Bullying

When my son was in the grade school, he was chubby and cute. But that led to a lot of teasing from his classmates. And one such occasion really hurt him. We shared that hurt.

His friend drew a pig in the thank you card my son prepared for the class to sign for their teacher at the end of the school year. So what was wrong with that? well, beside the pig, he drew an arrow pointing to my son's name. My son came home crying, angry. That was the first time I saw him livid, thrashing his legs, his feet. He was, like us, particularly hurt because it was a friend who had done it. My husband called the attention of the grade level coordinator who promptly scolded my son's friend. The card my son had so painstakingly prepared ended up crumpled, in the trash can of my husband's office in school. My husband picked it up and gave it to the GLC to show the misdeed.

A few years later, his teacher told us that he cried after the son of a comedian called him baboy. He was older then and didn't come home crying. We wouldn't have known about this had his teacher not told us. One classmate of his who was similarly big told him, "hayaan mo sila. sabihin mo, `at least may nakakain kami.'"

Another time, he had a text message from a classmate which I accidentally opened. It referred to him again, as baboy. I texted back his classmate and identified myself. Since then that classmate couldn't look me in the eye. On the other hand, the one who had caused my son to shed tears was, I think, aware how angry I was at him because initially, I would turn my head away each time I saw him. But he never gave up, greeting me. He even kisses me now when he sees me, I guess to show he's sorry for that hurt. In my son's multiply account he also apologized recently when my son mentioned the hurt.

Name calling, pardon the language, sucks. So I always tell my tutees not to do it, the way I did my son and continue to do so now. It can destroy the self-esteem of the sensitive, even the seemingly brazen. What causes it?

Perhaps, the article below which was forwarded me in the email will help explain the phenomenon... Soon as I received it, I posted it in the egroup of our batch in the hope that it would curtail the propensity of young people, via reminders from their parents, to be mean. I also sent a copy to the mother of my tutees so she could remind her sons and support my cause. Because that is what name calling amounts to: being mean. And it is needless and destructive, to say the least. Sadly it persists, even in the Senate. Witness how the senators ask questions during Senate hearings.


VIEWPOINT
Bullies with diplomas

By Juan Mercado
Inquirer
Last updated 00:37am (Mla time) 07/13/2006

Published on Page A10 of the July 13, 2006 issue of the Philippine
Daily Inquirer

POLITICAL bullies are usually skinned in this section of the Inquirer.
But this column is about school bullies, real ones -- and how their
cruelty blights lives long after diplomas start to fade.

At the Ateneo de Manila University last week, Prof. Onofre Pagsanjan
told his students that he attended the wake for Ramon Cordero Salvosa,
32. Who?

Many Ateneans today know Benjamin Salvosa III. He authored the
textbook: "Called to Discover Our Christian Roots." He teaches a
course, titled: "Living in a World of Lights and Shadows," about
living in a world of good, marred by evil. But Ramon?

Actually, Ramon belonged to an amazing Ateneo honors class, Pagsanjan
recalled. When there'd be Reading of Honors ceremonies, often the
whole class mounted the stage. Ramon was No. 2 in that demanding cluster.

That was expected. In grade school, he'd tick off names of the US and
Philippine presidents, in chronological order, tossing in their middle
names. "In grade school," Benjie remembers, "when the teachers saw us
they would say, `Look, there's Ramon Salvosa and his brother.'"

In Grade 7, two transfer students joined this exceptional class. They
too were bright. But they were also bullies who tormented classmates
as nerds and weaklings. And they picked on the two brightest students:
the overweight clumsy Ramon and the class president.

"Intelligence, unfortunately, does not mean kindness," Benjie writes.
Those who were more intelligent and privileged can sometimes be
crueler than the average person.

One of the two withstood the bullying and graduated from college at
the top of his batch, Pagsanjan said. "The other, Ramon, was broken
for life." He simply could not cope with unprovoked cruelty and
drifted from school to school. "The psychological wounds of his trauma
never healed." Only within his family did he feel safe from the
jeering and bruising.

A battered Ramon left the Ateneo, and settled in their quiet family
home in the Philam Homes subdivision in Quezon City. He'd spend hours
reading and writing in his father's office. In those years, "we got to
know the real Ramon -- a gentle soul that couldn't harm a fly and
content with his books and long walks," Benjie said. And he "would
walk for hours on end on his good days," Pagsanjan said. "But on the
bad days, he would hear the taunting and jeering and ridiculing all
over again. This went on for over 18 years of his life."

Ramon just didn't know how to fight back. And his classmates, teachers
and school administrators did everything they could to stop the
bullying, Benjie says. "But even they couldn't watch Ramon every
minute of the day. He could not function like before. After a while,
it became clear to us that he may never be able to return to school
and be the way he was."

At his wake, Ateneo Honors Class 1989 class president -- now Francis
Alvarez of the Society of Jesus -- told Ramon's mother, Carmen: "Mrs.
Salvosa, I'm very sorry and would like to apologize that we were not
able to assist and shield Ramon from the bullies that tormented him at
the grade school. I was also a target of those same bullies. They used
to lock me in the rest room."

"The darkness that had engulfed Ramon led him to regard his home here
in PhilAm and the park here where he walked every day, as an enclave,
a sanctuary where no one would hurt him any further," his father Jerry
said.

"That was the boy we lost: so exuberant, so spontaneous and so keen
about learning," his father added in the family response after the
funeral Mass. We lost … the promise of a life that was supposed to be
a joyful journey into an unlimited world of learning."

Periodically, in those 18 crippled years, darkness would sweep over
Ramon. The voices of his tormentors screamed through his head. In that
recurring dark night, there'd be two lights for Ramon.

"My father, Jerry, was always present to him and there for him,"
Benjie recalls. The other was my mother Carmen who took care of him
day and night. Every night, she'd check on Ramon. If ill, she'd pray
the rosary over him."

In the last two weeks of his life, darkness swept over Ramon. The old
cruel jeers re-echoed unceasingly in his head. For 18 years, Ramon's
mother patiently brought him to confession. Now, Carmen convinced him
to go to the sacrament of reconciliation, this time to specifically
forgive the tormentors who still haunted him. "I have forgiven them,"
he said after what was to be his last confession.

"With hindsight, we wish we had told Ramon, that these were the times
to act instinctively, just like an angry dog," the father told those
gathered for the wake.

"In times of peace, sons bury their fathers," my father would often
say. "In times of war, fathers bury their sons. There must be a war.
Because I had just buried my son today, dead at the hands of violent
men. There must be a war…. It is the war that Ramon could not
comprehend or grasp: a war against unprovoked, deliberate cruelty and
viciousness."

In an admirable expression of constrained grief, Pagsanjan told his
class. "Our Father in heaven must have looked down with much
gentleness and love on this grieving father. God, the Father, would
understand him. For He too had a son who was bullied on the cross."

Friends and Ateneo students today ask the Salvosas: How do you feel?
"Of course, we're sad and miss seeing him around," they reply. "But at
the same time, we are happy because he'll never hear those voices
again: no more hurt, no more pain. It means Ramon will never fall into
the darkness again and forever be in the light."

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