Anti-BullyingAnti-Bullying Amanda Dodson Crisis Support Network

A little bit about Amanda Dodson I graduated from Washington State University in August of 2010 with a BA in Social Sciences. I have spent the last two years working at Long Beach Elementary School as a Para Educator and am now employed as a Domestic Violence Sexual Assault Advocate with Crisis Support Network. Part of my new position is prevention, something I would like to bring into the schools to educate the children of our community. My first project is bullying-prevention.

Bullying in Schools In 2001 The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that more than 160,000 students skip school every day because they are anxious and fearful of being bullied by other students (Nansel, Overpeck, Pilla, Ruan, Simons-Morton, & Scheidt, 2001).

Bullying in Schools This same report noted that almost one-third of students between the ages of 11 and 18 have experienced some form of bullying while in school. These statistics, coupled with concerns over school violence, have caught the attention of both parents and educators.

A Bit of History In the 1970s researchers began to take a serious look at the causes and effects of bullying. Bullying can take many forms. It can be defined as persistent, repeated, unwelcome behavior over time, using negative actions (Olweus, 2003). These negative actions are carried out by physical contact, by cruel words, indirectly by excluding others from a group, by making inappropriate gestures or faces, or by spreading rumors. Often, there is an imbalance of power, with the more powerful individual or group attacking the weaker person or group (Mayo Clinic, 2001).

Common Types of Bullying In surveys the most common type of bullying reported is verbal bullying. This type of intimidation can include name-calling, threats, racist or sexist remarks, and teasing. Students also report being physically bullied in schools. Physical bullying can include hitting, hair pulling, biting, punching, and poking. Finally, a third type of bullying called relational bullying occurs when a student is excluded from his or her peer group. Relational bullying is most frequently observed in middle school and high school, where the formation of cliques is prevalent.

What to do….. More than two million school children in the United States are involved in bullying—either as victims or as bullies— according to a study released in April 2001 by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Tactics ranging from belittling about physical appearance or speech to hitting and pushing occur in school (Guerrero, 2001). Therefore, logic dictates that school is the venue in which to tackle these problems. Accordingly, many schools have adopted anti-bullying programs to identify the causes of bullying and to discourage this sort of aggressive behavior. If a school-wide effort to combat bullying is to be effective, it should involve many elements that exist at the school, including the content taught in the classrooms.

Our Part…. Because they see school as a place for learning about themselves and their peers first, middle school students are perfectly suited for dealing with the affective domain in the classroom, alongside subject matter (Beers, 1999, p. 10). Students in grades six, seven, and eight have a sixth sense about social nuance, about cliques—about the powerful and the powerless. According to Erikson (1964), adolescents build a sense of identity during these years, and its construction is in reaction to those around them. If students are isolated, unsupported, or worse, victimized, their ability to create a healthy identity is diminished. Students so preoccupied are not available for learning, thereby creating frustrations for teachers, parents, and the students themselves.

My Plan… I have reviewed a curriculum that I would like to teach at your school on bullying called Let’s Get Real. This curriculum is recommended for middle and junior high school students. It is divided into six main sections: The information is organized in this way to provide planning and preparation tips, pre-film and post-film activities, and additional assignments and resources.

Lets Get Real As we spotlight this topic which is not often openly discussed in school, we expect students may have strong emotional responses. This film may remind them of their own personal experiences with name-calling or harassment. The students in the film use their own colloquial language to describe their experiences, which sometimes includes words that would otherwise be inappropriate in any classroom. The inclusion of these words in the film will facilitate discussion about why those words exist, their impact and how to minimize their use on your campus in the future.

Let’s Get Real The units focus is on name-calling, bullying, teasing and harassment. The video, Let’s Get Real, shows middle and junior high school students speaking frankly about their experiences as people who bully, people who are victims of bullying, and people who intervene in the bullying process to become allies for others. Students in the film also bring up issues of teen suicide and using violence or a weapon to harm their harassers. We will discuss these topics and students will know where they can turn—including to you—if they are dealing with similar feelings in their own lives.

Let’s Get Real Video Preview Link taken from: campaigns/lets-get-realhttp://groundspark.org/our-films-and- campaigns/lets-get-real

Lets make a Change! While no one resource alone can eradicate name-calling and bullying, we know that fostering dialogue is the first step toward a meaningful change.

References Beers, K. (1999, September). Literature: Our way in. Voices from the Middle, 7(1), 9–15. Erikson, E. (1964). Childhood and society (Rev. ed.). New York: Norton. Guerrero, L. (2001, April 25). Almost third of kids bullied or bullies. The Chicago Sun-Times, p. 28. Mayo Clinic. (2001). Headline Watch: One-third of U.S. kids affected by bullying. Rochester, MN: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER). Retrieved August 2, 2010, from findinformation/conditioncenters/invo ke.cfm? objectid=09C423AB-1A81-448D-B E83291E4 Nansel, T. R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R. S., Ruan, W. J., Simons-Morton, S., & Scheidt, S. (2001). Bully behaviors among U.S. youth: Prevalence and association with psychosocial adjustment. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, 2094–2100. Olweus, D. (2003). A profile of bullying at school. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 22–25.