Five Reasons Why Students Should Learn to Live with Bullying in Schools

Not too long ago I had a discussion with a friend about how I was bullied at school during my teenage years, to such a bad extent that I ended up moving schools. He was surprised when I said that it was probably one of the greatest things to ever happen to me. While being an outcast, living in the fear of being beaten up, and not being able to trust anyone is hardly fun, it does offer one a brilliant life lesson. The world is not fair, and you have to learn how to deal with it.

My fourteen-year-old self was often fuming at how my then teachers took such a blasé attitude towards the students who made my time at school so miserable. Indeed, for a few years afterwards, I was bitter and resentful about it. But it made me realise how it was counter productive to believe in a victim culture. My time being bullied for being a quiet, skinny, weird student has gone on to produce the opposite. I spent my remaining teenage years learning about the importance of self-reliance, which is what drew me to conservatism. We are all individually responsible for our own successes and failures – for the most part. Thanks to the jocks and meatheads who ridiculed and threatened me, I have gone on to compete and excel at a variety of sports, as well as take part in public speaking and debate.

13 year old me bared a resemblance to Gus Griswald from Recess...Minus the glasses.

 These are all things that I could never have imagined myself doing ten years or so ago. And so I have laid out below five reasons why students should learn to live with bullying in schools.

1. It teaches the importance of individualism.

As many people who have experienced bullying during their school days can vouch for, complaining to your superiors rarely changes anything. All it does is give the person being bullied a reputation for being a snitch, thus amplifying their problems. Therefore, students who are bullied at school generally discover the importance of solving their own problems individually, and not having to rely on the help of others.

2. It removes the damaging connotations of a ‘victim culture’.

Some people who are bullied in schools often feel like they are owed something after being ‘victimised’ at school – that they were unfairly ostracised by their classmates. While this is true, students need to learn to accept that life is unfair, and that a life built upon ‘equality’ is purely a utopian ideal. People who succumb to the idea of a ‘victim culture’ at an early age often end up being very unstable well into adult hood. Albeit an extreme case, Elliot Roger is an example of this.

3. The importance of self-improvement will be understood.

We have all heard the story of the weedy kid who takes up a martial art or grows up to become a doppelgänger for Hercules.  And for good reason. By all means, it is not pleasant for someone to say to somebody that ‘you get bullied because you are fat’ or ‘they laugh at you because you only weigh 100lbs’. But there is an element of truth to this. Everyone should strive to be the best that they can be, and by doing this, they will save themselves a lot of hassle.

Lou Ferrigno was famously bullied for being death.

4. Mental and physical toughness.

It is publically known now that many children are now wrapped up ‘in cotton wool’ so to speak in our modern day schools. And it is no wonder that so many school leavers are lead astray or go down the wrong path. Schools protect children far too much from how the world outside of the school gates well and truly is a ‘dog eat dog’ world. It is best that someone learns how to be stoic in order to progress at the age of ten, rather than having to do so at the age of twenty.

5. It is a crash course social skills lesson.

Aforementioned being bullied and ostracised is one of the harshest ways in which someone can learn how to improve him or herself. The most important of which is how to handle one’s self in a social situation. Everyone remembers the weird kid from school who ‘had it coming to him’ because he or she always came out with bizarre things in lessons, or always had a habit of drawing attention to themselves. Bullying can sometimes be the only way in which someone can truly see what they are doing wrong regarding their social standings, and how to rectify it.

Where I am now, 200kg+.