I think people should be taught to stand up for themselves, but
   I don't think bullying behavior need to be a required part of
   the curriculum. Academics and testing is the main focus in
   school, yet socializing is something kids have to reinvent with
   each generation - you'd think we'd have made *some* use of basic
   social psychology in the school system... but no... they have to
   "tough it out"; and many without helpful friends, siblings,
   teachers, uncles or aunts or grandparents to keep them from
   going down a bad path.

   "Lord of the Flies" isn't a documentary; but school *can* be
   brutal, no matter *what* programs are trying to do. Most people
   *don't* ask for help from the "pink shirts" as it were; and
   while some people do "harden" and learn to fight with their
   fists, not everybody does.

   What good does fighting with your fists solve in the adult
   world?

   Romanticizing bullying may be a fine way to deal with one's own
   past, but why do kids of today have to go through it? It's 2014;
   yet kids are still getting pushed around for lunch money?
   Swirlies? Broken teeth and mercilessly teased by
   mean-girls-in-training in the 4th grade?

   Do we need a future generation of "Desperate Housewives?"

   Of course power differences won't go away; but I don't know why
   the system has to encourage it as it does. Anti-bullying
   programs are minimally effective; for the small percentage who
   "tell"; I suspect most don't and those who don't fight, silently
   suffer.

   How much art was never painted because mean girls got away with
   teasing a boy about his dinosaur drawing and the kid gave up on
   Art forever?

   Or the kid who was naturally good at math, but the requirements
   to "show your work", getting an F for getting the right answers
   but not showing the steps, reduces his self-confidence and gives
   up trying - just following the steps? If his natural abilities
   were encouraged, could he have been a future genius? We'll never
   know: School homogenized and packaged and successfully produced
   another "average".

   All people aren't the same and shouldn't be forced to be
   schooled the same. There's a lot of potential we'll never know
   because someone's dreams was shattered by a 5th grade bully who
   ripped up a girls English paper she poured her heart into and
   she says, "Screw writing; what's the point?" and we lose a
   future great author.

   I agree about sticking up for your beliefs; sticking up for your
   abilities; sticking up for what you stand for; but I don't
   believe bullying needs to be a requirement for toughness or
   success. The people exhibiting the bullying behavior need help
   and they need it young; but it will continue to get encouraged
   by people of our generation who see it as a rite-of-passage,
   rather than the nursury of future criminals; after all, the
   people in jail now? They went to school with us too. What crimes
   did they commit young that nobody ever told about? We'll never
   know.