Glancing through the search terms which reached Of Cabbages and Kings yesterday, I noticed a particular one which read "fourth grade bullying program."
Now, Cabbages certainly has told its share of tales of the epic battle of Average Kid versus Knuckle-Dragging Bully. (You can check two of my favorites out here and here, iffin' you're interested.)
And in looking at the phrase, "fourth grade bullying program," I'm fairly sure the person sought something regarding bully prevention.
Something formalized...
School-supported....
And probably not involving smacking the heck out of the bully on the playground with a metal Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox.
Just guessin' on that, though.
Anyway, upon seeing the words, "fourth grade bullying program" my sick and somewhat poorly-caffeinated mind at the time instantly thought, "Why would anyone want a program that trains bullies?"
Realizing my error, I got to wondering what a bully training program would actually involve. And to borrow a phrase from comedian Bob Newhart, I think it might go something like this...
Teacher: Good morning, students! I'm Mr. Pugilist and I'd like to welcome you all today to "Bullying 101." I thought we'd start off our time together today by getting a sense of your current overall skill level in the subject. That way I can get a feel for what exactly we need to cover and how much...
Now who here has performed a Swirlie in the last year? A Swirlie? That's taking a kid's head, sticking it in the toilet and flushing...
Anyone? Just raise your hand...
Okay, no Swirlies.
...All right, now who has done a Wedgie in the last 12 months or so? Giving the underwear a really good yank up the posterior crack?...
Hm, no to that too, huh?
Well, that's fine... We'll cover that next week, then.
Okay, so who has recently called another kid out for an after-school fist fight?
One... two... three... All right, that's not bad. I was getting a little worried for a minute there.
Good! Well, today, I thought we would begin with one of the tried-and-true bullying classics, "Knocking Books Across the Hallway. "
I'm going to need a volunteer for this.... Who'll volunteer?
What, no volunteers? Okay, how about... um.... you... in the second row... the pasty-face four-eyes wimp there...
See how I did that? (chuckle) That's Trash Talking. But don't worry about tackling that right now. We'll be going over that at the end of the week.
Excellent! You, son... what's your name?... Billy? Why, that's a nice name, Billy. Named for your father, were you? "William." Good strong name, William. Yes? Great!
Well, from now on I'm going to call you "Dead Meat."
Now, Dead Meat-- take this stack of books in your arms... Very good!
And now, don't look at me, and just pretend you're walking down the school hallway on your way to class. That's right, right down the aisle there.
Whistle a little, if you like.
Okay, class, now watch this carefully. See, where I'm standing here along to the side? Now, timing is extremely important here. I mean, your timing is off, you'll have to abort the whole thing.
All right, so Dead Meat is walking along-- keep walking Dead Meat-- and right as he's about to step parallel to me, I am going to....
Whoa!!! See what I did there, class? Yes, Dead Meat is on the floor and his books are--
Oh, sorry, Mrs. Evans! Didn't think that book would get quite that kind of distance. (laughs) Yes, we'll close the classroom door in the future. My bad!
So did you see that, class? What I did there was-- get up, Dead Meat, we're going to show the class the technique-- Dead Meat was here, and the moment he went to take that step, I stuck my foot out in his path, and then, as part of the combination, I shoved Dead Meat with a forward motion.
Now, I know what you're thinking. I could rely on just the foot to do all the work. But by adding the force of the push behind Dead Meat, that's how I managed to get the extra distance on Dead Meat's physics book.
And-- oh, what's that, the bell? Already? Well, you know what they say, time flies when you're...
Okay, well, that looks like all the time we have for today. For homework, I want each of you to give this a try, and write up a one page report and a diagram of the results.
Tomorrow, we're going to cover Stuffing a Kid in His Locker. I think you'll find it really useful.
Class dismissed!
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