another one.”
As for the NEA, the name itself is misleading. The NEA has nothing whatsoever to do with educating children. It is an organization dedicated to keeping the failed public school system in place and making it virtually impossible to fire any of its teacher members. It is the NEA that gives teachers the confidence to torment students and support school bullies.
I completely agree that teachers are often the victimizers. When I was student teaching, I taught under a teacher (coach who didn’t love anyone on the team) who took a solid “B” student and turned him into a failure. It was awful. He taunted that kid every day – taking a bobby pin and pinning up his hair because it was too long, etc. When I looked up this boy’s history and found that he had done well until that year, I had a talk with him. I told him I knew he could get good grades, and he told me he didn’t bother because “no one cared.” I told him I cared – and he got an “A” on the next test. But I knew from my own days in school that some teachers shouldn’t be allowed near kids. I wore a pony tail, and every day when I walked into Algebra class, the teacher would say, “Here comes the horse’s a___.” Didn’t bother me – I knew my horse was smarter than him. But it would have destroyed a lot of girls. – M.C.
Is it realistic to believe that we can get the government out of the education business and close down the NEA? I believe it is possible to achieve both goals, but it will take time. As the public school system continues to careen ever more out of control and the U.S. is forced to face up to its looming bankruptcy, libertarian activists could actually be successful in getting government not only out of the business of education but also out of such businesses as mail delivery and medical care.
If government relinquished its chokehold on our schools, the NEA would be stripped of most of its coercive powers. But don’t sell this ever-angry, appallingly militant group short. Its hierarchy could very well try to worm its way into private schools, which likely would result in an irreversible disaster for American education.
In any event, since tons of material on both of these subjects is available on the Internet, I’ll leave it at that, because I don’t want to get sidetracked. Instead, in the next installment of this series, I’m going to move on to other steps that I believe could be taken to slow the Cho incubation rate without regard to whether schools are private or public … without regard to whether teachers are forced to sell their services in the marketplace or remain chained to the NEA agenda.
Some of my proposals may sound radical to some readers, but that’s only because we live in an upside-down world. Regardless, I feel that the time has come for someone with a forum to be willing to stand up and speak the unspeakable. It’s sure to cost me a lot of subscribers … hopefully you won’t be among them. All I ask is that you keep an open mind, because I must warn you: I’m just getting warmed up.
While reader e-mails for the Cho Factor series have run about 25:1 on the positive side, there have been many who have expressed negative views. Most of the negative e-mails have been from unionized teachers, which is quite understandable. On the other hand, it’s remarkable how many teachers and ex-teachers have agreed with me. There is no doubt that bullying at school invokes strong responses.
As to negative e-mails from non-teachers, most of them were along the lines of the following:
Your constant pushing of “victim status” for kids at the “mercy” of bullies has finally reached my threshold tolerance. Your stereotyping of coaches as the built-in support group for the bully class of students is ridiculous and worthy of my disdain.
Your attitude of “poor baby” does nothing to help those who are the butt of this abuse. You imply that there is no such thing as self-help, that the problem is with the system. I can agree that the system is at fault, the system that no longer allows the teased student to fight back when attacked.
My mother taught me to diffuse taunts. She also taught me to fight back. The first time I punched the bully who had been pushing me around for weeks, the harassment stopped. I didn’t win the fight, but I was no longer a “safe” target … and I did not get suspended.
In those days the teacher asked questions and punished the perpetrator. The “victim” defending himself was admonished to not do it again, and let go. I am suspending my subscription. — Bruce F.
The attitude of readers like this is: Parents need to teach their wimpy kids to stand tall and fight. Even if you get eight bones broken in your face, it’s worth it. After all, if you’re going to live in a violent society, you have to learn to be violent, right? Bullying at school is actually good practice for the real world.
I understand this kind of mentality … I really do. But there is one thing that advocates of the kick-butt fraternity don’t get: What if a child doesn’t have the physical and/or mental tools to hang tough? Do you really want to encourage him to get beaten to a pulp?
Should a blind child be required to stand up to schoolyard hooligans? No? Why not? After all, he has to learn to live in a violent society, doesn’t he? What about a child in a wheelchair? Or a child afflicted with autism? Where do you draw the line?
I’ve observed the phenomenon of bullying for a long time, and I’m here to tell you that the majority of kids who are bullied lack — for whatever reason — the ability to fight off their attackers. And why should they have to? As a firm believer in liberty, I believe there is one law that is inviolable: No one has the right to commit aggression against any other human being.
When student thugs bully those whom they perceive to be easy targets, they are guilty of aggression. When teacher thugs bully any child, they are guilty of aggression. And when it comes to children in school, I have to expand my definition of aggression to include taunting and other forms of harassment.
How dare a teacher or student call another student “fag”? How dare a teacher or student make fun of another student’s speech? How dare a teacher or student tease another student who walks “funny”? How dare a teacher or student make fun of another student afflicted with dwarfism, obesity, or a nervous tic?
I have witnessed all of these things firsthand, and, to borrow a line from Glenn Beck, it makes blood shoot out of my eyes. You don’t have to be a card-carrying liberal to feel this way. Liberals don’t have a monopoly on compassion. What you have to be is humane. It has nothing to do with politics.
The other major point that anti-wimp readers miss is a foundational one that I made at the outset of this series: A Seung-Hui Cho grabs the headlines by killing classmates and teachers, but no one gives a thought to the Chos who don’t take out their anger on anyone. Instead, they suffer in silence, and all too often their lives are damaged beyond repair.
If I had any doubts about this, they were cast aside by the tidal wave of e-mails from readers who related gory details of how, as adults, they are still suffering from the abuse they experienced in school. Anyone who missed this point missed the main point of the series. Why should millions of children’s lives be ruined because of teacher apathy or, worse, malevolence? I will never back off on this issue.
As to The Game, it destroys even more lives than bullying at school, though in a much different way. Parents need to not only be aware of The Game, but to think of ways to immunize their children against it. The Game will always be an integral part of the world your children live in. But whether or not they choose to play it, and to what extent, will be up to them. That is where good parenting comes in.
As to the future of The Cho Factor series, one of these days I may get around to telling the story of a basketball coach and athletic director whose malevolence and dishonesty astonished even me. And how the headmaster stood up for them in spite of a mountain of irrefutable evidence. Right now, however, I think it would be too much for my Cho-fatigued reading audience to handle.
Sometime soon, I also plan to get around to the subject of how teaching is conducted in our schools — including curricula, teaching methods, and every parent’s worst nightmare, parentwork (euphemistically referred to as “homework”). I realize that many readers think I’m a masochist, but if all I’m after in this life is love, I’d buy a dog.
Years after the only high school reunion I ever attended, the Columbine shootings occurred. People were rightly horrified, as they have been by every school shooting since then. Investigations into the backgrounds of the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, made it clear that the root cause of their anger was that they had been on the receiving end of a nonstop barrage of bullying, taunting, and teasing at school.
Sadly, Harris and Klebold have become cult figures among bullied and disenfranchised teenagers. Seung-Hui Cho even mentioned them in his manifesto prior to killing thirty-two fellow students and teachers at Virginia Tech. Actions do indeed have consequences.
What immediately struck me the day the Columbine story flashed across television screens worldwide was that the school sounded like a clone of Brigadoon High. Even on the news, there was no attempt to hide Columbine’s firmly entrenched caste system. In particular, I recall one student saying during an interview, “Everyone knows that jocks rule at Columbine.” High school sports are huge in the minds of administrators, parents, and students.
I don’t think you need to convince most students and parents of the truth in that statement. After all, jocks ruled at Brigadoon High when I was there and, amazingly, still did at our class reunion years later.
In a recent article in Time, Adam Cohen wrote:
It’s a cliché that jocks and cheerleaders rule, but it is largely true. While others plod through high school, they glide: their exploits celebrated in pep rallies and recorded in the school paper and in trophy cases. “The jocks and the cheerleaders, yes, have the most clout,” says Blake McConnell, a student at Sprayberry High School near Atlanta. “They get out of punishment – even with the police. Joe Blow has a wreck and has been drinking, and he gets the book thrown at him. The quarterback gets busted, and he gets a lighter sentence.”
Cohen just as easily could have been writing about Brigadoon High. In fact, the truth be known, it’s the same at virtually every high school in America. Though most administrators would deny it, athletes are revered and given special treatment at both public and private high schools. Which puts other students at a decided disadvantage, especially socially, if they are not athletic — or simply have no interest in athletics.
Perhaps Alice James, a 23-year-old IT consultant who went to school in the United States, Great Britain, and France, summed up the Columbine situation best in Theage.com.au when she wrote:
The U.S. high school system is unusually vicious. Of course, all teenagers are cliquey and can be cruel. But there are two differences in the U.S. system, I guess. The first is that it is unusually hierarchical. In British schools, you get different groups who all sneer at each other, but there’s no obvious ranking system. The kids into hip-hop might hate the kids who are into pop, but neither of them is universally regarded to be better or higher up the social tree.
In American schools, it’s like the bloody Indian caste system. Jocks simply rule the school, and everyone knows it. They are indisputably at the top, and “freaks,” which means anybody a little bit different (and I guess that included Eric [Harris] and Dylan [Klebold]), are indisputably at the bottom.
The second big difference is that the hierarchy the teenagers create for themselves is reinforced by parents and the school authorities by giving out awards to the prom queen and the football squad. While most British or French parents see their teenagers’ social affairs as trivial or even slightly comical, American parents take it incredibly seriously.
It’s given a kind of official imprimatur, because they build their kids up to be cheerleaders or jocks and they’re openly disappointed if they don’t make it. For “freaks,” it’s not just like they’ve failed in the eyes of their schoolmates — it’s like they’ve failed for life.”
I believe that most parents favor less emphasis on athletics, but few of them have the courage to step forward and say so. And with good reason: They fully understand the rules of The Game and realize that making waves would quickly label them — and their kids — troublemakers. A good question would be, “Who gains the most by promoting high school sports?” It really isn’t the jocks. They simply benefit peripherally.
Nevertheless, jocks continue to rule at high schools throughout the country — and continue to get special treatment. And that, in turn, sends a terrible signal to the rest of the student body. A kid who gets straight A’s has to wonder why a guy who can run with a football gets a letter sweater, but he doesn’t.
I would go one step further and say that athletes should get no awards for their athletic accomplishments and certainly no special treatment, and students who excel at academics and the arts should be hailed and applauded by both faculty members and their fellow students. There’s nothing wrong with being good at sports, but it should be kept in perspective. Winning a basketball game is not a major achievement in the grand scale of things.
Which brings me to one-time CBS news anchor Dan Blather Rather. I remember shaking my head in disgust when Rather opened one of his broadcasts in December 1999 by saying excitedly, “There’s joy once again at Columbine High School.” He then went on to tell how Columbine had won the Class 5A state football championship of Colorado.
The implication was that winning the football championship somehow made things right at Columbine. No, no, no! As usual, Dan, you got it completely wrong. The exaltation of jocks is a major part of the out-of-control bullying problem at schools like Columbine. Your jubilation over that football championship simply papered over it.
Former Columbine student Brooks Brown, a friend of Harris and Klebold, showed a much better understanding of the situation than Rather when he said: “The truth is that our school was not the happy place everyone’s playing it off to be. A lot of people walk through that school with just a feeling of fear. … You feel nothing else. You worry if someone’s going to come up and beat the hell out of you all the time.”
And another friend of the two killers put it in simple terms that everyone can understand: “They were hated, so they hated back.”
I’m not naïve enough to believe that parents of athletes in high school sports programs will agree with anything I’ve said in this article, but plenty of other people do. And I’ll post some examples of that in the next Feedback Forum.
After the mini-reunion at Washington National Airport with three members of Brigadoon High’s Inner Ring, I was reluctant to go to our upcoming class reunion. Everything was going great in my life, notwithstanding my former principal’s advice that my only hope was to learn a blue-collar trade, so I really had no desire to step back in time by engaging in the remnants of The Game.
Nevertheless, I allowed Bob Zak to talk me into attending. And, as it turned out, I’m glad I did, because it was quite an education. To my amazement, my high school reunion was not a faded reminder of the way The Game used to be played, as I had expected. Nay — it was the original version of The Game, in all its glory, still firmly in place! As far as I could tell, nothing had changed.
