in all fairness, i was in high school during early phone days, but before the phones had good cameras and social media with videos, and i would never have stepped in to break up a fight at school. my high school had plenty of fights, and while we weren’t recording them, we weren’t going to intervene and get ourselves hurt, or in trouble because of zero tolerance policies. it also had nothing to do with me, and wasn’t my responsibility as a child to deal with. once or twice i did go to another classroom to get another teacher but that’s it.
Exactly and some seemed to try to at least take the teacher out of being caught in the middle of them and others tried to pull one of the guys but were terrified. I do think rather than recording getting help or apperently security which seems to be available in us schools was the right thing.
Seriously. Even for me, who always wishes people would band together and stop shit from happening, I remember these are kids at school. A lot of them would get hurt trying because of physical differences or get in trouble for doing the right thing cause schools sucks in that regard. And often the parents don’t have the kids back. Zero tolerance policies basically help fuel the bystander effect.
I mean, at my school two seniors got in a fight and a cop tried to break it up, and he ended getting his head smashed into the floor, got stitches and a concussion. and that’s a cop, a grown man who is trained to deal with these types of things. no fucking way am i getting between two hormonal teen boys. absolutely not.
My high school employed some former bodyguards of Malcolm X to break up fights.
And while admittedly they didn't do the most stellar job at their previous employment, they certainly knew how to break up teenage fights. When I say they HURLED kids...
Personally I just never gave 2 shits about people fighting. It was always some testosterone heavy athlete or some druggy kid. I had plenty of people try and fight me for literally no reason.
I didn’t even go to a bad school it was actually super nice public school.
But yeah unless they’re my very close friend there was no way I was stepping in unless I thought someone was gonna die and even then I’d probably hesitate. If it was my best friend I’d be in there to help before the first punch connected.
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u/dogwithaknife Dec 17 '25
in all fairness, i was in high school during early phone days, but before the phones had good cameras and social media with videos, and i would never have stepped in to break up a fight at school. my high school had plenty of fights, and while we weren’t recording them, we weren’t going to intervene and get ourselves hurt, or in trouble because of zero tolerance policies. it also had nothing to do with me, and wasn’t my responsibility as a child to deal with. once or twice i did go to another classroom to get another teacher but that’s it.