> When I was a kid, bullying was just a part of life at school. Some kids are just jerks. <
It’s different today. As I noted in another post, bullies often run in packs today. A pack will jump a kid in a stairwell or in a lavatory. Maybe work him over for a minute or two, then pour a carton of milk on him.
It’s not like Opie staring down a bully on ‘The Andy Griffith Show’.
The carton of milk thing was popular in the urban high school where I taught. We teachers knew about it, and reported it over and over again. The weak and woke administrators just didn’t care. They had different priorities.
Quick side story: I was teaching one day when I heard yelling in a stairwell near my classroom. I ran out of my room and caught a gang of bullies shoving a little kid around. I forcefully broke it up, and wrote a report naming names.
The principal called me in, and told me to never leave my class unattended again. I was the one who got in trouble.
Principals definitely aren’t the feared disciplinarians they were when we were in school.