The jocks and other members of the Inner Ring pretty much held center stage at the event. It was as though time had stood still for them. Their main reason for being there (and thus the focus of the reunion itself) was to rehash old war stories about their days as Brigadoon athletes.
The highlight was the showing of a film clip of an infamous moment in Brigadoon football history. Since I did not play football (except as a freshman, when I quickly discovered that being small and slow are not great assets in that sport), I had absolutely no interest in watching it. Interestingly, though I assume the majority of folks at the high school reunion felt the same way, most of them obligatorily played out their high school roles, making it clear that the rules of The Game were deeply entrenched in their Pavlovian brains.
Before going further, some background. One of the big games of our senior year was against a team that featured a big, super-fast, all-state running back (“George Sutton”). Brigadoon High kept the game close in the first half, but lightning struck quickly in the second half when Sutton returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown. It was one of those memorable moments that the guys on the Brigadoon team joked about incessantly, because the run involved five or six missed tackles.
At the reunion, the jocks ran the clip of Sutton’s touchdown over and over again, howling with laughter and calling out the names of their buddies as each one missed a shot at tackling him. I guess you’d call it an inside joke, which is fine if you’re on the inside. The problem was that most of those present were on the outside — just as they had been all through high school.
Other than that intellectual highlight, the beer flowed freely and cigarettes dangled from lips and fingertips, just like in the good old days. Jonathan and the other verbal bullies shouted taunts throughout the evening, while members of the lower rings quietly mingled with one another and made unobtrusive small talk.
Perverse as it may sound, I remember actually feeling sorry for a few of the jocks who were obviously well on their way to living out thoroughly meaningless lives. I also remember smiling to myself after what seemed to be the tenth rerun of the infamous 95-yard touchdown run and thinking, “This is the last class reunion I’ll ever go to, and I’ll probably never see most of these people again.” I guess I’m a prophet, because both of those thoughts turned out to be accurate.
But years later, when the Columbine shootings occurred, I thought about the Brigadoon High jocks and their endless replay of George Sutton’s 95-yard touchdown run at the only high school reunion I attended. I’ll explain the connection in the next installment.
Before telling you about my first class reunion, I’d like to share a little anecdote that served as a warmup of sorts for the big event itself. What prompted me to think about it was the following e-mail I received from a Voice of Sanity reader.
I learned The Game too well as a kid. I didn’t even want to look in the mirror because I was afraid of what I might see. I didn’t fit anywhere in school. I was not athletic and I had no social skills. Hanging out with me was considered to be the social equivalent of leprosy. I was tormented and bullied for more years than I care to think about.
My parents’ solution: Either ignore it or fight back. I’d already had the crap kicked out of me at home numerous times, and quickly learned there that submission was my only hope of survival. And so it went throughout my school years. I took it in silence and did nothing.
It is amazing how things seldom change. I left my hometown and never went back — unless it was required (like for a funeral). I have never once gone to a high school reunion, nor do I plan to.
I have encountered former classmates in various places over the years, but, amazingly, I am still treated the same way. It used to bother me, but now I find it amusing to see fully grown adults still behaving like children. It is a good example of how one’s perceptions can become habitual. …
I consider myself fortunate now to be called eccentric and unpredictable. … I have enjoyed The Cho Factor very much. I feel sorry for the ones who unsubscribed, because they are truly missing out on a mind-altering opportunity. All I can say is, thank you. — Sharon B.
Sharon’s case is not the exception but the norm.
A few years ago, John Stossel did a 20/20 show on bullying. I was reminded of how I felt about Pudge Johnson, the king of Brigadoon High, when Stossel said that when he was in school some of the jocks seemed like grown men to him. They were bigger than life.
But what was really fascinating was when Stossel said that on the few occasions when he happened to run into former Inner Ring members from his high school class, they acted as though they didn’t know who he was, even though he was by then a well-known television personality! This is precisely what Sharon B. means when she refers to perceptions becoming habitual. Some Inner Ring members become so attached to their perceptions of their classmates in high school that nothing can alter those perceptions … even years later when it’s clear that circumstances have changed.
I know this to be true, because I’ve had several similar experiences. One of my favorite stories in this regard happened about ten years after graduating from high school, while I was on a business trip with former class president and Inner Ring member Bob Zak (who had become my attorney).
Bob and I had flown to what was then Washington National Airport from Kansas City, where we had closed a real estate transaction that earned me a $423,000+ commission. My income for the year was approaching $1 million — at a time when the U.S. dollar was not the joke of the international currency market.
Just after disembarking from our plane, we bumped smack into Inner Ring bigshot Jonathan Bettman, who, it turned out, had been on our flight. (To refresh your memory, Jonathan was the straight “A” student with the very loud, very foul mouth who made a high school career out of verbally bullying those he deemed to be beneath him.)
Jonathan excitedly shook hands with Bob, gave me an obligatory nod, then, without looking at me again, began chatting about the good old days. Bob tried to include me in the conversation a couple of times, but Jonathan was having none of that. Never mind the fact that while I was gaining national attention as a commercial real estate broker specializing in large properties, the highlight of Jonathan’s life was still back when he was a Bobby Kennedy save-the-world groupie. The perception he apparently had of me in high school as a “nobody” had not changed one iota, nor had his immaturity.
After a few uncomfortable minutes, a tall, good looking pilot came striding up to join in the conversation. It was none other than Don Stramen, Brigadoon High football starter and another member of our class’s Inner Ring. Hard to believe … but he had been the copilot on our flight. As Don, Bob, and Jonathan continued to relive the past, Bob, looking uncomfortable because I was being totally ignored, said to Don, “Don, you remember Robert Ringer, don’t you?”
It was a classic deer-in-the-headlights moment. With a perplexed look on his face, he stuttered, “Oh … uh … sure. Hi, how ya doin?” He had absolutely no idea who I was. Which is interesting, considering that we sat right next to each other through at least two classes that I can recall.
After our little mini-reunion broke up, Bob and I walked down the concourse toward the baggage claim area and talked about what an incredible coincidence it was that all of us had been on the exact same flight to Washington. At one point — and I don’t remember the context — I said something about what a loudmouth taunter Jonathan had been in high school, to which Bob replied, “Really? Gosh, I never saw that in him at all.”
Voila! Suddenly, it was crystal clear to me. The reason Bob never saw this obvious negative quality in one of his best friends was because his experience with Jonathan had been totally different from mine and that of other non-Inner Ring members. Plain and simple, Jonathan always treated Bob like the exalted Inner Ring member he was.
To put this in Cho Factor terms, had there been a Seung-Hui Cho in our class, he might very well have come to school one day and permanently quieted Jonathan — and taken his anger out on some others as well. Had that occurred, people like Bob would have bemoaned Jonathan’s tragic death, believing it to be the random work of an evil classmate. They would have believed that the life of a “universally liked” straight “A” student was snuffed out for no reason at all.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen in Jonathan’s case, but it sure did at Columbine High School decades later. When the Columbine massacre occurred, the media rightly referred to it as a tragedy. But that’s where the story ended. The Cho Factor angle was pretty much ignored, except for an occasional mention of how Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were bullied. To this day, many school shootings later, most people still don’t get it.
There’s an old saying that one person’s terrorist is another person’s patriot. I say, one person’s all-American boy is another person’s bully. It all depends on the source of the perception. In the eyes of teachers, administrators, and Inner Ring members and their influential parents, it’s not uncommon for bullies of the worst kind to be viewed as upstanding school citizens — often even winning merit awards!
Sharon B. is right on — perceptions die hard. I thought about that a lot in the days leading up to our first class reunion. In the next installment, I’ll share with you the outcome of that grand event. It’s likely to stir some memories of your own.
In Part XXVII, I described three members of the “Outcasts by Choice” Ring (a separate ring, suggested by Voice of Sanity reader Thomas O., that intersects with other rings of the caste system). They included Lee Wellman, Ian Bechtel, and Jim Coleman, all of whom were basically ignored by kids in the higher rings.
But things changed quite a bit for Lee, Ian, and Jim after they left Brigadoon High. Jim, a straight “A” student, went on to become a medical doctor. I haven’t seen him in thirty-five years, but I understand he is both highly respected in his field and very well off financially.
Ian began building small apartment houses when he was in his early twenties. I became friends with him after college, and was amazed at how, starting on a shoestring, he had been able to construct (and own) hundreds of apartment units at such a young age. I recently saw him for the first time in decades, and I was impressed by what a good looking, confident person he had become. If I were meeting him for the first time, I would have assumed he had been a member of the Inner Ring in high school.
As for Lee, while still in his twenties he borrowed a grubstake from his father and opened a little specialty retail store. I had heard about it, but hadn’t given it much thought at the time. Then, years after I moved to California, Bo Zak told me that Lee’s original store had grown to one hundred retail outlets and that he was a very wealthy man. While I am purposely not divulging the exact business he is in, I can tell you that Lee has long been a multibillionaire and a fixture on the Forbes 400 Richest People in America list.
My reason for sharing with you the abridged stories of Lee, Ian, and Jim is that I know I have readers who are concerned because their children are in the lower rings of the caste system in their schools. As someone who has been through it many times, let me assure you of one thing: It doesn’t matter!
What’s important is that you give your children unconditional love and support while they are struggling with The Game and its caste system at school. Thankfully, none of that nonsense needs to have any bearing on the outcome of their lives.
Nothing underscores that more than the long list of high-profile business people and celebrities who had difficulty in school because of learning disabilities. It’s a list that includes Tom Monaghan (founder of Domino’s Pizza), David Neeleman (founder of JetBlue Airways), Paul Orfalea (founder of Kinko’s), Jay Leno, Tommy Hilfiger, and Charles Schwab, to name but a few. Many even suspect that Bill Gates is afflicted with “higher-functioning” autism.
The lesson is clear: Adulthood is a whole new world, a world totally unrelated to the horrors of high school … The Game … the caste system … teacher and student bullying … and outrageous mountains of busywork euphemistically referred to as “homework.” (A lot more on that subject in a later article.)
The next best thing to home schooling your children is to take a cue from reader Thomas O. and teach your kids to simply ignore The Game — and do their own thing with their own friends. If you can pull that off, you’re a heck of a lot smarter than all those teachers who, in many subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways, help to ensure that everyone stays in his/her proper ring.
In the next installment, we’ll take a look at the effects of the caste system on The Big Event — the first class reunion.
It’s always difficult to generalize, and I realized when I presented the five rings of The Games’ caste system that there are several levels within each one — especially in the Nondescript Ring. Which is why the reader e-mail below caught my attention.
I read your recent missive with great interest, expecting to see myself within one of the “rings” you described, and, in so doing, experienced a mild wave of nostalgia for my school days. But I found that my “ring” wasn’t mentioned.
I would posit that there is another group within the rings, but in a way it is a separate ring that intersects with all the others at one time or another — an eccentric circle, a bit out of the ecliptic plane, as it were. But it definitely existed.
I would call that group the “Outcasts by Choice,” people who either unconsciously felt or consciously saw the social stratifications as you described, and made an effort to transcend them by gathering in their own eclectic circle. Such kids were usually highly intelligent, creative, talented and aware, but often going out of their way to break established “norms,” usually via unconventional dress or behavior.
In my day, late 60s-early 70s, we were the “freak” kids, mostly inhabiting the theater department, with some crossover to music and even speech. We questioned every premise fed to us, were early adopters of new music and dress styles, and were, back then, at the forefront of political activism, sometimes cutting class to attend a peace rally or Earth Day event.
Nevertheless, many of us graduated near the top of our classes. We published our own “alternative” newspaper — and we were shocked by how many “inner ring” kids actually read it!
Although we were perceived as being standoffish, and certainly not mainstream, we were largely accepting of others. We just wanted to be ourselves. Nevertheless, our mere existence often incited some of the more curious in the other circles to check us out.
A handful of “inner ring” kids would show up at our functions and parties, for example, because they could actually let their hair down with us. There was no social pressure to perform as there was within their own group. …
These groups exist today. My own daughter was an “outcast by choice,” simply because she found the people more entertaining. She’s now in college, and I think she’s becoming quite the fabulous individual as a direct result of that experience. — Thomas O.
Thomas’s insight is a good one. Whenever you try to put things into categories, there not only will be overlap, there will be some that don’t fit neatly into any of them. He makes his point vividly when he says that the ring he was in high school intersected with all the other rings at one time or another.
