REPRESSIONS

For a long time, girls have been brought up to suppress their negative feelings. As a result, they resort to more covert forms of bullying like indirect bullying and relational bullying. Examples of indirect bullying are: giving the cold shoulder, flashing nasty looks, cringing, sulking, displaying hostile behaviour, pulling a long face, and the like. In relational bullying, people try to force their friends to exclude, isolate, ignore or reject another person. They steal friends, destroy friendships and gang up together. The techniques used to snatch friends are manipulation and flattery. This form of bullying is harmful especially during a period when youngsters need their friends most.

Indirect bullying and relational bullying are forms of emotional bullying. They are usually linked to verbal bullying and are less noticeable. Unfortunately, sometimes when the problem is brought up, the victim is either blamed for letting it happen, or the victim's story is not believed.

There was a girl named Renee. She was put in a form class dominated by popular students. Renee was a reserved person by nature compared to her attention-grabbing classmates who gossiped a lot about boyfriends and other girls. When the school had celebrations, the popular students would sit together and flash counterfeit smiles at Renee who always sat alone. They would also call her name teasingly. In other people's perceptions, it may have seemed like a friendly greeting. But when a student came late and had no choice but to sit with Renee, the popular students sitting behind would start pointing and laughing, teasing the late student by saying, “You're so lucky. You get to sit next to Renee.” The late student would then say, “If you're so jealous, why not swap seats with me?” What people did not notice was that the voices of the popular students dripped with sarcasm. Hence, their `friendly' greetings were false.

During Physical Education and project works, Renee would experience difficulty in finding a group. Often, she was the last one to find group members and had to seek help from the teacher to get into a group. There was a time when the students were playing badminton and Renee had no one else but the teacher to partner with. For a student to be seen alone with a teacher would stir up more gossip. In other sports activities like captain's ball, nobody would throw the ball to Renee even though she stood right in front of them without any opponents defending her. During the occasion when Renee had the ball, the students from the popular group would say, “Renee! Throw the ball to me! I'm your good friend!” Those crafty people had put on such a good act that the teachers thought they cared for Renee. Renee was then criticized for being a loner. In her reports, the teachers would only state negative comments like she did not interact with her peers. They did not realize that Renee actually had a few really good friends but they were not in the same form class as she was. Nothing positive was said about Renee in her testimonials - She was one of the few students who went to classes on time, unlike others who dilly-dallied or even played truant; and she was one of the few students who passed up all her homework on time, unlike others who handed in late work or did not do their work at all.

Besides disliking Renee, the popular group also disliked her circle of friends. There was a girl in the group called Marci and she was labeled as the Teacher's Pet. Marci also had this habit of over-dramatizing: After running, she would pant excessively. Others thought she was really weird, but despite all that, Marci had her good side and Renee treasured it. The two also had something in common - they were weak in sports as they had great difficulty in catching and throwing balls. Some students thought Renee was being weird to hang out with Marci, and so pushed her away even more. Once, there was something that Renee witnessed in the hall: The popular group was sitting behind Marci and when she started unplaiting her hair and combing it, one of the popular students said “Ew” with a snort of disgust and started making a big show of brushing away imaginary lice or cooties. This incident hurt Renee because Marci was her good friend. Renee could not believe how immature those girls were. Plus, they were not primary school girls; they were secondary school girls; they were 15- year-old girls!

Renee had another good friend called Sydney. The two were in the same Humanities class. Sydney had this habit of making comments to herself and laughing at her own jokes that were usually not humorous at all. Renee was seated at the back of the classroom and noticed every time when the popular students sat behind Sydney, they would be gesturing to one another, mocking Sydney. When Sydney went into her usual habits, other students commented, “So weird.”

There was another incident that showed Renee that teachers would more often be biased toward popular students and biased against less popular students. One day during Humanities lesson, Constance, Renee's classmate, had forgotten to bring her textbook. The teacher instructed Renee to move over next to Constance to share her textbook. However, Constance pushed away the textbook and said, “It's okay,” as she was busy doing irrelevant things. So Renee pulled her textbook closer to her to take notes down. After the bell rang, the teacher lectured Renee for being “selfish” and “hogging the book to [herself]”. Renee explained that Constance did not want to read the textbook. But that did not convince the teacher, who still insisted that Renee had not wanted to share her textbook with Constance.

It is sad to say that teachers favour popular students more, without realizing that these pupils inflict a lot of psychological harm onto other pupils.

On top of all that bullying was the typical stressful Asian education system. Renee had to balance her emotional torments with her heavy workloads.

After graduating from secondary school, Renee went overseas to study, a completely new environment. She was in a college that catered only to overseas students. A few were from South America and Africa, and a vast majority was from Asia. There were a few adults in her class who had just turned twenty-one, while most of her classmates were still in their teens.

Due to the freedom of speech at this college, Renee was able to speak up more confidently. The less pressurizing education system also contributed to her happiness. Healthy signs were showing. The year went by without any serious problems. She thought things were getting better as her schoolmates were supposed to be more mature. However, history was to repeat itself.

Drama was a subject she was doing, and when it came to performing, she would have stage fright. Other than that, assignments and tests were fine. Then when the final examination was nearing, the grouping system changed. Usually, the teacher would make decisions on whom to put in which group, but now the students were given the option to choose their group members. Renee asked some of her classmates who she knew better if she could join them, but they were hesitant. “What we want to do might not suit you. Maybe you'll be better off with another group,” said Fern, a girl who was from the same country as Renee. The funny thing was that this group had not even discussed what they were going to do! But Renee was fine with it as there were two remaining groups being formed. However, both groups did not give her definite answers in spite of her persistent asking.

There were also two absentees - they were often late for rehearsals and had paired up too many times, so the teacher did not allow them both to work together as it would be unfair for groups to have two late members. Even then, it took a long time for them to make up their minds. The only other person without a group was a boy from China named Percy. Most people did not like to hang around him because they had difficulty communicating with him - English was his stumbling block.

During this devastating period, a series of past images from Renee's secondary school slammed into her head with knifelike blows. She may have been the kind of person who would not get daunted by horrible setbacks, but she went to the washroom and dissolved into uncontrollable tears. In the end, Renee, Percy, and the two students who were often late, were put together in a group. The teacher was not impressed, because she had wanted the two irresponsible students separated.

Often when you are studying in a foreign country, you may think that people within your race would help you while people out of your race would be a hindrance to you. That is not always the case. Sometimes, it is your own kind of people who victimize you. They see you as competition and they will do anything to drag you down.

Renee is now in university pursuing something she loves. A more mature crowd surrounds her and we hope it stays that way.

- Jaclyn Quek & Vicki Tan

Copyright © 2005-2006 Jaclyn Quek & Vicki Tan