Today, Clarissa had a post on a Russian student impressions in an American High School. Coincidentally, I was thinking about writing a post on a similar topic, but with a different focus.
Last night, I was talking to my parents on the phone and they told me they had run into somebody that had been my high school classmate, and that this person had send his regards to me. My parents asked me what I thought about him, and I told them that I didn't particularly like him in high school, but I never saw him after that, and one thing I have learned is that people change a lot after high school, so whatever I though of him back in the early 90s doesn't necessarily hold true today.
One way Argentinean's high-school are different from American high-school is: a) You do not have the division between middle school and high school. High school is considered from 8th grade until your senior year, b) you don't have elective courses that you can take. The curriculum is more rigid (although each school can have a variant of it), so everybody takes whatever courses you are supposed to take each year. As a result, you also have the same classmates in every class for those five years. Literally, you spend 5-6 hours a day, 5 times a week, with the same people.
Back to the high school story. I was re-telling my conversation with my parents to my husband, and I said that I had the impression that bullying was less frequent in Argentina than in the United States. By bullying I mean not only physical aggression but verbal abuse (constant taunting, mockery, etc). I don't think I ever witness an act of physical violence on school grounds or related to school issue. There was a hierarchy of students, with the "popular", "cool" ones and the wanna-be that followed them. But if you were not one of them (and trust me, I wasn't), you were more likely to be left alone and not invited to a party than actively mocked. And there were enough "uncool" kids where you could form your own group of friends. I am not saying it was a paradise, but it wasn't hell either.
On the other hand, whatever I know from bullying in the United States is what I read in the newspapers or see in the movies, so I could be absolutely wrong. Then I wondered if the fact that you spend so much time with the same people dissuades some from engaging in active bullying. My husband also mentioned the fact that as a teenager in Argentina, you have other places where potential aggression can come out: for example, I started going to punk music shows when I was 16, and I did witnessed there my fair amount of fights (and I always avoided them like the plague). Maybe that is another contributing factor. I don't know.
As a final disclaimer: both the high school I went to and the stories I know from friends I made in college include a socioeconomic group of teenagers that go from the lower middle class to the upper middle class. I don't know what happens in schools in a slum, for example, nor in high schools where the extremely wealthy rich kids go.
So what do you think? From my story, do you think there is a difference in bullying in the United States and in Argentina? What is your experience with it?
I don't recall seeing a lot of bullying when I was a kid. I went to a small school so the normal cliques of kids weren't present. I was grateful that my friends were so diverse (diverse interests and personalities not race - there was very little racial diversity where I lived). There was also a wide variety of SES in my circle of friends. However, I was one of the only catholics and never once felt like an oddball -- and somehow everyone knew I was Catholic. I remember hearing more crap in college about Catholics than I ever did in HS. I had to defend it much more then. But I was more popular and was a leader in my school. But my sister had issues with someone that bullied her (because of age we weren't in high school at the same time), although no one ever called it that. So maybe it was present and I didn't see it. Or maybe my circle of friends and classmates were more open-minded to diversity and less threatened by the success of others. When I got to college I met some girls that weren't the nicest people, and I get from things they would say that they were the "mean girls" in their high school - they could have been bullies. I also don't recall seeing a lot of bullying when I taught middle school but it was present enough that we talked about it to the students. There was a lot of hostility and tension between two groups of girls that were both minority groups that resulted in fights and the administration took some proactive measures in dealing with this tension, but I'm not sure if that is bullying. I think that phone/cyber-bullying is something to worry about and that traditional bullying is very much present in the US, but I don't know much about it other than that. So my experience in HS sounds to be more like your experience. I am interested to hear from others about this.
ReplyDeleteInteresting what you said about Catholics, I'm Jewish, went to public school, and I don't think religious was ever an issue. Nobody talked about it. If you ask me, the only student that I remember probably came from a practicing Catholic family was a student that had 7 siblings. I'm sure I had more practicing classmates (although maybe not, in Argentina 95% of the population is Catholic but probably only 20% attend mass on a regular basis), but that was never a subject.