This brought to mind three individuals at Brigadoon High who would have fit very well into the “Outcasts by Choice” ring that Thomas so aptly describes — classmates who transcended the other rings “by gathering in their own eclectic circle.”
Lee Wellman, Ian Bechtel, and Jim Coleman hung out together at Brigadoon. Under my ring system, I would have to place them in the lower echelons of the Nondescript Ring. However, I don’t have any recollections of their being bullied. I think it was more a matter of no one giving much thought to them at all.
Lee, Ian, and Jim were all nice guys, but only Jim had the slightest Game credentials that might have qualified him to intersect with the higher rings. He was a starter on the baseball team and pretty much a straight “A” student. Yet, he always seemed to be oblivious to The Game and the caste system it supported. I never saw any indication that he aspired to elevate his rank.
As for Lee and Ian, they had no Game credentials at all. They stuck with their own nonentity crowd of kids, many of whom didn’t even go to Brigadoon. (Yuk — imagine hanging out with non-Brigadoon kids!) In fact, they formed their own club — The Panthers — and wore the club’s black jacket, logo and all, to school.
While I don’t think Ian was involved in any activities at Brigadoon, I do recall that Lee was the water boy for the baseball team. I can still vividly picture him trotting out to the pitcher’s mound with a bucket of water and handing the pitcher the ladle so he could dip in and quench his thirst.
If you’re feeling sorry for these guys – not so fast. In the next installment of this series, we’ll see how things turned out in real life for Lee, Ian, and Jim – Outcasts by Choice at Brigadoon High.
In late spring of my senior year at Brigadoon High, the principal, Mr. Jones, met with every member of the senior class, one on one, to discuss their futures after high school graduation. To put it mildly, I was never one of Mr. Jones’ favorite students, so I wasn’t looking forward to our meeting. And, as it turned out, nothing could have prepared me for what transpired.
Immediately after I sat down in his office, Mr. Jones, in his best passive-aggressive manner, blurted out, “Ringer, my advice to you is to go to a trade school after graduation. If you work hard at it, you might be able to make a decent living as a carpenter or plumber. (Since he didn’t mention electrician, I assume he thought that job would be too complicated for me.)
I remember smiling inside when he spoke those words, but I repressed the urge to make a smart-aleck retort. Instead, I played along and told Mr. Jones that I appreciated his input and that I would certainly give his advice a lot of thought. In retrospect, however, it really wasn’t funny, because I now realize that millions of kids not fortunate enough to be in the Inner Ring are brushed aside like so much waste matter – not just by classmates, but by teachers and administrators as well. You get pegged early on in school – and, with few exceptions, you stay pegged.
Throughout high school, I almost never cracked a book and, predictably, got terrible grades – with one exception: I achieved straight A’s in English all four years. I was always surprised when I saw how hard most kids struggled with English composition, because for me it was a piece of cake.
Now wouldn’t you have thought somebody at Brigadoon High – perhaps an English teacher – might have noticed that I had some writing talent? And that such a person would have sat me down and talked to me about how I might go about nurturing my writing skills and turning them into a profitable career? It never happened … not even once.
While I didn’t take Mr. Jones’ comments seriously, it bothers me that the potential of millions of kids is being ignored as I write this. It makes me want to shout, “Who in the hell is in charge here? Where are all the adults? Where are the so-called educators?”
There’s a movie-like P.S. to this story. Years later, after I had become a bestselling author, my mom happened to be shopping at a department store – and guess who she ran into? Right … none other than that master talent scout himself, former Brigadoon High principal Mr. Jones – who was working as a salesman in the men’s shoe department! (Could it be that he didn’t have the skills to be a plumber?)
As you would expect of any proud mother, she walked up to him, introduced herself, and said, “Did you happen to see my son, Robert, on The Tonight Show the other night?” Bless my mom … what a feisty little lady. It’s no wonder she’s alive and alert at the tender age of ninety-eight.
I don’t know what Mr. Smith said to each of his sacred-cow Inner Ring members during their private meetings, though I doubt he gave them his trade-school pep talk. But the way some of their lives turned out after high school graduation, perhaps he should have.
Bob Zak, who became my closest friend after high school, was an exception. He was the most popular kid at Brigadoon High – president of our senior class and right up at the top of the Inner Ring hierarchy along with Pudge Johnson. He wasn’t an athlete, just a super-likeable guy. Bob went on to become cofounder of a 150-man law firm and a civic leader. His success did not surprise me.
By contrast, things did not turn out so well for Pudge Johnson. Unfortunately, the charmed life he enjoyed throughout high school did not survive graduation. After majoring in girls and booze at an Ivy League university, he went to work for his family’s heavy equipment company, which is, to this day, a giant, worldwide corporation. I believe he worked for a year or two before quitting … and, from what I understand, never worked another day in his life.
From time to time, I’ve thought about how Pudge’s life turned out – as, among other things, a chain smoker and heavy drinker who never had to concern himself with making a living. (Even though I have not revealed his real name, there are some details that I prefer not to go into that are even more grim. The only thing I will say is that I have been told that his smoking and drinking habits have taken an irreversible toll on his health.)
While I personally liked Pudge, when I put him under the Cho-scope, the words trust funds and debauchery come quickly to mind. His plight also causes me to think of Viktor Frankl’s many writings on the dangers of living a life without meaning. As much as young Robert Ringer would have loved to have been king of Brigadoon High, I don’t think I could have survived the fall from that lofty throne to a meaningless life after graduation.
This was underscored for me when, as a freshman in college, I was enjoying a burger and fries at a campus coffee shop with a friend of mine, Sam Merrick. Sam had gone to a private school located not too far from Brigadoon High, where The Game was played with similar ferocity.
He was a super athlete who, in his senior year, was named the outstanding football player (quarterback) in the entire city (which included many rough-and-tough inner-city schools). I don’t recall exactly how the subject came up, but at some point in our conversation, Sam said, in a somber tone, “Once you’re out of high school, it’s over. Everything is downhill from there. Life after high school sucks.”
Wow! I couldn’t believe it. The Game that had so consumed me at Brigadoon High was now behind me, and I was excited about asserting myself and accomplishing great things. But for Sam, life was over! Though he had a modestly successful post-college career as a stock broker, on those few occasions when I saw him, he clearly appeared to be an unhappy person.
It’s very easy to envy the Pudges and Sams of your class (or your children’s classes), but you have to wonder if their lofty jock status isn’t setting them up for a calamitous fall. Once they leave Brigadoon, the spell is broken and they have to compete with all those nerds who, unlike Cho, often get their revenge by becoming outrageously successful in the real world.
More to come on life after Brigadoon High School Graduation in Installment XXVII …
The Inner Ring at Brigadoon High was an interesting mix of characters, but the one who stood head and shoulders above everyone else was “Pudge” Johnson — 6’2″ … handsome … captain and starting point guard on the basketball team as a sophomore … tough as nails … and rich … make that very rich. So rich that his family donated a mansion, sitting on hundreds of acres of prime land, to Brigadoon Village. Brigadoon High used the Johnson Mansion for proms and other special events.
Pudge was bigger than life. As a 4’11″ freshman, I remember thinking to myself that he was a man. And, in fairness to him, he wasn’t a bully. In fact, Pudge was a pretty decent guy. Why shouldn’t he be? His parents owned Brigadoon! Nobody gave Pudge any grief — not the teachers … not the administrators … not the coaches … not his peers. At Brigadoon High, he was The Man — the guy at the very center of the inner circle.
Like many of the other jocks, Pudge was a chain smoker outside of school and, looking back on it, probably an alcoholic as well. Of course, smoking and drinking were officially off limits for athletes, but that didn’t seem to bother the elite jocks.
At first, I was awed by how brazen they were about violating the athletic department’s rules. But it soon became obvious that the reason for their lack of concern was that the Brigadoon coaches clearly understood how The Game is played — one of the rules being that they were required to look the other way. After all, jocks will be jocks.
Determined to move up in rank, it was only a matter of time until I got into the swing of things. I took up smoking (though, like Hillary’s husband, I didn’t inhale), even learned how to dangle a cigarette out of the side of my mouth at a James Dean angle. I was a classic wannabe rebel without a cause. Drinking was even easier, because in those days “three-two” beer was mandated for hotshots like me who were under twenty-one years of age.
But I digress … back to the Inner Circle crowd. Paul Hathaway was a skinny kid, but hard as a rock — and, like Pudge, tough. Paul was captain of the football team during our senior year, and placed third in the state in the 100-yard dash. He loved to taunt, albeit cheerfully, and he had a nickname for everyone — sort of a friendly way of letting you know that your real name wasn’t worth much. He boisterously referred to me as “Rings.”
(Interestingly, decades later, some of the kids in my son’s Brigadoon high school tagged him with the same moniker. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with “Rings” … in fact, it has a nice ring to it. But it’s an example of how even the most subtle elements of The Game transcend time at Brigadoon schools.)
My worst memory of Paul is that he had a nasty habit of balling up his fist as he walked toward you in the hallway, middle knuckle protruding outward, and, at the precise moment he passed by, slugging you on your upper arm. After enduring a couple of month-long bruises, I finally got smart enough to move as far away from him as possible whenever I saw him coming.
Unlike Pudge and Paul, Inner Ring fixture Jonathan Bettman was not pleasant — at least not to wannabes like me. Jonathan was a straight-A student, a member of all the important after-school clubs, and a mediocre athlete who ran track and played football. Above all, he was a verbal bully, a true master of the putdown.
Jonathan also had a very loud, very foul mouth — which he had an uncanny knack of exhibiting only when teachers and administrators were out of earshot. I could never figure out how he had all of them fooled, but now that I’m a bit wiser, I suspect that on the rare occasions when they might have heard his wise-guy bellowing, they just smiled and brushed it aside. After all, he was the smartest kid in the school and an Inner Ring member since first grade. The phenomenon of favoritism, alive and well in all schools today, did not go unnoticed by me.
Mel Stillman was one of those mystery members of the Inner Ring at Brigadoon High. Though he was an honor student, he had no athletic prowess, wasn’t physically attractive, and, quite frankly, was a bit effeminate. But for reasons that still mystify me, he was solidly entrenched in the Inner Ring.
Like Jonathan, Mel was a Brigadoon blueblood going back to the first grade — for all practical purposes, born into the inner circle. Being an intellectual by nature, he had the remarkable ability to calmly and quietly slice your ego in half. If Jonathan’s putdowns were like being struck by an axe, Mel’s were administered with a scalpel. From his cashmere sweaters to his Buckley-esque vocabulary, Mel, the ultimate Inner Ring mystery kid, was the archetypal Brigadoon High snob. (I sense that, as you’re reading this, you may be recalling an image of a “Mel” in your own high school.)
There’s just one more Inner Ring fixture I want to mention here, Bones Bremer. Bones was the Inner Ring’s assassin. He did a lot of dirty work for the benefit of Inner Ring members who didn’t care to exert themselves. Bones made Jonathan Bettman seem soft-spoken and mild-mannered by comparison. He would say anything, anytime, anywhere, to anybody — and say it loudly. He was beyond foul, and his specialty was aiming remarks at your mother’s lack of virtue.
But Bones had an even greater talent that secured his position in the Inner Ring: He was an accomplished hocker. If you’re too civilized to know what a hocker is, reader discretion is advised. A hocker is a glob of mucus-strengthened saliva that is artfully directed at an unsuspecting humanoid.
If I hadn’t viewed Bones as the scum of the earth, I would have been in awe of his ability to hit his target’s ear at a distance of twenty-five feet or more. The Inner Ring heartily approved of Bones’ unusual skill, though I now realize that the only reason he made it through high school alive was that we didn’t have a Seung-Hui Cho lurking somewhere in the Outcast Ring. If we did, trust me, he would have been mentioned prominently in the videotape left behind.
In the next installment, I’ll tell you how life turned out for some of the Inner Ring members — as well as for some in the rings below.
Between the eighth and ninth grades, my dad moved us from a middle-class neighborhood to upscale Brigadoon Village, a suburb with a somewhat overrated reputation for wealth. Make no mistake about it, there were plenty of wealthy families there, but there were many more who just excelled at creating and maintaining the impression that they had money.
