I know I may be at the risk of sounding like my father here, but when I was a lad and bullied at school I felt confident enough in my teachers to go to them and tell them about the problem. Back then they had the power to actually do something about it and enforce some discipline (we still had the cane etc back then). I know corporal punishment is a huge no-no now but teachers today have no way of controlling the more 'difficult' students who seem to be allowed to run riot and make everyone's life a misery. Many suffer because the few get away with disruptive and sometimes violent behaviour. Corporal punishment, or the threat of it, and expulsion from school, was the last resort but we all knew it was there and ready to be used if necessary. The school then was self-regulating and rarely, if ever, had recourse to involve outside agencies.

As to the point of standing up for yourself. All the teachers at my school knew who the troublemakers were and had a pretty good grasp on what the 'dynamics' of the school were. If someone who was normally quiet stood up for themselves, the teachers used to give them 'the benefit of the doubt' and invariably let them off with a small reprimand. I sometimes think they were quietly pleased that the person had stood up for themselves and confronted a bully.

I hope I don't come across as someone advocating a wholesale return to corporal punishment, but schools seem to have very little, if anything, with which to combat bad behaviour.

Thanks for the post.