::A Geek in Korea::

One of my classes had longstanding behavior problems between the female students in the class. A new girl had been added to the class, and the biggest girl, who also happened to be the dumbest girl, picked on her mercilessly. Calling her a “big girl” isn’t understating it. She’s only 11 years old and is as tall as I am. Anyway, this giant bully refused to let any of her friends in class talk to this new student.

The new girl is very shy, and also very bad at English. The bully might have been jealous there was a race for the bottom, because they are always the lowest two scores on a test by a wide margain. Whatever the reason for the bully’s dislike, things turned nasty. The students grade their peer’s tests in class to save time. I hand out tests basedon three criteria: Are they sitting next to their grader? Do they have their own test? Are they good friends?

I should have had added “Are they bitter enemies?” to the list. The bully in class would trade for the new girls test whenever possible. Then, she’d grade the girls test looking for mistakes. When she couldn’t find mistakes, she’d use her pencil to add extra letters or change what the girl had written, then mark it incorrect. The secretary caught her doing this on the tests because they used completely different pencil types. It was totally obvious that the extra letters were NOT the same handwriting or pencil type, but without catching her on camera, we couldn’t accuse her. The girl was covering her forgery cleverly to hide it from the camera by using her long hair and drooping down in her seat.

The bully has the WORST victimization complex. She claims she has never, ever done ANYTHING wrong ever. If you accuse her of something you SEE her do, she’ll deny it. When confronted with anything less than photography or video, she’ll tell you that you are lying. It’s repugnant and a bit disturbing. Her parents also take her side and are vocal critics of discipline measures we take in class.

The secretary and director told me that they knew about what the girl was doing, and was letting her hang her own noose. They were going to wait until the girl got busted on camera, then confront the entire class. Anyone else they caught helping her, or talking badly about the girl would be added to the dragnet.

The new girl had tried to mend fences and add friends. She had one friend, who was also new in class, but the rest of the class continued to shun her. I made a new seating chart to separate the two girls. Other teachers and I had discussed petitioning to kick this bully out of the school, but the director said she needed hard evidence on camera to show to the parents.

The girls are cruel to their own. It wasn’t anything violent, but the new girl’s parents were upset about how their daughter was treated. Things like buying pizza for the class seemed like good moves, but the bully girl would complain about it saying, “Oh, new girl, you are so poor, you can’t buy a enough pizza for everyone. Two pieces? Who think’s that enough for anyone. Who buys this cheap disgusting pizza?”

It’s not like the new girl can win, because if you eat too much pizza, you are, “A pig, a fat pig who loves to eat junk food.”

So, with this in the background, we fast forward to today. The bully came to school with a broken leg. She had been picking on a TINY boy in the class, and he had pushed her down. She broke her leg. If it had happened to a nicer student, I would have had more sympathy.

Anyway, while in class, the director and secretary came in to my room and asked for students that had said bad things about the new student to step forward and apologize. It was like Peter before sunrise. “I’ve never said anything bad about the new girl. Never. Nope. Never.”

All around the classroom, they went around claiming they were all BEST FRIENDS. It was pretty obvious that my director was just adjusting their nooses at this point, they had long since hung themselves. She was just willing to see if anyone was going to take the step of owning up to it.

She called all of them out of the room. ALL of the girls had to leave the class! Woohoo! The boys and I had a wonderful, fun class by ourselves. They sat around in the directors room and had a face to face talk. The director had been listening in and recording everything that happened in the classroom. She had all the proof she needed for five of the six girls.

The last girl, the big bully, went on denying everything. I’m guessing they had some sort of new video proof, and they confronted her about all the other stuff we knew via hearsay. She refused to apologize. The rest of the girls went back to class, a few of them crying uncontrollably, but the bully claimed total innocence. She got held in the office for twenty more minutes of yelling. I don’t know if she’ll be enrolled next month or not. Her sister quit recently (also a pain), so if they cut this girl I’ll be overjoyed.