(Just for the record, Brigadoon Village is a fictitious name — though, to my surprise, a Google search made me aware of a number developments that actually go by that name. Out of respect for the privacy of both the innocent and guilty, I am purposely avoiding the use of real names here. It is not my intent to embarrass anyone.)
The name Brigadoon comes from a fabulous musical written by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music) back in the forties. I never saw the Broadway version, but I did see the movie (which, by the way, still plays on television from time to time). Even if you’ve never heard of this classic, you are probably familiar with its most famous song, “Almost Like Being In Love.”
The Brigadoon created by Lerner was an enchanted Scottish village — invisible to the outside world — where time stood still. Nothing and no one in Brigadoon ever got older. Once every hundred years, for one day only, the village became visible and outsiders could enter. A visitor could take up residence in Brigadoon, but if he, or anyone else, ever left, the spell would be broken and everyone would be doomed.
When I first saw Brigadoon, it made me feel good all over. When you’re young, you still have fantasies about life being perfect — and, to be sure, life was perfect in Brigadoon. Which is precisely what I expected my life to be when I enrolled at my new high school. To me, there was no outside world. Why would anyone want to be anywhere but at Brigadoon High?
As it turns out, however, Brigadoon High was not unique. On the contrary, there are thousands of Brigadoon High look-alikes — Walt Whitman High School (Bethesda, Maryland), The Meadows School (Las Vegas), McLean High School (McLean, Virginia), Punahou School (Honolulu), and, yes, Columbine High School (Littleton, Colorado), to name but a few. If you live in even a modest-sized town, odds are there are at least several such schools within a short driving distance from you.
While most private schools have a Brigadoon environment, it’s important to understand that there are thousands of public schools that also fit the mold. Brigadoon public schools are located in middle-class, upper-middle-class, and wealthy communities (e.g., Beverly Hills High School). Though, technically, they are public schools, they are protected from the lower echelons of society by their borders. For all practical purposes, they are private schools funded by taxpayers.
Within days of becoming a freshman at Brigadoon High, it was obvious to me that I was viewed as an outsider trying to crash the ranks of the kids who’d had Brigadoon blue blood running through their veins from birth. The scorn I felt aimed at me by my fellow students was like nothing I had ever before experienced. Notwithstanding the fact that I was a nonconformist at heart, their loathing motivated me to get in step and respect the Brigadoon pecking order.
Being a quick study, it didn’t take me long to figure out who the players were in all five Rings — especially the Inner Ring. And, just as important, I quickly learned the most important rules of The Game. I got so good at following those rules that, within a couple of years, I managed to elevate myself through the ranks of the Nondescript Ring and, ultimately, into the outer fringes of the Fringe Ring.
But on the way up, I was on the receiving end of a plethora of jeers and sarcastic remarks. Fortunately, I was adept at deflecting such verbal garbage and became pretty good at firing back. But that created problems for me, because if there’s one thing master taunters dislike, it’s irreverence. The more these verbal thugs see someone trying to move up in rank, the more they intensify their attacks. They simply hate any attempt to rearrange the caste system. Remember, in Brigadoon nothing is supposed to change.
To my shame, I became totally immersed in playing The Game, though I didn’t consciously realize it until long after I had graduated high school. When I say totally immersed, I mean being aware, at all times, of how I dressed, how I acted, and how I talked.
Today, that Robert Ringer at Brigadoon High is a total stranger to me, but I can tell you for certain that he once existed. It is even possible that he secretly aspired to crack the ranks of the heavily guarded Inner Ring, though I cannot bring myself to even ponder such a painful and embarrassing thought.
Next up: A look back at some of the Inner Ring royalty at Brigadoon High.
Before I venture further, I feel obliged to tell you that if your child is (or was) a star athlete in high school, a straight-A student, and/or one of the most popular kids in his/her class, the upcoming articles probably won’t mean much to you. In fact, what I have to say may strike you as nothing more than annoying fiction.
And, in all honesty, I wouldn’t blame you for feeling that way. After all, when your kids are having the time of their lives, inhaling daily adulation from teachers, coaches, and peers, why be concerned about the blight beneath them? Unless, of course, one of its members comes to school one day and kills them.
One of the harsh realities of life is that it’s hard, if not impossible, to identify with a specific kind of pain unless you yourself have experienced it. I am convinced that most, if not all, parents whose children are among the elite at their schools not only are incapable of identifying with the pain experienced by the pawns of The Game, they are completely oblivious to it.
Having said that, what follows is my breakdown of The Game’s caste system. There are no surveys, at least that I know of, to support my viewpoint. It is based solely on firsthand experience, long ago as a student and more recently as a parent of six children.
Inner Ring. The Inner Ring comprises the 5-10 percent of students who are looked upon as leaders. They are the anointed … the chosen few. They are the athletes, the good-looking guys and gals, the kids from wealthy families (and those families that are successful at pretending to be wealthy). Their parents are often major financial contributors to the school or serve on the school’s board of directors.
The Inner Ring usually includes a few kids who don’t seem to fit into any of these categories, but, for reasons I was never able to figure out, are accepted by the elite. It’s as though they were grandfathered into the deal, so commoners never dare to question their credentials.
Fringe Ring. This is the 10-15 percent who are looked upon favorably by the Inner Ring of kids and teachers, but aren’t quite “sharp” enough to be among the elite. They play The Game by the rules, aspiring to someday break through and become accepted by the Inner Ring gods. It occasionally happens (e.g., when a kid develops into a great athlete in his junior or senior year), which gives eternal hope to all Fringe Ring members.
Nondescript Ring. This is the rank and file, the roughly 70 percent whose names are often forgotten by the Inner and Fringe Rings. They play The Game dutifully, but, for the most part, realize that achieving Inner Ring or Fringe Ring status is beyond their reach. Most are servile, nameless blurs who kowtow to members of the superior rings, and, of course, cheer loudly at school sporting events to demonstrate their loyalty. (The latter is an essential element of playing The Game.)
Outcast Ring. This is the bottom 10 percent, which includes the learning challenged … the special needs children … the “handicapped” … those with “personality disorders” and emotional problems … the “bad kids” … in general, the untouchables.
To be seen talking to a member of the Outcast Ring puts one at risk of becoming an outcast himself. Better to hold one’s nose and look the other way. The pawns of the Outcast Ring serve a useful purpose for the upper rings as readily available targets for those who believe that bullying is an effective method of attracting the attention of their peers.
Based on the following e-mail from a Voice of Sanity reader, I am apparently not alone in my assessment of The Game’s caste system.
I’ve been following your series and wish to point out one more aspect you have so far not yet touched upon. By necessity, I will have to generalize a bit, but let’s just say that about 10% of the population in any given group (in this case, school students) are the rich, good looking, athletic and/or popular ones. These are most often the bullies.
Let’s also say that about 10-20% fall at the opposite end of the spectrum. These direct victims, as you’ve already pointed out, are the weaklings, those with mental or physical attributes which distinguish them from the mass of the population, etc.
What you’ve not yet addressed is the cost of bullying to the remaining 70-80% of the population. I contend that this group is taught, mostly by observation, conformity. They quickly learn that to stand out is to invite becoming the target of bullies and thus fall into the bottom 10-20% group.
While they may not suffer as much as the direct victims, society suffers by these people being trained to avoid the pursuit of excellence for fear of being targeted. To stand out and differentiate yourself, to strive for something beyond the norm, is a bad thing. How sad for all of us. — Jeffrey K.
It’s not hard to see why a Seung-Hui Cho would fit so nicely into the Outcast Ring at a feel-good suburban school like Westfield High in Chantilly, Virginia … an immigrant from South Korea … apparently no athletic prowess autistic tendencies … depression … a juicy target for taunting and bullying. Is it any wonder that he ranted about “rich kids,” “debauchery,” and “deceitful charlatans” in the videotaped message he left behind?
Cho was undoubtedly an extreme case of someone hopelessly mired in the humiliation and pain of the Outcast Ring. Clearly, he had no clue as to how to play The Game. The taunting aimed at him may not have been the root cause of his “mental illness,” but I think we can say that it certainly would have worsened whatever preexisting mental problems he may have had.
In any event, I again remind you that this series is not just about protecting our schools from deranged gunmen like Cho. Even more important is saving untold millions of kids who are tormented and miserable, but do not take out their anger on classmates and faculty members. Instead, they quietly accept their plight and try their best to hide their misery – misery that usually stays with them well into adulthood, and all too often throughout life.
And, of course, there’s also that 70 percent or so in the Nondescript Ring whom reader Jeffrey K. maintains are “trained to avoid the pursuit of excellence for fear of being targeted.”
As I said in Installment XXI, the good side of certitudes is that they give structure to civilizations. The bad side is that they promote conformity, which has a tendency to transform potentially vital human beings into the ranks of the walking dead. What are the effects of conformity versus non-conformity in our society and our schools?
By conformity, I am referring to the obsessive desire to do whatever it takes to be accepted by other members of one’s tribe. Whether the tribe is an inner-city gang or a clique of golden-spoon students at a suburban high school, the cost of nonconformity is the unthinkable: expulsion.
Though we rarely speak about it, all of us have understood this rule from the time we first stepped into a schoolroom. It is safe to assume that The Game has been played by mankind throughout human history. And it is also safe to assume that this curse on the human psyche will always be with us.
Learning to conform in school is what sets the stage for conformity in adult life. For twelve or more years, we learn how to think like “mainstream” people. We learn how to be politically correct. We learn how not to make waves. And if we become really good at playing The Game, we look in the mirror and — the ultimate triumph of The Game — we see nothing but a blur.
Public schools in the USA were not intended to provide a good education but to provide good little workers for the industrial revolution with the minimum education needed to work the machines. This was the avowed purpose. Check the historical record yourself if you have trouble grasping this.
Since the schools were funded by the factories at the time, this sort of makes sense. However, the schools still pump out little replaceable cogs, worker bees, etc., not entrepreneurs. How many really successful people in the USA are there as a direct result of their public education? Or are they successful in spite of public education?
I feel that you should not be able to graduate high school until you know what is needed to start and run a business with a fair amount of detail (among other things). — Owen K.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to imply that everyone consciously plays The Game. On the contrary, many people sincerely believe they march to their own drummer. In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm had a harsh message for such people:
Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists, that they have arrived at their opinions as a result of their own thinking — and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority. The consensus of all serves as a proof for the correctness of “their” ideas. Since there is still a need to feel some individuality, such need is satisfied with regard to minor differences; the initials on the handbag or the sweater, the name plate of the bank teller, the belonging to the Democratic as against the Republican party, to the Elks instead of to the Shriners become the expression of individual differences. The advertising slogan of “it is different” shows up this pathetic need for difference, when in reality there is hardly any left.
Translation: With few exceptions, when it comes to expressing individuality, we are delusional. You see, without conforming, we would not be eligible to play The Game. We learn early on that it’s cold on the outside, so, knowingly or unknowingly, we submit. Thus, the choice between conformity versus non-conformity is made — often without a great deal of thought.
At the end of the last installment, I said I would begin explaining the rules of The Game by starting with Early Me, and I intend to do so. But to fully appreciate what I have to say, I must first explain the hierarchical structure of the players in The Game.
In India, the inhumane caste system is slowly being dismantled, though there is no question it is still ingrained in the Indian psyche. India’s “outcasts, or “untouchables,” who today refer to themselves as “Dalits,” have, through the help of other nations, made their plight visible to all.
But the caste system that is part and parcel of The Game in our schools is invisible. Why? Because most people simply close their eyes to it. It’s pretty hard to see something when your eyes are closed. The caste system of The Game is not just alive and well, it is more firmly entrenched than ever.
In the next installment, I’ll break down the caste system of The Game. The odds are pretty good that you will be able to relate to it through your own school experiences — and those of your children.
The day before they went on their shooting spree, Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold sent an e-mail to the police saying they had gotten their revenge against those who had taunted them. But an equally important clue as to what motivated their bloody rampage is that they blamed parents and teachers for turning their children into “intolerant sheep.”
I don’t believe their choice of words was accidental. Intolerant most certainly referred to the painful bullying in school that Harris and Klebold endured. Intolerance breeds bullying, which is why the two go hand in hand as an integral part of The Game.
