Bullies in the Mainstream (Part II)

(READ PART I)

The jump from eighth grade to high school was more difficult than going from “special” school to eighth grade. Some teachers were intent on letting students know that we were “in high school now” and wouldn’t be coddled, which I’m sure is fairly standard. But at times that message seemed to spillover to include an open dislike for having to teach disabled students. An inaccessible building frequently required classes to be moved so that students with disabilities could actually get to class, which didn’t thrill some teachers. It meant they had to move to a different room for a period or two during the day. Mostly, though, that was just an excuse for their attitude.

My senior picture from the yearbook.

It didn’t help matters that the attitude of the “resource room” staff wasn’t any better. In my first two years of high school, there was a confrontational atmosphere created by the staff in the room. They picked up on the theme of telling us that we were “in high school now,” and regularly told us that we needed to learn independence when they simply didn’t feel like helping us with something. The teacher’s idea of dealing with a problem we might be having in a “regular” class was to hustle in to the teacher right before our specific period, whisper to them, nod at whatever they said, and scamper out of the room with his hands in his pockets. The aide mostly moped around all day and offered minimal effort.

I didn’t eat lunch in school during the second semester of my freshman year. At the time, I still needed assistance feeding myself, and the part-time aide was scared to death to help me. I eventually got tired of the way she would literally drop food in my mouth and being razzed about it. When I finally complained, my mom got involved. The principal of the special ed school I had attended was in charge of the resource room staff (theoretically), and he ordered the aide be taken off the lunch.

The change should have been made easily. The full-time aide wasn’t doing anything during that time. Instead, nothing changed. I heard nonsense excuses, but the bottom line was the teacher simply refused to make the change. The full-time aide used the fact that she was helping another student during a later lunch period, which was irrelevant, to defend her laziness. It wasn’t as if my lunch period was the only time she sat idle. But the teacher was too weak and lazy himself to do anything about it. The part-time aide remained for the rest of the school year, doing little more than typing up the teacher’s papers for the graduate school degree he was working on.

One of the times I went to the high school resource room teacher (or any “authority” figure in school) about a problem I was having with another student was when I was being harassed by a girl in my math class. She was sweet as pie with her li’l southern accent to the teacher, who she seemed to know from somewhere else, and could turn around with pure evil in her eyes to harass me. It was everything in me not to choke the life out of her the day she literally leaned in my face before class and screamed while shaking her head wildly for laughs from the other kids. I like to think that the fact that she was a girl was the only thing that stopped me.

After the resource room teacher talked to my geometry teacher about it, the geometry teacher followed me out into the hall just before class ended one day. Disabled students were allowed to leave class early to avoid the throng of students in the hall between periods. She told me that the girl was just being friendly. I honestly don’t remember if I said anything at all before I just turned away and went down the hall to my biology class. Something told me that if I said anything in that moment, too much was going to come out too loudly and she wouldn’t have understood what I was saying anyway, except for a few F-bombs that I might have lobbed. (Somehow people always understand when I curse.)

It’s one of those “if I’d known then what I know now” moments in my life. I’m quite sure I would have been suspended for the response I’d offer today.

My speech has always been the biggest obstacle that I have to deal with in my life. The first day I attended a “regular” school I started holding the back of my neck. It came from a feeling of wanting to stabilize myself physically. It was also a reaction to the nervousness I felt finally being in that environment. Despite years of occasional discussions about it and preparation for it, the prospect of having to talk to teachers, especially during class, suddenly scared the hell out of me.

So, I often didn’t say anything in school.

I didn’t say anything the day a kid came out of the Chemistry class I was about to enter and jumped on the back of my wheelchair, took control of the chair, and literally rode up and down the hall as if I was his skateboard. The teacher actually did ask me if it was ok, and I sluffed it off.

I didn’t say anything when a Social Studies teacher came into the resource room and told the (new) teacher that he’d like to discuss disability in his class. He had a couple students with disabilities. But, he said, he’d like to do it without a . . . and he proceeded to imitate a startle response, a nervous reaction that can occur for some people with cerebral palsy (myself included), shaking his body and voice . . . coming up.

