[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Ricky Controversy

The issue here, from what I've seen, is actually a terribly ironic one. The same authority figures who are afraid to discipline someone for being a huge tool will turn around and generally tell the kids being tooled upon to ignore it. Sure, in an ideal world every kid could just shrug off the bullshit they receive unjustly, but we're not in an ideal world. The fact that there is unjust bullshit should make that clear, and the authority figure's in a child's life have the responsibility to lay down the law if there's a problem. By refusing to punish douchebag kids and telling the victims that they ought to ignore it, the victimized kids receive the double-whammy message that their authority figures don't give a damn about them. So, even if she did tell people about the bullying, odds are she was soundly dismissed or told to walk it off.

Unfortunately, schools and their staff care more about their image as a safe, healthy environment than they actually care about providing said environment, so nothing is done because it's far easier to sweep problems under the rug than it is to solve them.

And this is why we have school shootings so often these days.