But the word “sheep” is even more telling. Clearly, Harris and Klebold meant those dutiful boys and girls who so willingly play The Game. And, to varying degrees, that includes just about all of us — both as children and as adults. If we want to enjoy the fruits of mainstream society, there is one cardinal rule that cannot, under any circumstances, be violated: We must play The Game.
And what of those who rebel against this rule? Millions of hippies rebelled against playing The Game. And so, too, have the Single-Option Purveyors of Death — from Harris and Klebold to Seung-Hui Cho — rebelled against it. Not good advertisements for the end result of flaunting one’s disregard for the rules of The Game.
Let me make it clear that I do not condone the actions of any of these individuals. But I certainly am interested in getting at the core of their anger. And to do that, I believe we need to look in the mirror and be honest with ourselves about just how The Game is played.
Seung-Hui Cho said that the purpose of his death was “to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.” I believe I understand exactly what he meant. It’s the weak and defenseless who are pawns in The Game. The weak and defenseless of our modern world serve much the same function as those doomed souls who provided daily entertainment for spectators in the arenas of ancient Rome.
Today, of course, bullying in school — though all too prevalent — is only one of the weapons used against the weak and defenseless. It’s the verbal abuse, and even more subtle abuses such as exclusion and undeserved punishment, that are far more cruel.
Keep in mind that, for practical reasons, I am a strong believer in certitudes. Without them, civilization is impossible. But I also recognize that the best ideas, the best philosophies, the best concepts are not perfect. All have negative offsets built into them. Sort of like what Winston Churchill said about democracy being “the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.”
Like democracy, man is not perfect, life is not perfect, and the certitudes of a civilized society are not perfect. The greatest imperfection of certitudes is that, by their very nature, they promote conformity — which, in turn, creates “sheep,” robotic sheep who cannot bear the thought of being out of step with the unspoken rules of The Game.
Conformity stifles growth, creativity, and true spirituality, to name but a few of its negative effects. There is much truth and wisdom in Friedrich Nietzsche’s statement that “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
If you are a Christian, you may hold Nietzsche in low regard. But, as I have said so often, it’s wise to learn from your enemies. Whether a religionist or atheist, I would argue that Nietzsche’s insight is an excellent one. Using Christianity as an example, Christian historians and scholars who research, study, and probe in an effort to separate fact from fiction — whose pure objective is to search for truth — are the real heroes of their faith. Historian Paul Johnson (History of Christianity), a devout Catholic, is perhaps the best living example of this.
On that note, in the next article of this series we will begin to examine just how The Game is played. To start that examination at the very beginning, I would have to go back to Early Man, which would require a great deal of speculation. So, instead, I’ll start with Early Me, which will allow me to make statements based on my own firsthand experience. And don’t be surprised if my own experiences sound very familiar to you.
The Graduate — the 1967 movie that launched Dustin Hoffman’s career — is thought by many to be the greatest cult film of all time. The book was written by Charles Webb, a young, privileged suburbanite who based his novel on what he saw as the valueless, hypocritical lifestyle of his parents and their country club friends.
Webb not only dropped out of mainstream society, he and his wife (“Fred”) signed away all rights to The Graduate to charity. To the best of my knowledge, Webb, nearing the age of seventy, still lives a Bohemian lifestyle in a small town in England. Unfortunately, he is reported to be in dire financial straits.
In The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s character, Ben Braddock, is a young man just out of college who has no ambition or sense of responsibility. His sexual liaison with suburban queen “Mrs. Robinson,” played by the beautiful and talented Ann Bancroft, was the central hypocrisy of the film. Not only was Mrs. Robinson a close friend of Ben’s parents, she was the mother of the girl (played by Katharine Ross) whom Ben coveted. It was pretty steamy stuff.
I believe that the main reason for The Graduate’s continued popularity is that we all know, in our hearts, that the story reflects real life. There is a litany of truths that we all understand but dare not speak. When we see hypocrisy, we have trained ourselves to mentally wink … and then go about our business. The last thing in the world we want to do is be banished from mainstream society.
Before moving on to specific examples of hypocrisy and how all this helps mold the mind-set of kids who end up shooting their classmates and teachers, let me make it clear that I am a hard-core capitalist. Not a conservative-type capitalist who believes in corporate welfare, “reasonable” government regulation, or “fair trade” policies.
I am a laissez-faire capitalist — meaning that I believe in total non-governmental interference in the marketplace. But this is only part of something much broader — my libertarian belief in total freedom. After all, laissez-faire capitalism is nothing more than economic freedom.
The reason I am taking the trouble to make this point is that a number of (apparently conservative) readers have already jumped the gun, gone ballistic on me, and unsubscribed. Too bad they didn’t hang around long enough to find out what I’m really getting at. To fully appreciate upcoming Cho Factor articles, I suggest you read my actual words … and not try to draw inferences that were not intended.
Again, this is not about so-called liberalism or conservatism. Forget about ideology and politics. What I’m after here is much more important — an understanding of what drives the Chos of the world to kill. We need to know why Seung-Hui Cho felt that his heart was vandalized, his soul raped, and his conscience torched. It seems clear to me that, in his own demented way, Cho knew what the rules of The Game were, but was not emotionally capable of accepting them.
The key to how The Game is played was clearly verbalized by Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine killers, whom Cho, certainly not by coincidence, quoted in his pre-death manifesto. The first step toward solving a problem is to understand it, and, with that in mind, in the next installment we’ll take a look at Klebold’s words and try to decipher what they mean.
There can be no question that Western civilization was, until relatively recently, the most civilized culture in the history of our planet. And the foundation of its remarkable stability was a widespread respect for certitudes — a code of conduct that was generally accepted by the vast majority of citizens. The Moral Pendulum swayed strongly toward America’s conviction of right and wrong.
Stability is a direct result of certitudes, and certitudes are a direct result of a non-diverse culture. Diversity, by its very nature, is at odds with certitudes. Which is why the mantra that America’s strength lies in its diversity is a blatant lie. On the contrary, diversity is America’s greatest weakness.
It’s important to point out here that diversity has nothing to do with the color of one’s skin. Nor does it necessarily have anything to do with national origin. Diversity has to do with differing views of the world. The reason American society has become a cauldron of hatred and violence is that, for the first time in its history, it lacks a consensus on certitudes.
There are two Robert Ringers, and, if you dare to look deep within, I suspect you will find two of you as well. One Robert Ringer believes in certitudes, because without them society has no structure … no order … no cohesiveness.
But there is another Robert Ringer who is a rebel at heart … a Robert Ringer who sees the wisdom in the words of Buddha: “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
The overthrow of established ways can often produce morally superior results, the American Revolution and the abolition of slavery being two excellent examples of this. Like all things in life, however, when the pendulum of change swings too far, mayhem can ensue.
The hippie movement of the sixties is the archetype of this. It brought us rampant drug use, promiscuous sex, and previously unimagined vulgarity. It also brought us the Manson Family murders, “black power,” and a collectivist mindset that has bankrupted the U.S. through a phenomenon known as “entitlements.”
Whether “liberal” or “conservative,” we can all understand why millions of people — not just hippies — were against the Vietnam War. But I believe that unpopular adventure into Southeast Asia was nothing more than a detonator for a rebellion that had been festering for a long time — arguably, since the beginning of recorded history. What I am referring to is the rebellion against established ways.
I have an aversion to sloth, drug use, promiscuous sex, and, above all, violence. But with age, I’ve come to realize that the best way to combat that which I dislike is to first try to understand what inspired it. You should ask yourself, “Why does the Moral Pendulum even oscillate?”
What, for example, prompts a college professor to say that the victims of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center were “little Eichmanns?” Clearly, Ward Churchill was referring to stock traders when he made that infamous remark.
He apparently sees such people as cogs in a machine that kills in a much more subtle and silent way than war. As repulsive as a Ward Churchill may seem to those of us who are “civilized,” I believe it is in my own rational self-interest to try to understand what someone like him tick. And a good start on achieving such an understanding is to absorb the message in perhaps the greatest cult film of all time … coming up in the next installment.
In his videotaped manifesto, Seung-Hui Cho said, “You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option.” Fortunately, when “normal” people like you and me feel “forced into a corner,” we don’t see violence as our only alternative.
We learn early on that it’s more pragmatic and a lot less painful to fall in line and play “The Game.” Playing The Game is still somewhat painful, but we come to believe (urged on by our elders from a very early age) that it is a much easier path than rebellion.
And what of those who refuse to play The Game? Sometimes they make a positive mark on society, though they often end up paying the ultimate price. Mahatma Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, and Martin Luther King Jr. are three examples that come to mind.
But many of those who refuse to play The Game go to the other extreme and have a negative impact on society. In that respect, Timothy Leary comes to mind. His “Turn on, tune in, drop out” mantra in the sixties led millions of disenchanted kids to drugs, a meaningless existence, and, all too often, death.
Which brings us to today’s real war: certitude versus relativism. If you like stability, the fifties would have been your cup of tea. We nuked the Japanese and flattened Berlin … achieving peace through overwhelming force. It was all very simple. Avoiding civilian casualties wasn’t a high priority. Kicking butt was a certitude that everyone understood. It was part of America’s generally accepted code of conduct.
In the fifties, life was not nearly as complicated as it is today. Guys wore their hair short; girls wore it long. Guys wore trousers (not jeans); girls wore skirts. If you stepped out of line in school, you were sent to the principal’s office for a paddling. Kissing your date goodnight was a big deal. And if you were cool, you smoked (just like your parents) and drank (just like your parents). Both of these activities were socially acceptable aspects of The Game.
Then some belligerent soul (no way to know for sure who it was) said — much like the rebellious servant in Planet of the Apes — “No.” Up to that point in time, everyone understood that the unspoken answer to any question that challenged our generally accepted way of life was: “That’s how The Game is played.” End of discussion.
But once kids started refusing to play, the floodgates quickly opened. And through those gates came The Beatles, promiscuity, students demanding that colleges treat them like adults, “black power,” rampant drug use, and a general in-your-face attitude toward authority.
This secular version of the Big Bang brought us into a strange new world that planted the seeds for the rise of future Chos � angry kids who resented being relegated to the status of irrelevant pawns in The Game. Prior to this, most people had seen only one option:
Keep your mouth shut And play The Game; Then teach your children To do the same.
Now, suddenly, there was a second option: violence. But most of those who would employ it as the ultimate way to rebel against The Game were still years away from being born. Cable television, cellphones, and the Internet would help spread the word that using violence to grab attention and express your inner pain was an attractive alternative to playing The Game and having “your heart vandalized, your soul raped, and your conscience torched.”
Like suicide bombers, there are hundreds — maybe thousands — of Chos in the pipeline, and they have the wherewithal to be heard worldwide. They are angry, tormented individuals who realize they no longer have to fall in line and play The Game.
Of course, The Game can never be eradicated from the adult world. People are simply too vested in it. But a lot of childhood anger could be dissolved if we could bring The Game under control in our schools. And the starting point for accomplishing that is to examine just how The Game is played … coming up next.
Near the end of his career, the late and legendary Howard Cosell wrote a book titled I Never Played the Game, an autobiography of his years as a sports commentator. It was a revealing tome in more ways than one.
Unfortunately, the tone of the book spotlighted the fact that Cosell was an incredibly insecure, egomaniacal man. His egomania, in particular, is what made so many people dislike him so intensely. Nevertheless, he was brilliant and, in the mold of William F. Buckley, a master of the English language.
Cosell also had a flair for theatrics, and teamed up with Muhammed Ali in a good-natured verbal sparring match that entertained and fascinated sports fans (and even non-sports fans) for years. But he made his real mark as the lone intelligent voice of Monday Night Football, boxed in between two ex-jocks, flawless Frank Gifford and word-impaired Don Meredith.
In I Never Played the Game, Cosell shocked readers with his disparaging (to put it mildly) remarks about Gifford and Meredith, two ex-jocks he saw as totally devoid of talent. He also railed on about what he referred to as the “jockocracy” of sports broadcasting, believing that the rise of ex-jocks such as Gifford and Meredith in the broadcast booth was demeaning to his profession.
Which fed right into the title of his book. As Cosell explained it, I Never Played the Game had a double meaning. First, it referred to the fact that he himself never played professional sports. He was proud of the fact that he was an ace sports commentator, not an ex-jock.