ReplyDeleteAs for bullying in the US, my husband (he is 43 years old) went to high school in "the most boring middle class suburb south of Los Angeles" (his words, not mine). He said that everything was just bland there. He remembers being physically bullied once or twice, but, again his words, "in the scary meter, the bullies were as bland as the suburb. I took 3 month of a martial arts class, and nobody bothered me again". If his high school left any imprint on him, it was a desire to escape middle class suburbia and get to know the world. But he doesn't have any scars regarding how he was treated by his classmates.
This is interesting to me because my school situation (at a small, non-parochial private school) was almost exactly what you describe (and there were only 15 of us in the class!). I don't recall bullying ever occurring, but then again I don't recall my friends who went to public school ever experiencing this either.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. In the 10+ years I've been living in the US, I've formed the idea that bullying is prevalent in US high schools. At the same time, I don't know anybody whose kids are going to high school now, so my assumptions come from what I see and read in the media, and from movies. Both of you (and my husband) actually did your high school in the US, and don't think it was happening, at least not frequently. I wonder if times have changed or if the media just sensationalize a few episodes and I am getting the wrong ideas.
ReplyDeleteI went to a largish suburban high school (1600 students) with students from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. I do remember some fights, but they were always between known rivals and among students who really weren't in class much (came on campus to cause trouble). This was the same when I taught high school for three years.
ReplyDeleteWhen my college friends get together we kind of marvel at the divisions prevalent in high school movies. That was not any of our experience at all. Nobody could neatly fit into any sort of category and people were involved in different things.
I do remember some teasing in high school because I was smart, did well, and was Latina (often the only one in AP classes), but nothing that scarred me. My brother is in high school now and kind of liked being a loner. Other kids have really gone out of their way to include him in things (these are the "popular" kids involved in everything). This might be because he is attractive, but who knows? Of all my siblings (there are four of us), we were teased a couple of times, but nothing I would call bullying.
Perhaps we don't hear of bullies because a large amount of bullying goes unnoticed or kids don't report it because they are scared or don't think anyone will take them seriously. I think that many adults don't see what children consider traumatizing or bullying in the same light.
ReplyDeleteI certainly think that it happens more than we have experienced though. But maybe not at every school. Would we have noticed bullying if we weren't not being bullied ourselves? Maybe it is something that uninvolved people don't notice as much. I don't think it is as "open" as it is in the movies, therefore it isn't as noticeable. Maybe bullies are more manipulative. Name-calling and spreading rumors can both be forms of bullying but they aren't physical, so I've never really thought about them as bullying until I started thinking about this post. In fact, at Mr. T's high school (small like mine), rumors were started about a kid he was friends with and the kid had to change schools because of it. Living a few towns away, I had heard about this kid and the rumors. Maybe how we perceive bullying is different than what it is in real life. It is all about someone hurting someone else in order to have power or control.
Thanks for writing about this topic though...makes me think about things in a different way.
I was bullied in grade school and junior high, but high school was totally different. Everybody suddenly seemed far more grown up, interested in their own activities and friends, nothing to be gained by bullying.
ReplyDelete@Dame Eleanor Hull: were the students in your high school very different from those in grade school and junior high?
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the 1950s near San Bernardino. It was a farming and railroad town at that time and most people were lower middle class or below. From the time I got to junior high school I dreaded the day that I would have to go to San Bernardino High.
ReplyDeleteI started lifting weights in 9th grade and asked my father (a cop) to teach me to fight. I always carried a knife and when I got to high school (10th grade), I always had a gun in my pickup. The high school was 40% white, 40% Mexican and 20% Black. The Blacks stayed out of the way and out of trouble. The whites and the Mexicans had regular riots (gang fights) where the photography teacher got on top of the buildings and took photos and the next day they suspended everyone they could identify. But individual bullying took place in the halls and corners. People learned pretty quick not to attempt to extort money or favors from me or my friends.
When I got to the University of Virginia the effete southern gentlemen didn't know what to do with me. One first year student from my dorm told me that his Sigma Nu pledge class had decided to grab me and shave my beard. I told him to go tell his fellow pledges that they would have to use a razor to do that. I would consider it assault with a deadly weapon and that I would defend myself in kind. Then I reached in my pocket and pulled out my 6 inch pocket knife and told him that his buddies wouldn't be the first SOBs to bleed on the blade. I never heard from the Sigma Nu pledges again.
