Kids Stopping Kids From Bullying: The Birth of A Middle School Intervention
Some of the most
common forms of bullying involve physical intimidation, verbal insults, mental
abuse, racial, and sexual slurs.
Students who want and need friends often bully innocent students for the
attention that comes with being feared.
Any attention is good attention in their minds. The bully needs to have
other students see them bullying. Bullies
have not been taught how to socialize using functional interpersonal behaviors. They are no accident. They learn dysfunctional behavior patterns in
dysfunctional homes or no homes at all. Tragically, the crime of the bully is
not just in the episode. The crime extends to the time and energy stolen from
the victim through the constant worry, the knotted stomach and the awful
humiliation of not knowing what to do.
Our Conflict-Violence Prevention Sessions with volunteer students has convinced me that bullying can be
controlled and minimized if mature students are put in a leadership role and
given serious opportunities to improve student life and their own behaviors.
Conflict and Violence Prevention Group
I saw a motivational
video on Edutopia. The presenter was
Michael Pritchard (http://www.edutopia.org/michael-pritchard-lessons-heart). In the video
clip, Mr. Pritchard talks with students about bullying and asks students who
have been bullies to talk about why they do it.
He also asked students who had been bullied to talk about what it felt
like to be bullied. I was moved by the
presentation and decided to form a conflict resolution/violence prevention
group. The group initially included six volunteer 8th grade
girls. We met during the school lunch period
5 days a week. I told them that we would
discuss witnessed episodes of bullying and conflict. They had the personal and
social maturity to understand how bullying was negatively effecting them, their
classmates and school climate. Several
had been bullied and they too had done some of the bullying. My plan was for the students in the lunch
group to discuss the best ways to identify bullying and help victims. These girls quickly became school anti-bully
leaders. Boys soon joined the group.
Their participation is very important to the process. Both the girls and boys in this “bully
prevention lunch group” wanted to stop the conflicts and, as it turned out,
share their feelings on the matter.
How the Conflict-Violence Prevention Sessions Were Structured
in the Beginning
Students come to my
classroom with their lunches. The lunch
session has three phases: 1) Sharing; 2)
Strategies for Positive Change; and 3) Stories and Examples of Conflict Resolution. In the “Sharing Phase”, I mostly listen and
moderate. The students talk. We also eat our lunch! They usually start by recounting a story of
bullying in the school. In the
“Strategies Phase,” we discuss interventions that might work. For example, approaching victims and telling
that they are not alone and that there are good people in school who will help
them. In the “Stories and Examples of
Resolution Phase” we discuss successful interventions. These sessions are very special. Everyone listens. They take turns talking. There are no management problems. I hear stories that I would probably not hear
under any other circumstances. They
offer solutions. I try to shape their
patterns of conflict resolution. I see the relief in their eyes as they share
and learn how to solve immediate problems and make a difference in their
school.
Video Recording and School-Wide Distribution of Sessions
William Steelnack,
the Video Production teacher of our school, was invited to tape a “Round Table
Discussion” with the six original volunteer eighth grade girls. In the taped discussion, we asked these
student’s questions like; “What types of
conflict/bullying have you seen at school?”
“What types of bullying have girls engaged in?” “What types of bullying have boys engaged
in?” “What starts conflict?” How best can students solve these differences
peacefully?” Individual and group
responses to these questions displayed a level of honesty that made the
subsequent video production riveting.
The “Round Table
Discussions” broadcasts over our school’s TV channel, “WPGM”, to every
classroom during a once a month, Tuesday mid-day homeroom session. The initial
shockwave it sent through the school could be felt months later. More students have joined the group since the
airing of the discussion and more continue to look for positive ways to solve
differences through functional conflict resolution. On a weekly basis student members report
stories of how they have intervened in conflicts and found positive solutions.
Students may be
uncomfortable talking with teachers about being bullied. They may have trouble talking about this at
home. But, they seem to be very
comfortable talking with older peers.
Students see bullying in the hallways, locker rooms, cafeteria and
school buses, places teachers will never see.
The initiative of the Conflict-Violence Prevention Group reinforces that
middle school students can be true leaders and positive behavior is contagious
if you give it a positive voice and a positive place in school to be discussed.
The Current Format
We are currently at
60 members and counting, stretching across 6th, 7th and 8th
grade. Most members are 6th
and 7th graders and about half a dozen 8th graders. The format of our current group has changed a
little. The students created an outline
at the beginning of the year of 10 topics they would like to discuss and share
with the school in our video series called the “Roundtable”. Some topics of interest were, name-calling,
stereotypes, disrespect towards staff and substitutes, texting in school, cyber
bullying, and fighting. The group shares
their thoughts on these topics, sighting specific examples, without naming
names while being filmed. The one-on-one
intervention phase is all but gone at this point, but the size of the group
continues to grow everyday. In my
opinion, this shows an interest in this topic on the part of the students and a
need for the teaching of conflict prevention and resolution skills.