Well - I promised some "clever" suggestions re: bullying teenagers on
the bus, but I am not sure where to start.
I will try to explain the issue this way: "know thy enemy first" rule
1st step: annoying teenagers (I like students - do not get me wrong -
but they can get really annoying especially when in a group - and a
teacher deals with a group of teenagers all the time - the only thing
that worked for me was that I really like teenagers - their methods of
bullying are - you will disagree with me, and I do get your point, so
I apologize for my sharing my opinion so blutnly - their methods of
bullying are not yet fully developed - their bullying - though very
unpleasant - is open and confrontational - which is good because you
know that they do not care about you and that they make fun of you or
offend you openly - and I personally can cope with that better than
with COVERT BULLYING)
You know - teachers are not supposed to bully students at school - so
teachers are even worse bullies than teenagers because they practise
COVERT BULLYING. Schools are not the only places where you can observe
COVERT BULLYING (=ambivalent behaviour, proclaimed cooperation &
concern & knowledge but hidden aggression, hidden disdain, total
ignorance, and total abuse of power, which can easily reach levels of
malevolent sadism, all this equipped with the so called "soft skills"
and "expert qualification")... COVERT BULLYING is also common in
companies where the employees are forced to do menial tasks and are
badly managed or you can say exploited either by the company or by a
boss...
To make it shorter:
I guess it is more effective to threaten to the teenage-bullies that
you will report their behaviour to the school... You can ask them
which school they go to (it is better to find out beforehand because
they are likely to lie about it or avoid the answer, and then you can
inform them that you already know ehich school they go to, and that
you are already informed that there are "problems" with them - and you
can restrain from saying anything specific - because the school cannot
tell you anything specific anyway)...
Teenage bullies can be very annoying, but I would compare them to
mosquitoes that can bite but do not carry any malaria. Teacher bullies
bully like horseflies or like insect that carries lyme disease or the
dengue fever... So... beware the school system and the teachers
If
you decide to report those teenagers like in a simple complaint you
should protect your identity and you should make the issue of
homophobic offence less clear by reporting bullying of all sorts
without drawing attention to LGBT rights...
So... you can write an anonymous complaint (to the school or to some
higher level authority) and describe an incident in a way that the
kids would not be able to identify you as the authors of the complaint
--- I know it sounds nasty --- I do not do that either --- when I
write a complaint I sign it --- sometimes I ask for confidentiality
--- and guess what happens??? :) I am here on an anonymous forum and I
am faraid to mention anything that would serve as a hint to any
personal information, ha, ha, ha... well sorry, for this fit of
sarkasm... it's really ridiculous... I just advise you to protect your
anonymity unless you want to become some kind of activists for LGBT
rights, and from what you have written so far, I guess that -at the
moment- you do not really feel like becoming activists...
Take care...
I have some ideas about how anti-bullying education should be done at
schools, but at this very moment, I am afraid no-one would allow that
- at least not where I live...
Next possibility is to contact some organization that offers
antibullying courses for schools (not only anti-homophobic - because
that might draw attention to your identity again) just general
antibullying educational activities - and you may try to share your
experience with that organization... but my experience is that those
organizations cooperate with schools and they will not criticize the
behaviour of the teachers, which is very often the root of the
problems (that is why I asked if the school holidays have just
started... ) By the way: many teachers are also homophobic... and even
if they weren't: many parents of school children are homophobic, and
schools are afraid that if they provide anti-homophobic education, the
parents will complain that it was disproportional, at the expense of
standard education, that their children should study maths and physics
not LGBT rights.... Well, bullies usually come from families where
bullying is not a big issue, because bullying is an issue for the
victims of bullying not for the bullies...