But the title also meant that Cosell never played the lackey in his relationships with advertisers, his employer (ABC), or team owners. He did admit that, being human, he sometimes “made compromises,” but insisted that he had never forfeited a major principle throughout his career. He died proud in his belief that he had “never played the game.”
Which brings us to Seung-Hui Cho and the Virginia Tech massacre. I thought about Howard Cosell’s book when I saw Cho’s videotaped manifesto. It is, of course, easy for the media to brush off Cho’s words as the ravings of a madman. And, to be sure, there is no question that he was mentally disturbed.
But you can learn a lot by listening to the words of an angry person — sane or not — and Cho was a very angry person. Following is some of what he said in his rant that made me think of Cosell’s book:
“You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. … You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people. … Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats. Your golden necklaces weren’t enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn’t [sic] enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough. Those weren’t enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything.”
There is no question in my mind that Cho was referring to playing the game — the superficial game — that, to one extent or another, we all play — the game that guides how we live our lives. It’s a game with unspoken rules that are understood by all but never discussed out loud.
On one or more occasions, we’ve all had our hearts vandalized, our souls raped, and our consciences torched. We understand how to play the game and we understand the pain that playing the game exacts. But very few of us ever allow ourselves to be backed into a corner where, like Cho, we see violence as our only option.
In the next installment of this series, we’ll take a hard look at the option that most of us choose instead.
Bully-engendered violence (the focal point of Installments I-XV of The Cho Factor) is just one aspect of a much larger sociological phenomenon that Seung-Hui Cho brought to light in his videotaped manifesto at Virginia Tech. Not surprisingly, I have seen nothing in either the print or visual media that even remotely addresses the underlying meaning of his tirade.
So, from this point on, bullying and school violence will be merged with something much larger and all-encompassing. When I say all-encompassing, it’s because what I believe Cho was referring to in his angry rant is an uncomfortable reality that affects just about every aspect of the human experience.
I ended Installment I by saying that the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre is a part of much deeper societal issues — issues that define how we live our lives. I also said that these issues define our perceptions of what is real and what is unreal.
I’ve thought about writing on this subject for years, but it contains so many landmines that I was never quite sure how to approach it. The landmines I am referring to are loaded with reader anger, and when they explode — which they are guaranteed to do — they will do so with a vengeance.
Chicken Writer Rule No. 1: Never write about religion or politics, because people can’t handle opinions or insights that contradict their most cherished beliefs regarding these subjects. It’s much safer to write about things like success strategies, positive mental attitude, and perseverance. To be sure, these subjects are important, but they have the added benefit of not detonating anyone’s emotions.
On the other hand, exposing flaws in how people live their day-to-day lives has the potential to inflame even more so than opining on politics or religion. Woe unto him who writes about the way the world is rather than the way people would like it to be.
No one is immune here … least of all me. As I suggested in Installment XIII of this series, the human race may just be an experiment that failed. With all the good people on this planet, and with all the good things that so many people do, the fact remains that humans are a very imperfect species.
And I believe that in parts of Cho’s seemingly deranged manifesto, he was alluding to some of those imperfections — flaws that can be linked together under one broad sociological umbrella. Call it the Foundational Flaw of Modern Western Man.
Hint: The foundational flaw I am referring to has given rise to such phenomena as inferior and immoral men and women being elected to the highest offices in the land … the spread of voodoo economics and the anti-capitalist mentality … semi-illiterate teachers and unchecked bullying in our schools … freaks and losers becoming rich and famous as purveyors of nothing more than “shtick” … rampant drug use and spiraling teenage suicide rates … political correctness and a clamping down on free speech.
From Woodstock to Rev. Jeremiah Wright … from the Manson Family to today’s corporately controlled Las Vegas … the Foundational Flaw of Modern Western Man is the common thread. Between now and the next installment of this series, you might want to take a guess at which of Cho’s words you think I am referring to — and what the significance of those words is with regard to how we live our lives.
In Installment XIV of this series, I suggested that there should be both cameras and parents present in every classroom. Which brought a couple of e-mails from hopping-mad teachers. But the overwhelming majority of responses were pretty much in agreement with the one below.
I learned at a very early age that teachers can be bullies themselves. I was in first grade back in the early fifties. The teacher called me into her room at lunch while the rest of the children were out playing. As I approached her desk, she began yelling at me to close the door of the classroom behind me, which I did.
She then accused me of not paying my “Weekly Reader” subscription for the year. I told her I did pay it. Next thing I knew, she came toward me and slapped me across the face – hard. My nose began bleeding immediately. She sent me to the restroom to clean up, and thought the matter was over. After all, I was only six years old.
I told my parents about the incident when I got home. Both of them went to school and confronted my teacher about hitting me. The teacher denied it all and said I was lying. Thankfully, my parents believed me, and she never touched me again, but it began a mistrust for teachers that I carried with me all during my school years.
That was years ago, and I survived. However, if cameras were installed, they would have caught my grandson’s first-grade teacher ranting and raving about what she was even doing in a classroom since she didn’t even like children. He has never forgotten that day. How sad.
The rules have changed from my school days to his, but there is definitely room for improvement. The best day-care centers have one-way glass windows looking into the classroom and cameras running at all times for observation by parents and grandparents.
So, yes, I favor having parents and cameras in the classroom. But even if that were accomplished, there’s another fundamental issue that would still need to be addressed in order to keep abusive teachers in line. I like to refer to it as the “principle/principal,” because it all begins and ends with the school principal. (Whenever I use the word principal, it is intended to include “headmasters” at private schools as well.)
I believe every school board (public or private) should make it clear to the principal that he works for, and is answerable to, the parents of his students. The corollary to this proposition is that it should be made ultra-clear by every school board that the principal is not there to defend the teachers.
Of and by itself, this would dramatically change the dynamics of parent-teacher confrontations. If enough parents complain to the school board that a principal failed to defend them and their children against teacher abuse, he should be given a harsh warning. If further complaints of this nature are lodged against him, he should be put on notice that his termination is close at hand. Then, if he still does not get the message, they should send him out into the real world and let him try to make a living without the support of the NEA.
I’ve had many meetings with principals over the years with regard to unacceptable teacher behavior, and, without exception, they have tenaciously defended the teachers in question. On some occasions, the teachers’ actions were factually indefensible, yet the principals stood their ground.
I believe the reason for this is that school principals make the same mistake as many business owners and CEOs: They become addicted to the sycophantic adulation of their employees. The unspoken understanding is that, in exchange for treating the principal as if he were the most important person on earth, they can count on him to stand up for them against wave-making parents.
In some cases, of course, the principal is the fox guarding the henhouse. One of my children attended a public school that had such a fox at the helm. The principal (“Mr. Bershitske”) bore a remarkable physical resemblance to Adolf Eichmann — but had a much worse demeanor.
One of Mr. Bershitske’s favorite pastimes was reaching out from around a corner and grabbing a passing student by the arm, then greeting him with, “Where do you think you’re going?” After the student answered the question in a quavering voice, Mr. Bershitske would gruffly tell him, “All right, get moving. And don’t stop anywhere along the way.” Sweet man, Mr. B.
But whether it’s a Bershitske or the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama who holds the post of principal, there should be no doubt in his mind that the parents are his employers. Or, in the case of a private school, the parents are the school’s customers — and it is the principal’s job to please them.
Specifically, the school principal should clearly understand that his top priority is to protect students from verbal and physical abuse, whether such abuse comes from other students or from teachers. If it were up to me, I would triple the salaries of principals and make sure they understood on which side their bread was buttered. (I believe CEOs should make big money, because the biggest salaries attract the best people — and motivate them to please their boards of directors.)
So long as principals protect rogue teachers, the us-against-them (the parents) mentality will prevail in our schools. Worse, retribution and retaliation against the children of parents who complain will continue to be the weapons of choice for bullying teachers. This is the ultimate fear of every parent, and the reason most incidents go unreported.
In my experience, all schools have an unwritten policy that goes something like this:
For official purposes, schools make it clear that they welcome the involvement of parents. They are especially fond of talking about the importance of a “parent-teacher partnership.”
The first time a parent comes to school to register a complaint, school officials thank him or her for informing them of the problem.
The second time the parent comes to school to complain, the reception is cordial, but lukewarm.
The third time the parent comes to school to complain, teachers and administrators lock arms, dig in their heels, and shift into their us-against-the-trouble-making-parent battle mode. So much for the welcome mat.
As one teacher put it in an e-mail to me:
OK, you’ve hit a nerve, and now I’m mad about this whole issue … which is good! I recall being in a staff meeting and the supervisor actually saying “the best parent is an uninformed parent.”
One of the problems with the unions is the legal protection they afford the teacher. They don’t want a teacher to be fired or look bad, because it makes the union look bad (politics over student welfare). … [Most] teachers are in a classroom by themselves with no other adult witness. It was interesting to see some teachers’ reactions to having an interpreter placed in their classroom. — K.A.
I believe K.A. when she says teachers feel that the best parent is an uninformed parent, because she is not the first insider to tell me how teachers talk about parents behind closed doors. Never kid yourself on this point: Most teachers do not want parents — or anyone else — to know what goes on in their classrooms.
Even if no one had said anything to me about it, it has always been obvious that parents — particularly those with grievances — are decidedly unwelcome at schools. Unfortunately, I’ve had extensive experience with teachers yanking the welcome mat when my wife and I approached the front door. If there’s one thing teachers and school administrators are averse to, it’s waves — and angry parents are viewed as the ultimate wave makers.
It’s time to let the schools — both public and private — know that it is the duty of parents to play the role of watchdog. Would that a parent had been in the classroom when kids were shouting at Seung-Hui Cho, “Go back to China!”
Of course, there is no way of proving that would have saved thirty-three lives years later — but, who knows? The only thing we know for certain is that the current system — where teachers allow, and sometimes promote, bullying (not to mention engaging in it themselves) — doesn’t work.
The war against school atrocities has to be won one battle at a time — meaning that it starts with you. Talk to as many parents as possible about the idea of a parent being present in every classroom — at all times. Write up a petition, have it signed by as many parents as possible, and take it to the school board. There is no rational reason for either a public or private school to object to having a parent in every classroom, unless it has something to hide.
Reader A.P. would take this one step further:
“Public school” is, on its face, “public.” Therefore, parents should be allowed, even encouraged, to attend every class, as should the public, whose taxes pay for the public school.
So, I suggest that every classroom have a camera, microphone, and a live Web page available to the public. Parents could see not only how the teachers behave, but how their children behave, as could we all. There is no expectation of privacy in a public place, for anyone.
Like the excellent suggestion that parents attend classes, this proposal would flush out opposition in interesting ways. — A.P.
What an excellent idea. Again, if there is nothing to hide, why not have cameras in every classroom? It would give both teachers and bullying students something to think about — make that a lot to think about. Since time immemorial, it has been almost impossible for a parent to prove that his or her child is being bullied. A camera in every classroom (and, yes, a live Web page) would be the equivalent of DNA testing — an electronic welcome mat of sorts.
When I first read A.P.’s idea, my memory took me all the way back to the fifth grade. I think I was basically an insecure kid, which I tried to offset by being the class clown. (Judging from the way they talk, a class clown is looked upon by teachers and administrators as something akin to a serial killer, while those who bully the class clown are treated as upstanding members of the school community.)
The teacher of my fifth-grade shop class was a perpetual frowner whose name now escapes me. (For convenience, I shall refer to him as “Mr. Genghis.”) I recall that on one particular day I said or did something silly in another pathetic attempt to gain attention, when suddenly I felt something slam across the left side of my face.
My ears were ringing and my head felt like it was going to fall off. I remember wondering if I had died. Though everything was a blur, I could hear Mr. Genghis yell at me, “Knock it off!” When I read A.P.’s suggestion, I thought to myself how great it would have been had there been a camera in the room when Mr. Genghis slapped me across the face.
Today, there isn’t much physical abuse (from teachers and administrators) in schools, but I would argue that the verbal abuse is perhaps even more damaging over the long term. I have dealt with a large number of teacher-goons whose verbal taunting of my children was far worse than my getting smacked upside the head in shop class.
Of course, fighting to put parents and cameras in the classroom is to no avail unless we first straighten out an underlying, foundational issue that, to date, I have never heard anyone address. And since I’ve already put my head on the chopping block (and I have the e-mails to prove it), you guessed it — I’ll be stepping out front on that issue as well.
