The Things They Didn't Teach Us: Schoolyard Ghosts, Karma, and a K-Drama Reality Check

There is a highly specific, deeply satisfying brand of fiction that involves watching bad people get exactly what they deserve.

SEVEN

6/18/20265 min read

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Living through those nightmares, surviving the schoolyard gauntlets, and standing back up after every cheap shot from behind—it did something to me.

The Last Generation of the "Outside"

For those of us born in the eighties, we occupy a weird, beautiful, and slightly feral sweet spot in human history. We are the bridge generation—wedged right between the analog grit of Gen X and the digital dawning of the Millennials. We lived through the great transition from hard to easy.

We were likely the very last batch of kids who knew what it felt like to have a childhood entirely unmonitored by algorithms. Our days were measured by the setting of the sun, and our parents' primary struggle was figuring out how to drag us inside the house, which is wild to think about now when the modern parenting battle is trying to pry a tablet out of a toddler's hands.

We played hard, physical, chaotic street games that feel like they’re slowly being lost to time. We played jolens (marbles) in the dirt, flipped teks (small comic cards) until our thumbs were sore, and spent hours dodging projectiles in taching or patos. We ran until our lungs burned playing patintero and swung bamboo sticks in syato.

Those were the golden days. We had dirt under our fingernails, scrape marks on our knees, and an absolute sense of freedom.

But that lack of surveillance had a dark side. Because back then, when you stepped inside the school gates, you were entirely on your own.

If you’ve logged into Netflix lately, you’ve probably seen the Korean action-drama "Teach You a Lesson" (Chamgyoyuk) sitting comfortably at the top of the charts. The premise is pure, unadulterated wish-fulfillment: when a school’s internal system completely collapses under the weight of brutal bullying, a fictional government agency—the Educational Rights Protection Bureau—sends in these absolutely badass, ex-military inspectors to forcefully restore order. They don't just hand out detentions; they give the bullies a violent, mirror-image taste of their own medicine.

It’s an absolute blast to watch. The action is slick, the pacing is fast, and seeing bullies get put in their place hits a very primitive, satisfying part of the brain.

But as I sat there watching Inspector Na Hwa-jin knock some sense into high school terrorizers, my mind drifted entirely away from the screen. It took me straight back to the late 80s and 90s. Back to the era that built me.

The Gate, the Punch, and the Empty Pocket

Watching Teach You a Lesson made me realize how unprotected we actually were. In the series, a government agency swoops in when teachers fail. In the 90s? The teachers didn't just fail; they mostly looked the other way. There was no ERPB. There was no real punishment for bullies.

I was bullied in both elementary and high school. It was a cocktail of physical and verbal exhaustion.

I remember when I was a fresh transfer student in Laguna. Being the "new kid" is already a vulnerable spot, but it quickly turned into a target. In a desperate, cornered attempt to make it stop, I was forced into a physical fight with a kid who was significantly larger than me. The school's grand resolution? The teacher locked the two of us inside a classroom together until we "learned our lesson." No mediation, no counseling, no safety net. Just a closed door and residual adrenaline.

Sometimes I fought back. Sometimes, out of sheer exhaustion, I just ignored them and cursed them under my breath, carrying the weight of it home.

By high school, the bullying grew more random and cowardly. I vividly remember days where school would end, and someone would randomly punch me in the back of the head from behind and just sprint away.

But the memory that sticks with me the most is the day a guy decided to wait for me right outside the school gates, looking for a fight. I didn't know he was waiting. I didn't have a grand showdown. In fact, I didn't even show up to school that day, not because I was scared, but because I didn't have enough fare money to get to school.

I was stuck at home and completely unaware that my empty pockets were actually a strange blessing from heaven keeping me out of harm's way.

To the Younger Self We Leave Behind

Looking back at those days while watching a hyper-polished Netflix show creates a strange emotional dissonance.

On one hand, I look at those bullies now and I know, through the grapevine of time, that life eventually caught up with them. Karma is a much quieter inspector than the ones on Netflix, but it carries a heavy punch. They reaped exactly what they sowed.

Yet, even with that closure, watching the screen made me deeply pity my younger self. I look back at that kid in Laguna, or that kid lacking jeepney fare, and I just see how heartbreakingly helpless he was. No child should have to navigate that level of cruelty alone, navigating nightmares while adults simply pass by. I genuinely pray that kids today have better systems, better allies, and better protection than we did.

But there’s a flip side to the coin.

Living through those nightmares, surviving the schoolyard gauntlets, and standing back up after every cheap shot from behind—it did something to me. It didn't break me; it forged me. It made me resilient. It injected a quiet strength into my DNA that I still carry today, decades later, living a life of peace and intention that my younger self could have only dreamed of.

Teach You a Lesson is a great show because it gives us the explosive justice we wished we had when we were twelve. But real life doesn't need an ex-special ops inspector to crash through the window. Sometimes, the ultimate revenge against your childhood bullies is simply surviving, growing up, and building a life so beautiful and peaceful that the ghosts of the past no longer have any power over you.

To everyone who survived the golden, gritty, unprotected days of the 80s and 90s school yards: we made it out. And we are so much stronger for it.

If you're new here, we are MJ & SEVEN. We left the Philippines and moved to northern Spain to completely reset our lives and unlearn the "grind." We believe that peace isn't laziness...it's a luxury. This space is our diary of slow living, working from home in Oviedo, and navigating the complexities of expat life. If our story resonates with you, make sure to follow our journey. We’re so glad you found us.

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