There’s this kid. He’s a middle school kid. I see him hanging around the elementary school waiting for the middle school bus in the morning. He’s a BIG kid. Quite a bit bigger than me. He is not shy around adults. He sucks up to the dog people. They all seem to eat it up. “Such a good kid. Loves our nice doggies.”

Nice kid? Not so much. At least not in my not-so-humble opinion. Maybe if I had a ferociously growling nice doggy, I’d feel differently. But I don’t. I think he’s trouble. His swagger and aloof manner make me nervous. One morning as I walked into the schoolyard, he was in the process of tipping a sign over (like the sign in the photo). He had it about halfway tipped and then, looking me straight in the eye, he slowly pulled it back upright. Would he have tipped it all the way over if I hadn’t walked up? I don’t know. It would have been a petty act of vandalism but his demeanor bothered me.

Yesterday. A bunch of kids were inside the elementary school lobby waiting for the middle school bus. As I walked by, the big kid suddenly got up and ran across the room and out the door. He was pursued by a girl about a third his size who was yelling something like, “Give it back!” I was just past the school entrance. I stopped and turned around. I said, “If you have something of hers, give it back!” They both stopped. He looked at me like I was from Mars. How dare that old bag in the pink ski jacket and the goofy mad bomber hat interrupt me from ruling my petty little fiefdom.

I don’t know if he gave the girl whatever it was back. Actually, I don’t even know if he had taken anything from her. I’m just sick of all the middle school BS that goes on. “We have a zero tolerance policy on bullying, yada yada yada.” No they don’t. I know what happens. One kid torments another kid over and and over and when either 1) the victim finally flips out and whacks the bully a good one or 2) the victim’s parents have finally had enough and call the principal, what happens? BOTH kids get in trouble! Zero tolerance, right? Not.

This morning. The big bully was inside the school again when I walked by. He was messing around with a white board that was set up in the lobby. I don’t know what he was doing with it, Erasing or writing something. But heck, if you set up a whiteboard in the lobby of an elementary school and you allow middle school students to wait for the bus in there, you are asking for them to play with it. I walked past the school lobby. Our hero apparently saw me do that because Whomp! he ran out the door after me. He yelled something. I didn’t hear what. My ears are good but I was wearing my balaclava this morning, since the temperature was near zero. It sounded like he was challenging me! No. I am not going to go there. I turned around and stared him down for a few moments and then I continued on. Frankly, I was a little scared. This kid is big. He sucks up to adults but he doesn’t seem to respect them. I don’t know what will happen the next time I encounter this kid. As much as he creeps me out, I will call him out if I see him misbehaving. I think…

Middle schools are what they are, large chaotic jungles. There’s always all this lip service about how all forms of diversity are celebrated, blah blah blah. And yet somehow the same old run of the mill culture seems to dominate where it’s “cool” to get disciplinary referrals and the “popular” kids suck up to the teachers and bullies are allowed to torment other children at the bus stop. The teachers have to teach up to 100 children a day. Only a few of those teachers have the wherewithal to get to know what makes each kid tick.

I don’t know who this bully is. He was undoubtedly wearing diapers when my kids went to middle school. I don’t know what issues he has. And I’m sure he does have issues. Learning disability(ies)? Parents on crack facebook? Why is this all my problem? Because this kid does not seem to behave when he’s alone in public. And that’s his fault and his parents’ fault for not training him (no matter what the heck his issues are). His teachers can only do so much. They have to have some raw material to work with. I believe that if he is tormenting other children, he should be kicked off the school bus and his parent[s] should be driving him to school. Politically incorrect? Yes. Sorry.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.