Degrees of Separation

It's all in the details isn't it? While one person will not react at all to something someone says, someone else will take offense. I say this because I have been thinking about the girl in New Jersey who committed suicide because of harrassment and it seems that more students here are saying that they are being picked on or being taunted. I can remember (yes, I'm not too old to remember!) in Junior High and High School catching on to the fact that if I reacted negatively to remarks that fellow students would make then they would continue to make them. I think it is something about a power trip with some people. If they can get another student to react then they can feel that they have some power. Isn't that sad? There must be something in their lives that is not too good if they feel that they have to bring another person down to make themselves feel more powerful. It seems to be the nature of the beast. I am not excusing those people at all but I did learn not to give those kinds of people the power over me. I would ignore them or respond back with some type of lowkey response so they would not know that it affected me. It seemed to abate the situation and kept from happening more often.
I tried to teach my own children that, to not let others dictate your actions, or reactions. I find it very distressing that some students are allowed to just stay home from school instead of addressing the problem in some way. What are we teaching our children? I am not saying that there needs to be a big confrontation but there needs to be some type of dialogue between parents, teachers, students, whomever. Don't just quit.
That leads to another problem - absences. I know, I know, you have probably heard enough from me about this, but when did it become ok to blow off school to go skating? to go shopping? to just stay home because the student DIDN'T FEEL LIKE COMING TO SCHOOL? You can't learn if you are not here, there is no degree of seperation on that.