My last year of school was full of scraps, many of which I was involved in, I remember my dad always told me not to let anyone intimidate or push me around and I followed this advice all the way up from primary school to high school.
My mum on the other hand always said to just tell the teachers if anyone picks on you or tries to cause trouble but unfortunately telling the teachers apepared to become less effective the older I got.
Generally I was well behaved, had a good set of friends and rarely got into trouble but I remember being the victim of malicious gossip and lies in my last year of high school which led me to being isolated and detached from my friends as the gossip turned them against me.
This caused a mixture of animosity and frustration and despite telling the teacher several times (who responded the last time with "Stick and stones..") I decided to take matters into my own hands and opposed the other kids who's gang-mentality seemed to grow.
As a result I took out a no-cr@p policy and anyone who spoke down or attempted to intimidate me was met with force, this was very effective in quieting those certain individuals who had previously been a burden.
I never went looking for a fight, or starting trouble, just responding to what came my way!
In the same sense it also ostracized (sp?) me further to a degree as people also feared me and I suppose to a certain degree it killed of certain remaining friendships of the people who would associate with me but only to a certain level.
Also the sad part was that all this occured in my exams year and made for an unenjoyable final year of school and partly impacted on my results, it also threatened to drag me into a bad crowd as some of the bad boys of the school attempted to associate with me and get me in with their crowd.
In addition to this I was in the headmasters office with grazed knuckles on a few occasions and detained after school with calls to my parents but its important to remember this was just for a 6 month or so period of my schooling life and no more.
Looking back I suppose its all a case of social sciences and behaviour that can come full circle to being part of a teen growing up and facing chalenges and how you handle these challenges.
The most important thing to me is that many of the people I fell out with or fought with in high later fell back into my circle of friends and even now we hang out, and often laugh at the people we were then and who we are now as all things evolve and change over time!
Sorry I got a bit carried away there, I have had my head in too many university reports of late! haha
Andy
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