Yes.. You read that right. I was.
Well not to the extents I read of these days. It seems this bullying thing deteriorates by the second. (Hearing about Sylvester today, breaks my heart into fine pieces).
And hold on. Before you conclude, I passed through 5 secondary schools ( quite a record, though), and I can tell you that not one of them was bullying free. I've been both day and boarding student and the story was still the same.
The ones in boarding schools happen to be the worst hit because they live with the monsters, there's no escape route as long as they are in there.
This is how it works.
A monster bullies a prey until the prey is broken and adjusts to the circumstances, if it doesn't get out of hand. The prey becomes hardened, turns into a monster and waits for another prey. Repeat the cycle.
The school authority?
They know, but not so much.
They don't know what goes on in the den once it's light out. They don't know what goes on in the toilets and other secret places.
How would they know? Who would tell them?
The preys? Pffft.
No they won't. They are too innocent. Too naïve. Too afraid. And sometimes, the monsters have beautiful masks, they don't look like it.
A lot of children do not talk until it gets out of hand. We didn't talk. It was part of the system.
The best I could do was to not bully the preys when it got to my turn of being the monster. Because I had learnt something that stay with me forever; yet I couldn't change the system, it had come to stay.
So why am I writing?
I read the media statement from Dowen College, stating that the prey was not bullied. That they have antibully (whatever it is they wrote) and I couldn't help but laugh at their ignorance. You can put disciplinary measures in place, but please don't tell me there's no such thing as bullying in the school.
I also saw a video where the poster said the parents of the monsters should be imprisoned too. Well maybe, or maybe not.
The thing is, there's a lot going on under our noses than we are even aware of. Some monsters have different skins.
And yeah, it's ok not to want boarding schools for your children, but like I said, the day students too are not exempted.
This brings us to the point where we must not wait until our children start school (secondary school perhaps- as that's the highpoint of it) before teaching them everything there is to know about this act. They should be taught to be bold, to speak up, or stand up for themselves as much as they can. They should not accept being prey, and should not be the monster too.
Not a monster, Not a prey should sink deep into their subconscious.
And we too should be very observant, now more than ever. Listen. Be very attentive. Have regular talks with them. Be open. Act in love. Correct in love. Believe in them. Let them know you 'be soldier for them'.
Because see ehn. Las las, prevention is better than cure.
Let's put an end to bullying.