Eyes that see the good in things: April 16, 2018

I barely saw his face out of the corner of my eye as he poked his head around the wall of the school commons area. He disappeared in a flash of blonde hair when he saw his curly haired senior nemesis rising to his feet. The chair hit the wall, as the seventh grader was chased down the hall. The pounding of tennis shoes and the laughter of the lanky basketball player echoed in the otherwise silent hallway. The longer legs of the older boy allowed him to quickly overtake the younger one, as he tossed him over his shoulder and returned to the area where most of the senior class had gathered before school started that morning. There, he dumped the boy unceremoniously into the trash can.

The boy climbed out of the trash can and tried to muster whatever dignity he had left before slinking away, but he was probably glad he’d only been dumped in the trash can; it hadn’t been a swirlie and he hadn’t been locked in his locker. The basketball players two cohorts hooted, but among the others, there was total silence. Several of the classmates made uncomfortable eye contact. While the majority was not supportive, they were silent.

A few hours later, a smaller group of seniors gathered again in the commons area as part of the senior privileges that had been negotiated at the start of the year. A classmate who dared to confront the boys on their bullying walked by to a barrage of hurled insults and rude noises. Her bravery and integrity had gained her the honor of being lied about, with sexual innuendos and insults. Not surprisingly, she no longer socialized with any of us— either the bullies or the silent classmates.

In another area of the school, the English class was preparing to dismiss. The bell rang and there was the usual rush to get out the door, except for the girl who sat and watched to see that her tormentor had turned left when he walked out of the room. She’d grown tired of being groped as she gathered books at her locker, so she sat in her chair, slowly packing her things before getting up and walking to the door. She checked to make sure he was halfway down the hall before going out the door and turning right. She knew the longer route to her locker would mostly likely make her late for her next class and she’d already spent several lunches in detention for being late to that class. The teacher would simply write out the pink tardy slip without inquiring why she was late. It wasn’t likely that she would have told the truth, but no one had made the effort to find out. Some of her classmates knew, yet they remained silent.

My last class of the day was a study hall and I was back in the commons area when the bell rang to go home. The seventh graders came out of their classroom and the seventh-grade boy who had been chased down that morning was once again on the run. He got away this time by running out the door and onto his bus; leaving his winter coat (and probably his homework) behind. As I made my way down the bus aisle; he looked up at me and I saw the tears threatening to spill out of his eyes. I felt a blend of compassion and anger that boiled inside me and spurred me to do something. Not much, because I was still afraid of being singled out and becoming the target myself. And that’s not something that I’m proud of.

I pulled my notebook out and spent my bus ride drafting my only letter to the editor ever, for the school newspaper. The next morning, I stopped to talk to the newspaper advisor and asked her to run it. She told me they don’t usually run anonymous letters, but she made an exception in this case and she kept my secret.

When the newspapers were passed out, we were in history class, a class taught by the basketball coach. Toward the end of the class, he gave us a little time to read the newspapers. As I expected, the boys were not pleased with the letter that called out three seniors from the basketball team. There were only six seniors on the team, so that meant half of them were being accused. It turns out the basketball coach wasn’t pleased either. He sat at his desk, with his head down and appeared to be reading his paper while the three boys angrily and, rather stupidly, discussed the letter.

The teacher’s chair scraped loudly as he stood up. We watched as he walked down the aisle and stopped to talk to the three boys discussing the letter. All basketball players. He said he didn’t understand why this letter was so upsetting to them and asked if they knew anything about this story that he should know about. Of course, they didn’t. The coach nodded and told them he was glad to hear that.

He told the class that day that if anything like this ever happened again, he wanted to know about it. He told the senior co-captains that he depended on them to make sure he found out. He promised that if he didn’t find out from the co-captains that the entire team would be running bleachers ‘til they puked. After that workout, he said he figured the rest of the team would make sure it never happened again. It didn’t. Just the threat by the right person, who they knew would follow through was enough.

I always remained anonymous. Well, until today anyway. The young boy’s family left the school district the following year. I regret not taking a stand. In retrospect, I know there were people who would have done something. I could have walked to the office to get the principal or I could have gone a little further down the hall to get the basketball coach, a man respected for his fairness, both in class and on the floor. But I didn’t. I did what I dared to do, and I wrote an anonymous letter.

This was an average day in my small-town school almost forty years ago. This weekend, when I was reading the article about the “rape game” that has been going on for years at another North Dakota school, I felt the same blend of compassion and anger. Compassion for the student who screamed when cornered by several other boys, and anger that these kinds of things still happen in our schools. Anger that with all the policies on bullying, students still can’t feel safe in school. Even angrier when I read that people excused it as simply “boys being boys.”

I do, however, understand why it continues for so long, because the young people who know about it don’t dare speak up. Sometimes, the only way that a student dares speak out is anonymously, in letters like mine or in surveys. It’s a whisper they hope someone with power will hear and do something. Are we listening?

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Stop in to share your stories with us, give us a call at 947-2417 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Or send a letter to Eyes That See the Good in Things, c/o Allison Lindgren, The Transcript, 6 8th St N., New Rockford, ND 58356.