The good part of going to the University of Virginia is that I learned how to dress and behave like a gentleman. The good part of going to San Bernardino High School was that I learned to fight like a pit bull.
My point is that bullying occurs in many US high schools and universities. I think it is endemic in US society. We pick on anybody who is weaker than us and kiss up to those we are afraid might be stronger or our equals. Compare Mitt Romney, the effete rich kid, with Rick Perry, the down and dirty street fighter. Romney thinks he can buy anyone; Perry thinks he can kick anyone's ass. Just look at their faces when they a photographed together. I am hoping that someone brings Perry down. Michelle Bachmann missed the golden opportunity the other night. Perry, responding to her comment about his supporting favorable legislation for HPV vaccinations and then collecting thousands from the drug manufacturer said, "It was Merck and it was $5,000. If you think I can be bought for $5,000, I am offended." She should have responded, "Well, how much does it take to buy you, Governor." But she wasn't quick enough. Today the truth came out that Merck's total contributions to Perry and his buddies has been in excess of $500,000. Answers that question, doesn't it?
Anyway, Americans are indeed bullies from elementary school to the grave. As Isabel Allende said in "Mi Pais Inventado", "North Americans love war, just not in their own country." Or something to that effect.
@Diego: this is answering both this comment and the one you left on the "Animals" one. Thanks for telling me a little about your background. As I've mentioned before, my husband was born and raised in Los Angeles, Torrance to be more precise. A white boring suburb. Both his parents still live around. My husband read this comment, and said: "That's the most brilliant succinct explanation of Republican politics nowadays. If Mitt Romney had been beaten up a few times when he was 14, he would be president".
ReplyDeleteSince I met my husband, we've gone to LA every Christmas, and I've started reading about the history of the city and its pasts, and it has become one of my hobbies. My MIL grew up in Houston. I can't remember the exact name of the town where my FIL grew up, but you might know with these details: if you take the normal route to go from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, is a town right near the highway probably an hour away from the Nevada-California border (on the California side). I have heard some of his stories growing up.
He is also somebody like you: a moderate Republican horrified by what the party had become. When he finished high-school, he went into the Army (Air Force), then college, and then a solid middle-class career working as a mid-level employee for Northrop. A month before the 2008 elections, he told me he was voting for Obama and I couldn't believe it. McCain was almost the embodiment of what he liked in a Republican (and was even from the Air Force). When I told him that, he answered: "No real patriot would have chosen Sarah Palin as a running mate. That is putting your ambitions before the good of the country". Although I do not particularly like that kind of rhetoric in itself, I completely understood what he was talking about. Re local Republicans, I've seen in my own city how moderate city council Republicans have gone the crazy way, and it's sad (and destroying the city).
I think what scares me the most is that, regardless of what he did when he was elected, Bush run as a "compassionate conservative". Now, people cheer cruelty.
Baker is about an hour from the Nevada border and is at the south end of the depression that forms Death Valley. I don't know if that is where your FIL grew up because it was only a wide spot in the road during the 1950s when I would hang out in that area. Barstow is about 2 hours from the border and was a real town with a population between 5,000 and 7,500 during the 50s. Baker was first built as a water station for refilling steam locomotives. Barstow had railyards and several rail lines that connected there. By the 50s service for automobile tourists was an important part of the economy, like gas stations, motels and restaurants.
ReplyDeleteI have a special connection with Barstow. In June 1942, I think it was the 14th, my father, who was a CHP motorcycle cop, had his right leg shot off at the knee outside Katz Bar on Main Street. I just checked Google Earth and the bar is still there and looks the same, except they've changed the name to Katz Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge. So now they are really "high class". I haven't seen it since 1962 and I can't believe it is still there and still looks the same.
Issues about bullying in various level of education will never stop and will continue to rise due to the developed or gained anger and violence of our young ones. Bullying can greatly harm the thinking of the person who is a victim of it that is why it is best for educators to develop a way to keep them feel safe inside the campus.
ReplyDelete