Teachers Experiences

Too young to bull, too young to be bulled

Ioannis Aivazglou

Computer Science

17

Primary

Greece

School bullying

The story seems very usual at the beginning. But it was too touch to handle since the boy was too young. Giannis is a small boy, looking rather cute and he was one of the shortest in the class. He was good in football and running.

He was the first that was standing infront of the rest of the class before the morning pray. Schools in Greece start the morning session with a pray in the yard. Giannis was too popular in his class. He had an older brother in the 3rd grade, so every other kid paid a respect to this small guy.

Thodoris was anotthe boy, not so fat, but he looked overweighted compared to the rest of the class mates. During the breaks, all the boys in the classroom hunted Thodoris as part of their play. The whole scene seemed rather usual for a primary school. All boys were making fun and doing a lot of jokes to Thodoris. Thodoris on the other hand, seemed to like, or at least, not to complain with that.

Without any reason, as time was passing, Thodoris used to arrive late to school. He used to leave very early and missing classes. During the breaks he was always the usual victim for jokes from the rest of the class. But now, there were days where Thodoris was really crying during the breaks.
I did dome discussions with some of his classmates. Giannis was behaving like the leader of the class and at each break he was giving ideas for new games to the rest of the class. I noticed that Giannis was not actual the first in the queue of the morning pray. He was always forcing the others to be the first one. And the usual idea for having fun during the breaks was "Make Thodoris cry again".
Thodoris was really missing classes.

I contacted his parents, since they had no idea about what has been happened in schools. They thought that Thodoris was just a shy kid, not willing to be at school. I spoke to some of Giannis classmates and adviced them not to let Giannis be the first in the queue, especially when he arrives late. The first day that a boy said no to Giannis for that, he was suprised. At the end of first week, Giannis was not allowed to be the first in the queue.

One of the boys liked Thodoris and he started to play with him. Konstantinos was his name. I told him that he could be the one that could suggest new games to play in the yard. Although I had to to this discussion for a couple of times, at the end, Giannis was one of the rest of the boys in the yard. From time to time, he was still the leader, but not the only one. Thodoris was playing with them, sometimes he was the hunter and some other times he was the hunted.He started to enjoy school and be part of the class.