Years ago, I remember reading one of those “space God” books that were so popular at the time. In one particular book (the title of which escapes me), the author theorized that beings from another galaxy landed on Earth thousands of years ago and (ahem) “seeded” the planet to produce the human species. Finally, after generations of trying to straighten out the mess they had created, the aliens concluded that the human race was a failed experiment and hightailed it out of here.
I don’t know about the studs-from-outer-space part of the theory, but I don’t have much of a problem with seeing the human race as a failed experiment. The unvarnished truth that few people are able to come to grips with is this: There are no perfect answers to anything. Chaos reigns supreme in the human world!
All that we, the failed Homo sapiens species, can do is try our best, knowing that black-and-white answers are hard to come by, and that we will always fall short of perfection. True, history continually demonstrates that our best isn’t very good – but, guess what? It’s better than not trying at all.
Which gets me back to the issue of whether anything smacking of morals should be taught in our schools. Let me make it clear that I do not believe schools should teach morals per se. I have simply singled out goodness, kindness, and compassion as three intertwined, foundational traits that I believe would go a long way toward dramatically reducing school bullying.
I realize that I will not change the world in any major way through my efforts. That’s an arrogance monopolized by politicians and revolutionary leaders. But what I can do is fight for that which I believe to be in line with a generally accepted code of civilized conduct.
And maybe – just maybe – my efforts will make life a little more bearable for some children (and parents) whose lives might otherwise have been destroyed. And if, with the help of other likeminded people, I’m really fortunate, perhaps thousands – or even millions – of lives will turn out for the better. Wouldn’t it be great if school bullying took a backseat to kindness and compassion?
What I’m saying here is that just because perfection is not possible does not mean we should not try to improve things. Whoever said that perfect is the enemy of good was right. When you make the mistake of insisting on perfection, you tend to lose sight of what can realistically be done. Which is why mine is not an all-or-nothing objective. What I’m focused on is making an intolerable situation better. I’ll worry about perfection in another lifetime.
The idea is to get people thinking and talking about this subject … fighting to protect bullying victims … fighting to get both student and teacher bullies out of the schools … fighting to make “snitching” an honorable activity rather than an act that results in an innocent child’s becoming an outcast … fighting to force schools to emphasize kindness and compassion, even knowing that there will be many bad people who will pervert their meanings and try to use them to inflict pain.
Every negative occurrence comes with one or more potential opportunities attached to it. When Seung-Hui Cho unleashed his bloody assault at Virginia Tech, little did he know that, in addition to the destruction he intended, there could be positive consequences as well.
What kind of positive consequences? Cho’s actions can open our eyes … open them wide enough to see how far the seeds that spawned his shameful deeds have been sown … and then to do everything in our power to prevent as many of those seeds as possible from being planted in the future. The school bullying issue must be addressed in places far beyond the confines of these articles.
As you’ll see when we get back on track in the next installment of this series, there are many more ways (in addition to teaching goodness) to prevent Cho seeds from being planted. Just keep in mind, at all times, that even though none of them will be perfect solutions, that doesn’t mean they can’t produce much better results than we’re now achieving.
I thought this would be a good time to pause and clarify a few points. It is important to take this topic one step at a time. As the e-mails about this series of articles continue to pour in, I am trying my best to read each and every one of them, and I continue to be amazed at the excellent insights readers have been sharing with me.
Of course, not every e-mail is in agreement with my point of view — but even where there is disagreement, I’m impressed with the depth and sincerity of the writers’ words. That said, a number of issues have been raised that I believe need to be addressed before moving on.
Item: Many readers have expressed a strong belief that the so-called public-school system should be abolished.
The only answer to our failed and pathetic government indoctrination center called the public school system is to abolish it entirely and replace it with a marketplace-based system. Those who don’t want to go to school can be janitors and lawn mowing people. You can’t force a child to learn. It must be something they want. – R.H.
Though I, like R.H. and a large percentage of other Voice of Sanity readers, would like to see an end to government involvement in education and the closing down of all public schools, I stated early on that I did not want to get sidetracked with that issue. I believe that it may ultimately happen, but, if it does, it will take many years. In the meantime, it’s important not to take our eye off the ball and to continue to focus on other Cho-producing factors.
The objective is to save lives, and I’m not just talking about students and educators who die at the hands of a Cho. I’m also referring to the millions of bullied kids who don’t use violence to vent their feelings of humiliation and despair – and, instead, are expected to dutifully suffer in silence.
Item: A number of readers strongly object to the teaching of morals in school.
I don’t think teachers can teach that which they themselves don’t have. Teachers are the problem. Who is going to teach them compassion, kindness or anything [else] needed to improve the system? Is it going to come from the teachers’ union? I personally don’t think so. – W.T.
W.T. is absolutely right. Most teachers today are not qualified to teach kids to be kind and compassionate. Being bullies of the worst kind themselves, not only can they not teach goodness, they should be prevented from being anywhere near children. But we’ll be getting to that issue in some detail down the road. Let’s take things one step at a time.
Item: Who shall decide who is the bully and who is the victim? Who shall decide whether a student was just “kidding around?” Who shall decide what constitutes compassionate actions?
Who decides the classroom curricula for “goodness”? Who determines who will teach “goodness”? What of the thousands of teachers in our schools now? Are they to be sacked en masse, or re-educated? Who … determines which current teachers are qualified to teach goodness? – P.F.
P.F. raises a question that is common to many of life’s greatest dilemmas: Who shall decide? Who has the omnipotence, let alone the moral right, to decide anything for anyone else?
As I said at the end of the last installment of The Cho Factor, the words from Janis Ian’s 1970s song “At Seventeen” that have stuck with me over the years are: “And those whose names were never called when choosing sides for basketball.”
The reason for this is that every day, on playgrounds all over the world, teachers still insist on having the kids in their PE classes choose up sides. Which means that one child – and only one child – is chosen last. And it’s almost always the same one.
Actually, I take that back. The last child is not chosen. He (or she) is directed to be on whichever team did not have the next-to-last pick. Teachers who have described this to me say that when the child is told which team he will be on, the members of that team usually respond with such comments as, “Oh, no, not him!” Or, “Yuk! Why do we have to get stuck with him?” Or, simply, “We don’t want him.”
Can you even begin to comprehend the damage done to the psyche of a seven- or eight-year-old child who repeatedly experiences such humiliation and verbal abuse through these “playground games”? How can a child – who, at the same time, may be coping with learning and/or emotional issues – ever hope to recover from such ego-smashing devastation? I suspect that more than a few Chos, Klebolds, and Woodhams have graduated from their ranks.
Are the teachers who engage in such idiotic behavior simply stupid? Or sadistic? Or perhaps just too lazy to divide up the children as evenly as possible – without commenting on their abilities? Regardless of the reason, such cruelty should be brought to an immediate halt. And it should be made clear to all teachers that if they ever make such a mistake – even once – they will be dismissed immediately.
When you wrote, “Unfortunately, school officials are too stupid, lazy, and apathetic to do anything about the nonstop sadistic bullying of students …,” you were being too kind to the officials. You omitted malicious.
You thereby accused the officials only of negligence. You overlooked the possibility that many officials deliberately promote student sadism. Of course, the officials don’t do this overtly; they resort to the favorite behavior of their fellow government bureaucrats: passive-aggressive hostility.
Anyone who attended public school recognized and remembered it. Children can instantly recognize passive-aggressive hostility whenever they see it in adults. Dogs can smell it, which is the real reason that school principals do not allow students to bring their dogs to school.
to this day (I am 64), I can remember the name and face of every passive-aggressive school official I ever met or saw. – J.R.
Question: “Ringer, you idiot, aren’t you forgetting about the primary purpose of schools? Isn’t it about giving kids a good education?” Glad you asked. Because giving all students access to the best education possible is extremely important to me. And I have a strong opinion about the right way to achieve that end for the greatest number of children, to wit:
Show me a child who is secure, who doesn’t feel threatened or intimidated, who doesn’t have to think about how to negotiate his way past teacher and student bullies, who feels good about himself, who is genuinely happy, and I’ll show you a child who is eager to learn. And if a child is eager to learn, he will learn.
In other words, if learning is as important as most people believe it to be, then a school’s number-one priority should be to prepare the playing field – to make conditions ideal for as many children as possible. If the primary objective is for kids to learn, provide them with a safe and secure learning environment. Doesn’t that make perfectly good sense?
Later in this series, I’ll get to plenty of other factors that I believe stand in the way of learning. But the starting point of a good and well-rounded education is a secure and happy child. From my perspective as a parent of six children, not to mention my own school experiences and those of hundreds of other parents with whom I have communicated, this is pretty much a non-negotiable starting point.
I can hear some people thinking, “My gosh, man! Don’t you realize that U.S. students are lagging far behind the rest of the civilized world in virtually all areas of testing?” And here’s my bubble-bursting response to that question: “I don’t give a hoot what kind of test scores the Koreans and Dutch get!”
Heck, Joran Van Der Sloot graduated through the Dutch system, and he doesn’t appear to me to be any great asset to society. I think he might have fared much better in life (and perhaps Natalie Holloway would still be alive) had Aruban teachers taught him a bit of kindness and compassion. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that he is remembered as a bully by many of his former classmates. But … I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.
If you’re now questioning why you signed up for this journey in the first place, and are wondering if it could possibly get any more “extreme,” the answer is yes. There’s a vast desert just ahead, and I see no oasis in sight. And, by the way … the caravan will be leaving on time.
I warned readers early on that The Cho Factor promised to be a long, and often uncomfortable, journey, and that there were sure to be some sharp turns in the road ahead. So I thought this would be a good time to let you know that, from where I’m sitting, I see a significant number of those sharp turns coming up, starting with today’s article.
Thus, I feel morally obliged to give you fair warning that a lot of things I’m going to be writing about may go against the entrenched belief systems of many of my readers – maybe you. If that’s the case, rest assured that I fully understand if you should decide to turn back.
Having said this, my next proposal for shutting down the Cho assembly line is to change every school’s top priority. It’s a proposal that flies in the face of U.S. hysteria over our students not being academically competitive with those of other countries. That hysteria is based on the unchallenged assumption that academic achievement should be the number-one goal of all schools. I strenuously challenge that assumption.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe that becoming proficient in mathematics, English composition, science, foreign languages, etc., is extremely important. But I believe that developing good character is even more important. If you want to know how to stop bullying, cultivate virtue.
I believe that it should be made clear to every educator that his/her most important task is to teach goodness – kindness, compassion, and consideration. In fact, I believe goodness should be a mandatory course taught in every school – every day, every quarter, every semester, and every track of every year – from kindergarten through grade twelve. No exceptions.
The ideal would be for goodness to become so ingrained in students’ minds that they would fear being ostracized if they were caught being unkind, uncompassionate, or inconsiderate to any classmate. Being labeled a bully, rather than a victim, would be every child’s greatest fear. Why should bullying victims – who have done no wrong – be the ones to live in fear? The students who should suffer are the ones who engage in acts of aggression against others.
As things now stand, a majority of educators, consciously or unconsciously, teach students, from the day they first set foot in a classroom, that those who are learning-challenged, emotionally fragile, weak, or different in any way are outcasts. Through everything from ambivalence to malevolence, too many teachers make it clear to their students that such “oddballs” are fair game for taunting, teasing, and both mental and physical bullying.
My contribution to this debate is that we need to teach everyone as soon as they are old enough to comprehend that they have a responsibility not to cause physical or emotional pain to any living creature.
The message must be that we are all connected to each other and to all living creatures. We have to instill the belief that deliberately hurting living/feeling creatures is wrong, and that if we cause pain, we end up hurting ourselves.
We must teach everyone from the start of their lives that the people who seem strange, foolish or different to us are still our brothers and sisters and that they should be valued. All people feel pain, and that to hurt or harm them either physically or emotionally is the same as hurting ourselves.
Somehow we must teach people that bullying or making fun of anyone is wrong and actually makes the person who does it the smaller/lesser person. We must show the successful, the popular and the pretty that they have been blessed and that they have a responsibility to treat everyone else with respect because, otherwise, they will not be worthy of their good fortune/gifts. – Kel
(RJR comment: Be careful not to misread Kel’s words. He/she is not suggesting that it would be desirable for “society” to strive to make people equal, nor that gifted or otherwise blessed children should be brought down to a lower, common denominator. It seems clear to me that Kel is suggesting only that children should be taught the importance of practicing kindness and compassion to those not as fortunate as they are.)
