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I always found it really frustrating that a "zero tolerance" policy to bullying seemed to disproportionately affect people who eventually fight back.

I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" (since your attention is elsewhere, of course) and that bullies get quite good at testing boundaries and thus know how to avoid detection.

But, really, it's truly frustrating that as I child I was bullied relentlessly, and when I finally took my parents advice and stood my ground, I was expelled from school (due to zero tolerance). Those bullies continued to torment some other kids, of course.

This is far from an uncommon situation, over the years I've heard many more scenarios like this.

Dang who would have thought teachers looking the other way and pretending it wasn’t happening wasn’t an effective deterrent for future bullying.

1984 (1948), a book written by an author who hadn't had the happiest* boarding school experience, can be read as a story in which we skip the fast-forward (part I) to get to the story-within-a-story (part II) which asks a cliffhanger question:

> deeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought doublethink, the Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive really consists...

which is answered by O'Brien (in part III):

> ...How does a man assert his power over another, Winston?" Winston thought. "By making him suffer," he said.

* Such, Such Were the Joys (1952)

Many years ago, one of the popular news shows (Dateline or 20/20, I can never remember which) did a special on bullying.

They showed one elementary school where the entire organization (teachers, students, staff etc) implemented some kind of holistic approach to bullying that actually worked. They even interviewed a group of kids where they said "Oh yeah, Tom used to be the bully and we were all afraid of him but now we're all best friends".

I don't remember the exact plan implemented but it struck me as both simple and common sense with excellent outcomes.

Despite much searching on IMDB, Twitter, Google and even using LLMs, I have yet to find the exact episode. Now that I have kids of my own, I'm even more interested in finding it. Any suggestions from the HN crowd?

Physical assault is a serious crime and calling it simply ”bullying” is saying ”boys will be boys”.

The ”bullies” who beat me up in elementary school all went ahead to have careers in things like dealing kilos of meth and torturing people to death.

Not hyperbole, btw.

>Children in schools that implemented the program were 13% less likely to report being bullied

And of course the goal is to prevent bullying from being reported so this is an absolute win for educators.

In my experience, when schools are graded on bullying incidents, administrators avoid reporting at all costs. This program isn’t enough if there are disincentives to reporting at higher levels.

well this is excellent news for the people of hn, the largest community of childhood bullying survivors on the internet

it's never too late

> The results from the UK trial of 13% reduction in bullying are less compelling than those from earlier studies in other European countries. However, the U.K. trial took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which involved major classroom disruption for pupils and considerably higher levels of absenteeism, and researchers believe this may have affected the results.

1) 13% just doesn't seem like a lot to me

2) I wonder what those other studies showed.

School really is the problem. In its current form, it can not be sustained without radical reform.

If you look at the suicide rate of children under 14 month-to-month, they only stop killing themselves when they're not forced to go to school (Summer and Winter vacation).

Probably the only place in your entire life that you'll be subject to physical and emotional violence.

Calls to "abolish the department of education" are going to get louder and louder.

This is how bullying has been dealt with in Norway for decades. Nice to see the UK might be trying to catch up.

I happened to work in kindergarden/school were KiVa program was actively used. In my opinion it helped to reduce bullying in early ages, but did a lot of damage for older kids. Early intervention helped bullies to develop better bullying skills and deprived victims from skills to fight back.

So what would be the outcome if you went to the court to get a restraining order instead of complaining to the school about bullying?

The other student can't be within 500ft of your child, but they have to be at school, how would that work?

Can anyone comment on the current prevalence of bullying in schools in the UK vs the USA? We have been considering moving from the Us to the UK but perceived higher likelihood of bullying for our mixed race kids is one concern holding us back. It's hard to know if we are exaggerating that concern or if it is warranted, it would seem hard to know the level of hostility of a school environment prior to moving there.

> Rather than the traditional response of blame and punishment for the bully

Well, that's bullshit. Often the "traditional response" (at least in my day) was to blame the person being bullied, sometimes along with the bully as well.

I’ve been thinking a little about this subject lately. It seems like bullying is a thing that serves the function of exacting the repressed violent desires of the social body. Who is selected for bullying is determined not primarily by the bully, but by the social group as a whole. To me this helps explain why it’s such a ubiquitous behavior; it’s a mechanism for a social group to act outside of its norms in the enforcement of its norms. To be clear, I think it’s terrible, just interesting to think about this way.

I’m sometimes confused why “evilizing” bullies is ok. The way they get identified seems dehumanizing. “They are the bad kid.” Maybe they are! But it seems like lots of good kids bully — ie it is normal human nature. Teasing, etc.

Obviously “normal” teasing or “lite” bullying aren’t the reason bullying can be so psychologically traumatic. But I feel any approach can’t be quite right if it fights bullying by dehumanizing bullies. Especially since “hurt people hurt people” and kids are kids.

Not that anyone needs to stand up for bullies, but you know, I’m curious if someone has an opinion about this.

Kiva also makes great cannabis edibles, definitely cuts down on adult bullying.

The real problem of bullying is the Prussian schooling model is a dressed up prison the victim cannot escape and cannot affect.

I hate to be this guy, but being bullied in school is a direct cause of my success in software (and my failure in relationships I guess). I retreated to academics because I was unpopular. I was unpopular in school now I am popular professionally (All the LinkedIn recruiters love me).

I don't mean to say bullying is good but I personally am thankful to my high school bully for keeping me focused on computers (Thanks Fred, I owe you a beer next time we run into each other).

surprising no one

Put a gopro on every kid and teacher. Document everything. Problem solved.

Ok, why is this a bad idea? Do the cons outweigh the pros?