I dealt with a fair amount of bullying in School.
It started during Grade 3, which was a rather unique year for two different reasons.
1) It was the first year I got a teacher who took offence to having to alter his style for a child with special needs (which at the time was me with my Autism)
2) It was the School's very first year existing. So every student was a new kid and as a result scared and desperate to make a name for themselves as to not be the one's getting picked on
So combine a bunch of kids eager to pounce with a teacher basically telling the class (and by extension the school, cause gossip) it's ok to pick on _____ kid? You've got a recipe for disaster. That lasted until the end of Grade 5 where instead of staying for Grade 6 I was moved to Home School, cause Mom decided I needed a year to rebuild my self-confidence and keeping up with Academics although important was secondary. Though in truth it wasn't self confidence I was lacking, just that those three years kind of woke me up to how vicious people can do, so what she saw as a destroyed child was more just her kid becoming more realistic. So I ended up learning to essentially keep my mouth shut long enough to go back to school for Grade 7 (different school, the one I went to for K-Grade 2) and spent my next two years there.
That school had the interesting situation of I was technically a new kid, so there's always those students who feel the need to prove their better than you. However, because I was also there for K-Grade 2 a lot of the students already knew me and had me in their good books. Which left those students who had arrived during the years I was gone with a bigger need to prove themselves because I was now a new kid with instant friends and reputation essentially. Even if that 'popularity' wasn't even do to with any natural charm or social skills but simply history. Didn't get nearly as bad as the other school but fights still broke out time to time and teachers started having to keep an eye out for me.
After that and moving to High School the bullying for the most part stopped. There were those usual delinquents (who are likely in jail, or having serious drug problems now) who caused trouble, but surprisingly they didn't even see me as much of a target, but rather some of my friends. And outside of one incident they usually only picked on people with they were by themselves, so I didn't have to deal with much directly. The closest I ever did get (at a consistent basis) was during lunch there would be a friend of friends that I clashed with consistently. But that clash died down over the years to by the time I left High School (he was a year younger than me) we ended up becoming friends.
And then that leaves my adult life. Where the closest to bullying I have to deal with today is either Mom going on a Moral Crusade/Guilt Trip, or someone on Iwaku causing a giant fuss along the lines of "Gwazi's a Shitposter and should be banned! Why is he here? No one likes him!". But that stuff is insanely minor to what I dealt with when younger, so the former is more just an annoyance I've learned to tolerate and the latter is something that gives me something to laugh at.
I was a nerd (and still am)
(I jest :P)
Personally I think the best way to deal with bullying is to build up confidence, make some good friends, and stand up to the asshats. Relying on others (namely the teachers and school staff) doesn't solve anything and only makes things worse in my opinion.
I agree with the Teachers not really being able to help (usually) bit. You can get some wonderful teachers that will do their best to try to help you, but majority of the time they follow school protocol. And Protocol basically forces them to hold the bullies hand to the point there's no incentive to make the bully cut it out. And in my entire school career I only had one teacher (which was during Grade 5) who bothered to defy board policy to deal with bullies, and it was the only time a teacher getting involved actually worked. XD
(To be specific, he worked with the Principal to make sure I was out of the classroom to lecture the bullies in front of the rest of the class. I ended up learning about this a few years later from Mom).
But the whole making friends deal is circumstantial. It relies on people both wanting to be friends with you, and being a good enough friend to stick up for you. And depending on the school you end up in the only 'friends' you may find could be ones who are friends in name only and would just as soon throw you to the wolves for a popularity boost.
Another thing I wanna add is that if someone's being bullied and they commit suicide because of it, I think the bullies should be charged.
Eh... It's a nice idea in theory, but there's some big holes in it, and I say this as someone who contemplated Suicide due to the bullying in Grades 3 - 5.
The problems being first that unless if the victim writes a note detailing who exactly is to blame the burden falls on the family, who in a time of grief could lash out at a ton of innocent people. And if there is a note? That leads to another issue of how do you determine if there was honest bullying? A lot of people will hear constructive criticism and call it bullying, some people are insane enough to claim wearing a certain shirt or even being part of a certain sex/race/sexuality etc. is bullying. And they may not actually say that's the reason they're a bully, but they can make up almost any other reason and then being dead no one can really build much of a defence against it. Especially when it would likely be backed by the mob mentality of family, friends and anyone who simply hears "Person kills themselves over bullying" and rushes in with a pitchfork eager to deliver punishment. And then you got the issue of many different social circles, what if the person who killed themselves was very relaxed about some stuff? Like say they said "Hey Faggot!" back and fourth to their friends as a simple greeting, but an outsider would see it as bullying?
Basically it's the same issue as false rape accusations, only even more foggy and unclear because unlike false rape cases where the act itself is pretty easily defined, you're accusing someone of a very vague and subjective act.