In the 1970s, a young lady by the name of Janis Ian wrote a heart-wrenching song titled “At Seventeen.” The lyrics to that song include the following:
To those of us who knew the pain Of valentines that never came, And those whose names were never called When choosing sides for basketball. It was long ago, and far away, The world was younger than today, And dreams were all they gave for free To ugly duckling girls like me.
Every word of this classic is meaningful to any person who has felt the sting of ostracization, as well as to anyone who is a genuinely compassionate individual. But the words of this song that have stuck with me the longest are: “And those whose names were never called when choosing sides for basketball.” In the next installment of The Cho Factor, I’ll explain why.
I completely agree that teachers are often the victimizers. When I was student teaching, I taught under a teacher (coach who didn’t love anyone on the team) who took a solid “B” student and turned him into a failure. It was awful. He taunted that kid every day – taking a bobby pin and pinning up his hair because it was too long, etc.
When I looked up this boy’s history and found that he had done well until that year, I had a talk with him. I told him I knew he could get good grades, and he told me he didn’t bother because “no one cared.” I told him I cared – and he got an “A” on the next test. But I knew from my own days in school that some teachers shouldn’t be allowed near kids. I wore a pony tail, and every day when I walked into Algebra class, the teacher would say, “Here comes the horse’s a___.” Didn’t bother me – I knew my horse was smarter than him. But it would have destroyed a lot of girls. – M.C.
There is no question in my mind that if schools are allowed to continue with business as usual, school shootings will continue – and probably even increase in frequency. Worse, millions of innocent children will continue to have their lives ruined by unchecked bullying. Instead of taking out their anger through violence, they will simply continue to suffer quietly – relatively unnoticed – as they try to piece their lives together as adults. Perhaps it’s for responsible adults to rock the boat a bit.
Keep it up. I like where this is going. This is a topic that no one talks about, which is precisely why those who have overcome it can afford to have that huge blind spot in their historical rear-view mirror! And why those lazy, good-for-nothing torture-chamber monitors, laughingly known as teachers, get away with doing nothing when they know, and we know that they know, that what they are doing is borderline, if not downright, criminal. – S.W.The subject you’re addressing has bothered me for a long time, and I feel very strongly about it. There is no excuse for the bullying behavior that is allowed to go on in schools. I can’t wait to hear your suggestions. Personally, I’ve thought for years that any teacher who allows a student to be teased or bullied in their presence should be fired. I have strong opinions about this subject, and I appreciate your addressing the topic in such a clear and concise manner. – M.L.
If you think I’m cherry-picking the reader responses I print, I assure you that is not the case. On the contrary, I have been inundated with e-mails similar in tone to those above. The vast majority I have received since starting this series are filled with anger – anger toward bullies, anger toward teachers and school officials who condone bullying, and, above all, anger toward teachers and school officials who themselves engage in bullying.
It seems that not everyone buys into the rah-rah bumper-sticker slogans about “supporting our teachers.” The evidence suggests that teachers don’t need parental support. Rather, it’s our children who need parental protection from teachers.
The great unspoken truth is that millions of potential Chos continue to be groomed by schools throughout America (and, indeed, throughout the Western world). Again, all but a handful of those bullied students never harm anyone. Instead, they dutifully suffer in silence and carry their bullying scars with them throughout life.
This institutionally sanctioned terrorism – the beating down of the disabled, the emotionally fragile, and the weak – has been firmly entrenched throughout recorded history. And it is guaranteed to stay firmly entrenched unless a vast majority of the citizenry rises up and makes it known that it intends to fight back on behalf of those children who really are left behind.
Is it realistic to believe that this can ever be accomplished? That’s a fair question, and, frankly, one that is impossible to answer with certainty. The main obstacle I see is that, through the phenomenon of gradualism, we in the West have become lockstep automatons. We are no longer willing to fight for what we believe is right … no longer willing to fight against injustice … no longer willing to step out of line … no longer willing to do anything that might result in our being ostracized.
As Etienne de la Boetie put it: “It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say … that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
I truly believe that if negroes were still in bondage today, they might just remain in bondage forever, because modern-day Americans have become comfortable with the deal they’ve made with the Devil: over-financed homes in the suburbs, SUVs in their driveways, and flat-screen TVs in their family rooms – all in exchange for servitude. The implied euphemism is: Don’t rock the boat!
Having said this, there are many things that could be done to drastically reduce the physical and psychological carnage of the perceived weak that is now accepted as the norm in our schools. At the end of the last installment of this series, I promised to offer some extreme measures that I believe would lessen the chances of producing more human time bombs in our schools – and, even more important, lessen the chances of producing more millions of scarred children who are left to suffer quietly.
My list of measures is growing faster than I can write, so today I’ll just leave you with a teaser: The foundation of the Cho syndrome is an insidious two-headed snake that holds our children captive from the day they first set foot inside a schoolroom.
In the next installment, I will disrobe this two-headed snake – two draconian forces that I believe need to be completely removed from the education picture if serious changes are to be brought about. In the meantime, can you guess what that two-headed snake is?
Every school bully leaves a victim. Question: Is it really the bullied kid’s responsibility to suffer quietly? Was that the obligation of the seventh-grade victim described below?
I was in the 7th grade in a public high school. We are in gym class, and several 7th grade classes take gym together. We finish our gym class and are told to take a shower before the next class. I’m one of the smallest guys in the class, but this day I wouldn’t become the victim, because they choose someone else. Several guys grab this other person, about my size, and place him in the wire cage they keep sports equipment in. He is naked, of course, heading to take his shower. They then proceed to urinate on him in front of the rest of the guys. You don’t even want to know about the laughter. I can’t even imagine the emotional scars that he deals with today. I consider myself lucky that day, but that poor bastard … if I ever heard he picked up a gun and killed those S.O.B.s, I would cheer him on. – E.A.
It’s hard to imagine that the incident E.A. describes didn’t forever damage the victim’s self-esteem and self-confidence. Perhaps he died at a young age … or maybe he’s just lived a life of misery all these years.
Of course, he might have been one of those kids who had the tools to rise above such humiliation, find a way to repair his bruised and battered ego, and go on to lead a successful, happy adult life. Unlikely … but possible, I guess.
Frankly, however, I’m not interested in whether or not he had the inner strength to get beyond such a sadistic bullying incident. Regardless of his coping “tools,” I believe all the school bullies who participated in that savage attack not only should have been expelled from school, but should have had criminal charges filed against them. Instead, they almost certainly continued on their merry way as part of the “in crowd” throughout their school years – and, to this day, probably still laugh about the incident.
Now, here’s the “X” factor that people are missing when they say it’s the duty of a bullied kid to tough it out and succeed in spite of all the taunting, teasing, and degradation he experiences: What if the victim simply is not equipped to handle the abuse dished out by the student criminals who target him?
What if the child has a condition that makes it all but impossible to fend for himself? What if he has Asperger’s Syndrome (mild autism) or a “nonverbal learning disorder” (NLD)? Or what if he simply has severe emotional problems, as a result of genetics, an abusive home environment, or any one of a number of other causes?
Now hear this: These kids are the prime targets of the student goons (and malevolent teachers) who thrive on subjecting others to pain. Yet, in my considerable experience, no one – including, and especially, so-called educators – seems to give such handicaps a thought.
But the parents of millions of such children – repeat, millions – see the deteriorating results each and every day when their children come home from the torture chamber euphemistically referred to as “school” … depressed, angry, withdrawn, and worse. It is a very sad, very frustrating, and very ugly way of life.
In a perfect world, every child who is bullied would have what it takes to rise above the physical and verbal abuse, humiliation, and loneliness to which they are subjected. But, as one reader put it:
I often see this attitude of, ‘Well, I did it … why can’t others?’ However, we’re not all created the same, and the circumstances of our lives are not the same. I admire people who do overcome difficult obstacles, but often what’s missing is a lack of compassion or empathy for those who can’t. – K.A.
The coup de grace is that if the bullied child ever gets up the nerve to tell on his tormentor, two things are almost sure to happen.
First, the teacher or administrator handling the matter puts the bully on an even footing with his victim. The attitude is: “Now, boys, how can we work this out?” Which, of course, is preposterous and only emboldens the school bully. In every case of bullying in the history of Planet Earth, everyone knows who the bully is and who the victim is. It’s never a matter of two relatively equal kids needing to “work out their differences.”
The second thing that happens is that the bullied child will immediately be labeled a “snitch” – and snitching, in all schools, is taboo. There is an unwritten rule that you don’t snitch – no matter what someone does to you. If you get urinated on, so be it. But telling on the urinators makes you a scoundrel.
The implication is that it is your moral obligation to keep quiet about it when someone batters and humiliates you. If you snitch, there is no turning back. It makes you a permanent outcast with virtually the entire student body – even though you are the victim.
Unfortunately, school officials are too stupid, lazy, and apathetic to do anything about the nonstop sadistic bullying of students who, for one reason or another, are not equipped to defend themselves – and, in many cases, not equipped to get their lives on track as they grow into adulthood. Little do they realize that they may be helping to create the next Cho, and that he may be paying them a visit in the near future to set some things straight that he’s pretty angry about.
Hopeless situation? Yes, it is – if schools are allowed to continue with business as usual. Drastic situations call for drastic solutions. In Installment VIII, I’ll offer some extreme measures that I think need to be taken if schools are to lessen their chances of producing more Chos – and, even more important, producing more millions of scarred children who are left to quietly suffer.
I ended Cho V with the words of my computer technician, mirrored by quotes from two Voice of Sanity readers. The sum and substance of their similar views is that lots of kids are bullied, lots of kids are dubbed “outcasts,” but they don’t come to school with guns and kill people.
And they are absolutely right. Millions of students are bullied, but only a handful spill the blood of fellow students and teachers in retaliation. End of discussion, right? Not for me it isn’t!
On the contrary, that is where the real discussion must begin. And since no one seems to be willing to step up to the plate, I have somewhat reluctantly decided to volunteer for the job. Having said this, I will begin with the question I have yet to hear asked by the media: What happens to the millions of bullied kids who don’t come to school and seek revenge?
It’s amazing to me that no one has ever thought to ask, let alone address, this question. Maybe people just don’t want to have to think about the answer. Well, it’s time they did. The reality is that those kids who choose not to retaliate with violence are left to suffer quietly – right up to the day they graduate from high school (if, indeed, they graduate).
And, in most cases, the scars are there for life. A follow-up question: How many failed lives might have been success stories had the students not been brutalized at school during their formative years? How many hapless, miserable adults might have lived happy, fulfilling lives had they not been tormented, humiliated, and treated as outcasts during their school years?
I think psychologists would agree that there are two kinds of victims: those who externalize and take revenge, and those who internalize and hurt themselves. The hurt [of the latter] may not be visible to others, but it manifests [itself] in broken relationships, failed businesses, emotional instability, and an inability to achieve any meaningful goals in life. – S.W.
In other words, Cho and company are merely the tip of the bully-berg. Those who refuse to suffer quietly gun down as many classmates and teachers as possible, gain the attention they longed for since first being labeled as outcasts, are dismissed as evil by both the right-wing and left-wing media, and fade rapidly into oblivion. It’s a nice, convenient little mold that society crams them into.
So, the good news is that only a small number of bruised and battered kids take out their frustration and anger through retaliatory violence. But the bad news is that the millions who don’t commit violence are expected to shut up and suffer quietly. All it takes is a little self-respect and the toughness to stand tall in the face of ongoing humiliation, right?
Sure they were bullied. Everyone is bullied and trashed by someone. The real problem is the social structures that gave each of us the chance to develop self-respect and the inner resources to take being bullied have been removed. Now it is the bully who is at fault for the response of the bullied. Bull. Only you are responsible for your response. – M.T.
Is M.T. right? Is the bully not in any way responsible for his victim’s actions? Or the teachers who allow the bully to carry out his bullying tactics? Is it really the victimized kid’s responsibility to take it like a man (or woman) and suffer quietly? Or could it be that M.T. is overlooking something? We’ll address that question in some detail in Cho VII.
