Joanne Arel
11530131
Assignment 4
Prevention of Bullying
As we know, prevention on bullying is an ongoing process that we, as educators, must continually work on. Often, children who are labeled as ‘bullies’ are misunderstood by their peers and adults. They tend to be the victim in other areas of their lives. It is necessary for us as responsible adults to understand how these behaviors that the bullies exhibit develop, so that we can work to not just ‘punish’ but rehabilitate and heal.
I feel this is the area in which I have excelled. I have a zero-tolerance policy, teach the steps of problem-solving, have classroom expectations, and praise/reinforce good behaviors demonstrated by bullies. The one thing I think would be a good idea would be to have a written contract and to contact parents more based on positive behavior.
Prevention of Victimization
The effects of bullying can be traumatizing to children (the victims), and can often lead into their adult lives. This trauma can be seen firsthand in tragic events that have happened in our country. Some events, like Columbine, Matthew Shepard, etc. get a lot of media coverage, while others do not. I have learned, and witnessed through my own teaching experience, that the victims often are the ‘forgotten group’, not the very popular or very unpopular kids. As educators, we so frequently give our attention to the bully, when the victim needs our support just as much, if not more.
Victims, by definition are the children who are exposed, often over and over again, by the negative actions of a bully or bullies. In general, victims are students who may lack social skills, react negatively to conflict, display anxiety, and seems insecure. However, at times it may be difficult to know if a student is a victim. In this situation, it is best to ask the student directly. The victim’s peers can also share information, which may otherwise go unnoticed to the teacher.
It is very important as an educator to teach acceptance in our classrooms. I feel that as a health teacher, this is one of the best classes that learning about individuality can take place. We do many units where we cover topics that teach our students how to be sensitive and empathetic towards others. Hopefully they will carry this outside of the classroom. It is also necessary to discuss topics and work on things like self-esteem.
Victims often will not report an incident of bullying, which is why it is extra important to be present as an educator; however we cannot see/hear everything. With support in the classroom and by creating an ‘open-door policy’ we can encourage students to discuss these topics and to help give the bystanders the voice to come forward which they often want to do. A confidential drop-box is a great way to start this process. I learned about this through the TISK survey.
Interventions for Bullies
Everyone likes to be told they did something well, even adults. However, bullies often receive criticism more than they receive praise. Because of this, they seek attention the best way they know how, which is by being an aggressor. Due to the fact that these types of students may not get what they need at home, we must be extra sensitive and practice interventions at school.
The “Four R’s” of bully control is something I will use in my classroom and pass on to my colleagues. So many teachers I have seen simply do not even follow step one: Recognize that the problem exists. They simply push it to the side and pretend that the problem doesn’t exist because they are sick of dealing with this ‘problem child’. How horrible! Or perhaps certain teachers feel that nothing is being done when they do report the bully situation by administration. Whatever the case, this cannot happen as we are the ones that must help both the bully and the victim.
The most important things we can do as teachers are to create a positive classroom environment, establish and create classroom expectations, act quickly to intervene instead of ignoring misbehavior, use positive interpersonal skills with all students, examine how you (the teacher) responds to bullying, provide students with a way out of confrontations, let students know they are important, and empower students to take a positive stand against bullying.
Interventions for Victims
Unfortunately, victims often feel alone and feel that they have nobody to turn to for support. They may have witnessed a teacher turn a blind eye, which I have witnessed in my school, or they may feel that seeking help will escalate the situation further. I have witnessed this as well. These students need to know that they are not alone and that their teachers, the ones that they are supposed to trust, will be there for them to develop solutions.
Things we can do as teachers to help victims are; creating an open-door policy where students feel that you will listen and be nonjudgmental, respond to minor incidents, take the incident seriously, take action with the bully seriously and as soon as possible, offer advice and support to the victim, and provide follow-up for the victim. We should work to help teach victims things that they can do to change some of their behaviors as well, without changing the person they are. For example, if we can teach the student to not give the bully emotional payoff, the bully may back down.
It is in this area that I feel I learned the most and changed the most from when I first took the TISK survey until now. I think many people focus so much more on the bully and getting the bully ‘in trouble’ for what he/she did, that oftentimes the victim is left to deal with this on his/her own. I feel I have a great open-door policy in my classroom, but know I need to work on providing support and follow-up with the victim.
Resources
In my school, we use a teacher support team very often, by filling out paperwork discussing incidents and reporting at staff meetings, but it is not as often that we use a student support team. We have a ‘bully prevention club’ that meets once a month after school, but I was not really sure what they actually did during these meetings. I never even thought of this till I completed the TISK survey. After completing it and working on this paper, I decided I should find out! They simply create and hang up posters. I didn’t think this was enough, so I joined the team in which works with these youth. I think it is important that they have more of a voice.
Awareness
In our building we do a great job with implementing classroom activities, as each teacher has to teach a bullying lesson once a month. This lesson is the same lesson across the school, so each student will have received the same material. However, I feel that teachers should try to use cross-curricular methods to somehow incorporate these topics into everyday lessons. For example, we just did our square dancing unit. It has been taught by the people before us and the people before them. We sat down while revamping our lessons and thought ‘why are we really teaching square dancing?’ We came to the realizations that social health/behavior and how we treat people is huge with square dancing. We made this the basis of this unit instead of the goal being simply learning how to square dance. We used some worksheets from the book, and incorporated assessments and positive interaction strategies with their peers.
I did notice after taking the survey that I really do nothing as far as having the students keep a log of incidents of bullying/victimization they witness. How was I holding them accountable and allowing them to feel safe if I wasn’t doing this? I created an anonymous drop box in my classroom where anyone can come in to let me know something they feel I should know is going on. I took this a step further and share them with my bully prevention members, without using actual student names, and give them a chance to talk about how they think the situations should be handled.
Changes I will make
There are many changes that I have and will make, but luckily I think I have the trust and personality where my students feel comfortable coming to me with things that are going on within the school. This is not true of every teacher. I think it has become part of my mission to counsel and work with other teachers on some of these strategies. As I stated above, many turn a blind eye to this because they don’t want to deal with it, or oftentimes because administration doesn’t ‘punish’ the bully as much as the teacher would like to see. I feel that I need to make the students more useful in our school and have more of a voice. I also want to really work on being there more for the victim than I feel I have concentrated on in the past. They are often the ‘forgotten’ ones, where the bully is getting the attention he/she craves. ed to make the students more useful in our school and have more of a voihers on some of these strategies. as within the schoo