The Fourth Grade Bullying Program

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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Brook-Bagging Louie Stamoolis

As a bully, Dwayne Pasternak was an underachiever.

Oh, he probably could have gotten good at it, if he'd just applied himself a little more. But on a scale of Bullying as an Artform, his work was like a Starving Artist painting...

Unoriginal... Cheap.... Initially getting your attention, but eventually just blending in behind the sofa.

He was the kid who'd call you "dogface," if you just happened to look his way. The one who'd trip you on your way to class so you'd drop your books. The boy who'd snap your bra.

I always felt his repertoire lacked range.

I mean, Teeny DeLuca, now she'd shown first-rate creativity when she tried to give me lead poisoning. And Arnold Kosninski, he used skilled spin-doctoring to enrage his victims. But Dwayne, well, he'd never make into the Bully Hall of Fame... His lack of imagination held him back.

Until he decided to brook-bag a kid named Louie Stamoolis.

Louie Stamoolis was a seventh-grade human computer... input and output. His math was of Texas Instruments quality. He remembered dates and events like he lived them. He even seized foreign languages like Napoleon did countries. Louie was brilliant.

But because Louie was storing all of this data in his brain, regrettably, it left very little room for anything else. Like manners... modesty... or a sense of humor. And the giant weight of his brain also seemed to press on the back of his eyes, straining his tear ducts.

Louie Stamoolis could cry at the drop of a hat.

It didn't even have to be his hat.

Add to that, he was small for his age, with an almost pretty face, and long dark lashes. He was a target for his intelligence, his looks, and because he was a little bit hard to like.

The crying only made it worse.

So, one day as school let out, I was headed on home and spied Dwayne Pasternak playing keep-away with Louie's backpack.

Dwayne was tall, wiry, and with a straw-colored flat top. With his plaid flannel shirt and that scrub-brush hair, he looked like a scarecrow teetering in the wind-- the book bag dangling high over Louie's head.

Louie's pale face was streaming with tears and he'd jump. And miss. And sob. And jump again. And whimper.

"You want it?" laughed Dwayne, "Come get it. Or consider yourself brook-bagged, Stamoolis!"

Brook-bagging meant tossing someone's backpack into the stream that ran outside the school. Many a text book and homework went the way of the brook. Teachers knew papers turned in with crinkled and smeared pages had probably been resurrected from a serious brook-bagging.

Well, at the very threat of it, Louie Stamoolis' tearducts started working overtime. And that's when I heard a bored, irritated voice say, "Aww, just give him his stupid bag back, Dwayne."

Oh. That voice was mine.

Dwayne fixed his attention on me, with a look of vague recognition like, "Hey, hadn't I bullied you before?"

But strangely, Dwayne didn't really scare me. What was he going to do to me? Snap my bra again? Call me ugly for the umpteenth time? By eighth grade, I'd seen it all, and survived to tell about it. But picking on Louie Stamoolis... that was like flipping a turtle on its back to see it struggle.

Someone had to take the side of the turtle.

"You stay out of this," Dwayne snarled.

"C'mon, Dwayne. It's not cool. Just give it to him," I said.

And that's when Dwayne started racing down the hallway.

I looked to see what Louie planned to do about it. But he just leaned against the lockers, sobbing like Joan Crawford trying for an Oscar. So maybe it was a lack of fear. Or maybe I'd just watched too many Wonder Woman episodes. But I left Louie in the middle of his big scene-- and ran after Dwayne.

Now, Dwayne wasn't really expecting to be chased-- let alone by a girl. Down the metal stairs we went, one after the other, with a clatter like thunder.

Bang! went the school doors and out onto the sidewalk we flew. Dwayne sprinted. I sprinted, too. And that's when, true to his underachieving nature, Dwayne lost all initiative and dropped the bag. It lay there on the pavement in the center of the bridge over the brook-- the shining prize in my quest for justice.

Dwayne called me some names over his shoulder for good measure, as he ran on home. A parting shot of a desperate man. The weak words of the defeated. I picked up the backpack.

I smiled at the bag, gave it a little hug, and thought, "No brook for you today, my friend." And jogged back into the school to find Louie.

Louie was right where I'd left him, having a meltdown at his locker, his world ending in the form of a drowned red Nike backpack. I handed him the rescued bag with flourish and a warm triumph swelling in my heart. Or maybe that was just my asthma kicking in after all that running.

"Here!" I proclaimed. "It's safe!"

But Louie snatched it from my hand like I'd tried to brook-bag him myself. He glared up at me, gave a swipe to his running nose, his tear-stained eyes, and slung the bag on his shoulder. Without a word, he stalked off.

I stood there, watching Louie's retreating back bob off into the afternoon sun, and I shook my head.

I bet Wonder Woman had these moments, too. The scenes they never showed us.

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