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Topic: Bullies (08/09/04)
TITLE: I Was A Third Grade Bully By Lynda Munfrada 08/12/04 |
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I entered the third grade with an attitude. It wasn't my freckles and blonde braids that my new classmates met, nor did the blue plaid jumper that my grandmother tailored for me impress them. No, I signaled my arrival at Baldwin Elementary School with a stomp of my foot and a fist in the face of the biggest kid on the bus.
On my first day in the third grade, I got to meet the Principal, and so did my mother who was immediately called to attend a conference regarding her unruly child. By the look of humiliation on her red face and scowling eyes, I knew the strap would be waiting for me when I got home.
My father, thank God, was in a submarine in the ocean off the coast of some foreign country keeping us all safe. I wished he'd been coming home sooner. His navy career was sorely crimping my family life. My mother was exhausted from working at the noodle factory during the day and trying to pass algebra at the community college at night, not to mention raising three strong-willed kids with various pets, animals, and forest critters we collected. She just didn't have the patience to work through my new school jitters.
At the last two schools, I was the one with the bloody nose by the end of the first day. Because the Navy moved us every six months --often in the middle of the school year-- I had missed a few scholarly essentials like phonics and “6's & 7's” on the multiplication chart. I was jaded at seven and hated school of any kind.
Why did it seem that every new teacher insist I stand up in front of the whole class and read some dumb paragraph about a kid named Dick, his sister, and their spotted dog? It wasn't enough that God had given me bucked teeth, but I also stuttered when I was nervous or scared. With knees knocking, I would begin to read and about the fourth or fifth "st" word that I slaughtered, the kids would start to laugh, the teacher would begin to yell at them, and tears would slide down my scarlet face.
Crying is not acceptable in elementary school and so by the end of recess some bully would invariably punch the new kid to make him or her--in this case--me cry. This is also the way I would befriend some other low-on-the-scarety-cat-pole student and we would spend the rest of the year hiding under the slide or in the sanctuary of the nurse’s office with a various stomach ailments. I hated bullies. That is until I became one.
By the end of the first day of third grade, I had been to the principal's office, the counselor's office, and the corner several times. I was sent home with a note pinned to my jumper advising my mother to seek help. I'm not sure if it was for her or for me.
I do know that when I returned to school the next day, I was given a wide berth by fellow students and teachers NEVER let me out of their sight. I had full adult protection! At lunch recess I waited to be assaulted, but when no one challenged me or Mr. Sobornski, the very tall science teacher who had been assigned to keep the other kids safe from me, I sighed a big breath of relief and enjoyed the rest of the year inwardly cowering under the "protection" of any nearby teacher. By the next year, I had braces and had grown taller and girl bumps so I was no longer considered a threat by anyone.
Being a bully only lasted one day for me, but “let ‘em know you mean business first” became my life motto.