I didn’t say anything on the first day of high school when the math teacher put equations on the board for us to solve, and stopped at my desk as he roamed the room and repeatedly asked if I had finished this problem, or this problem, or this problem.

Would speaking up really have made a difference?

Sometimes I wonder about the impact social media has on students with disabilities in regular schools today. I also wonder if communicating on Facebook, which in many ways neutralizes my speech disability, would have emboldened me to call out some of what went on while I was a mainstreamed student. I wonder if doing so would have just made things worse.

There were a few times I actually did respond to the bullies. There was the day I was late to lunch and the hallway was clear except for the genius who always stuck his foot under my wheel – which he did, again. I kept going for a couple seconds until I reached the end of the hall and could easily do a U-turn. I had enough. There was no doubt he’d done it on purpose. I found the kid at his locker and rammed his ankle against the wall with the bumper of my scooter wheelchair. I told him he did it every day, every damn day. And if he did it again, I was going to kick his ass.

I actually made it to lunch without my heart beating through my chest.

Another day, I confronted the kid in the cafeteria. I slowed down to make sure there was no doubt he was mumbling to imitate my speech. Noticing, he stopped suddenly and looked down. I didn’t even know the little asshole, as I explained to him, and asked what his problem was. I grabbed him by the back of his jacket and pulled him closer so he could hear me better when he didn’t respond. I told him to knock it the fuck off.

Don’t believe me? That’s ok. My buddy didn’t believe me either when I got to lunch and told him about the kid in the hall. For reasons I can’t recall, we had an assembly later that day. I have to admit, I enjoyed seeing the shock on his face when his English teacher walked up to me and told me she gave the kid more of a tongue lashing after I’d left.

I wish I could say neither kid bothered me again after I stood up to their harassment, but they did. Well, they tried. The idiot with the foot trick did it less often, and the freshman’s mumbles got much lower and always stopped when I would make a point to slow down and listen. It actually became kind of amusing.

More than 30 years later, I’m quite sure the kids and teachers I’ve mentioned have never given me a second thought. A few likely never even knew my name. In fact, I never interacted at any other time with the freshman in the cafeteria nor the kid who stuck his foot under my wheel.

I still don’t get how having his foot rolled over made the punk feel good. I even looked behind me the first few times and offered a quick “sorry” until I realized the jerk was doing it on purpose.

I don’t write this article to tell kids with physical disabilities to literally fight back against their agitators. It’s probably not the best move in the world. Although, knowing what I know now, I’m not sure I would have made it out of eighth grade without being expelled. I never would have taken the crap I took back then.

I will, however, tell kids with (and without) disabilities who are being bullied or harassed a few things. The day I rammed the ankle of the kid in the hallway, he couldn’t even look at me. He was with a girl at the time, and he just sort of looked at her and said stuff like, “Can you believe this?” The kid in the cafeteria never said a word when I grabbed him, and the buddies he thought he was amusing just looked away.

Believe what you want. I’m not sure I would believe someone with my disability telling me that they went back at kids who picked on them, and I was fully aware I couldn’t really beat up any of the other kids. (Well, I was mostly aware of it.)

Getting my diploma! I made
it through high school; you
will, too!

I never wanted to believe it when I used to hear that the kids who do the bullying are the ones with the problem. It’s not totally true, because I had to (and you have to) deal with their crap. And when you’re in the moment, it’s hard to stop and think about what’s truly going on to deal with the problem. You’re just surviving. You’re getting through another day of high school with 52 other things on your mind.

Knowing what I know now, I’d love to ask the kids who picked on me just one thing.

What was so wrong in your life that you felt better about yourself bullying me?

Because you can believe one thing – it really is about them. Not you. They are weaker than anyone you will ever meet. They will crumble the minute you pushback. They do what they do under their breath or behind the backs of authority figures because they have no pride in what they do or who they are.

There are times I still wish I’d fought back harder. And I do mean, fought back. Maybe writing this article, likely a better solution, is my way of finally doing that. Fighting back. I hope it helps others being bullied find their better solution.