Bully induced underperformance..

You are runnung across the veldt, the lioness close on your heels, you are making for a group of trees as fast as you can. The lioness has caught you alone - she is stronger and faster than you, your skinny legs pump wildly as adrenaline carries you foward as if on wings of terror. The dry, yellowed grasses flash past you as you get closer to the trees and the lioness gets closer to you.

Suddenly, someone pops up, running beside you, waving an ecenomics textbook and demanding that you write a synopsis of chapters eight to fourteen. Now, thankyou! You look at them as if they are mad. You would, wouldn't you?

I feel that the lack of recognition of how badly bullying effects the victim's system is unfair. People who are under duress are not allowed to sign legally binding documents, but are expected to remember last month's lessons in today's pop-quiz. Being educated in an environment of constant threat is hardly optimal.

I'm not sure that there is any magic bullet to end bullying among students, let alone teachers, but teaching philosophy in schools does help to expose kids to coping methods, and the concept that there are valid perspectives other than their own, and that's gotta help.