Being Bullied

Being Bullied

Merion Mercy Academy

Merion, PA

Fall, 1967

I recognize that everyone gets bullied in middle school.  But when it happened to you, you are sure no one else has ever experienced this humiliation before.

 I changed schools in seventh grade. I went from a co-ed catholic parochial school in the city to an all-girls catholic private school in the suburbs. This new school had smaller classes size and my parent thought this would be helpful in addressing my chronic, inconsistent reading problems.  I didn’t want to transfer schools.  I thought this school would be too hard for me. Some of my teachers had inferred from time to time that I was “retarded” because of my reading skills.  And I believed them.  What  I would find out 10 years later was that I had a learning disability.  I was dyslexic.

I didn’t fit in to my new school, friendships were different here. My classmates had much more money than what I was used to.  And cliques seemed more defined, stronger, more intimidating.  And it seemed as if no clique was letting me in.  So I wandered around every lunch, looking for a new table that would take me in.

Then there were problems in the classroom.  One student in particular, made comments about my hair, my new immerging pimples, and my braces.  She scribbled a boy’s name on my book bag, one of the popular boys, so everyone could see. And people laughed at the thought that I would have the audacity to have a crush on Ryan.  They and I both knew that he would never give me the time of day.

Then two more girls started in with the teasing.  They would ask me to pass notes to each other. And all of these notes were filled with derogatory comments about me.  I dutifully complied with their request because I didn’t have the courage to ignore e them.

Then one day, we were in geography class and three of them were throwing wet spit balls at me.  These little spit balls were landing on my head and causing great entertainment for all those around me.  It was humiliating.  It was humiliating to keep the spit balls on my head. And it was humiliating to brush them off as well.  Both actions recognized these bad behaviors.

They did this to me a couple of days in a row.  And after about the third day, I had had enough.  I turned around to the girl behind me and flatly told her that she had to stop.  She laughed, looked me right in the eye, put a small piece of paper in her mouth and shot a slimly spit ball at my head.  It hit me square in the forehead.

That was the last straw. “That’s it”, I said angrily. “I’m telling.”  And I shot up my hand.  The teacher must have seen all of this because she reacted as if she was just waiting for me to give her the signal to intervene.

She charged down the aisle, pointing her finger at the girl behind me.  “Is she bothering you”? Mrs. Jordon asked with a voice of authority.

I turned quickly to the girl, looked right at her.  She was nervous.  And then I turned to Mrs. Jordon, “No, I was just wondering if you could tell me the capitol of Yugoslavia”.

The teacher was befuddled.  She stopped in her tracks.  She couldn’t believe it.  She was almost disappointed in me.  But then she answered my question and moved on.  I turned to the girl behind me and with great satisfaction and confidence, said to her "ha, ha, I scared you.”  And I had.  And people around us laughed at her.  And she never bothered me again.