Welcome to Teachers At Risk
An honour
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Edublog AwardsFeb
28
Understanding girls bullying girls
Filed Under Bullying, maintaining a safe, positive climate, The way I see it | 2 Comments
I believe our task is to give every girl, every parent, and every teacher a shared , public language to address girls’ conflicts and relationships. A world that acknowledges the hidden culture of girls’ aggression would empowers girls not only to negotiate conflict, but to define relationships in new healthier ways. (Rachel Simmins, p.261)
I’ve accepted the challenge of doing what I can using my blog to help give a shared, public language to address the issue of girls bullying girls. Often girls bullying girls isn’t taken seriously at all. There isn’t a good general understanding about the issue of relational aggression, the form of bullying most common with girls.
I came across this video that helps begin to explain the phenomenon of girls bullying girls and want to share it with you. I found it amazing to think that 5% of girls skip school on any given day because they’ve been bullied. Come to think of it though, I’ve had students like that. They were bullied in school and stopped coming to class or even to school to the point where social workers and counseling had to get involved to try to get to the bottom of the issue and give support to the victim as well as the bully. Both the victim and the bully need our support.
If you know of any other resources that would be useful, please leave the link as a comment. We need to get the word out.
Reference
Simmons, Rachel. (2002) Odd Girl Out Orlando:Harcourt,Inc.
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Feb
16
A student is trying to bully me.
Filed Under Behaviour Management, Bullying | 6 Comments
Yes, it’s happening again. One of my students is trying to bully me. Janet, not her real name, tried to bully me to get her way. I asked her to do something last class that she really didn’t want to do, ( using her ear buds to listen to her music while working on her project) and she said ” having to use ear buds to listen to music is going to really p*ss me off”.
That’s a threat and that’s a form of bullying. Janet’s trying to get her way by threatening me. The implication is that I don’t want to get her mad because … so I’d better let her do what she wants to do. She’s obviously learned this tactic somewhere. Kids like Janet who try to bully teachers by threatening to get mad need to be told that threatening to get mad is a form of bullying and that tactic needs to stop. Bully is not an acceptable behaviour. Period. If she does it again, I will take the threat to administration. She needs to know that what she does is a form of bullying and that bullying is unacceptable.
Other articles about bullying
Stopping bullying in my classroom
Bullying is a cry for help we’d better listen
Cyberbullying Part 1- relational aggression
Students with learning disabilities or ADHD are more at risk of being bullied
Cyber-bullying- educationing kids is better than incarcerating them
Feb
13
Stopping bullying in my classroom
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Bullying, positive climate | Leave a Comment
I work hard to create an inviting classroom where my students can feel safe. The first two weeks of the new semester presented all kinds of challenges. I had a student who tried to bully me by threatening to get angry if I didn’t let her do what she wanted. (I talked about that in my last post.) I also had a student try to bully another classmate by telling her to get out of her seat or she’d smack her in the side of her head and then later tell yet another classmate to stop looking at her or she’d throw her cell phone at her.
When I talked to Sam, not her real name, in the hall about the inappropriateness of what she was doing, she told me that telling the student to move or she’d smack her in the side of her head was her way of saying please. Obviously, I got administration involved, and Sam was removed from my class.
Sam needs to stop her bullying behaviour. There’s no doubt about that. She needs help. We have an anti-bullying policy at our school and are committed to providing a positive climate for learning so Sam will definitely get the message that her bullying behaviour is not acceptable. I’ve made it clear that I want my classroom to be a safe place for all of my students and any behaviour that threatens that is not acceptable and has to stop.
I just want to add here that Sam’s just a kid and has learned this behaviour somewhere. Both the victim and the bully need our support.The school system along with the other adults in her life need to help Sam learn more appropriate ways to deal with her anger and get her needs met. She cannot continue to threaten to hurt people to get her way. Next week, I hope to find out how that is going to be done.
Some other posts about bullying
Bullying is a cry for help we’d better listen
Cyberbullying Part 1- relational aggression
Students with learning disabilities or ADHD are more at risk of being bullied
Cyber-bullying- educating kids is better than incarcerating them
Apr
22
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I’ve had lots of feedback about the numerous articles I wrote about bullying. If you are interested in reading what I wrote earlier just go to the right hand side bar in my blog where the tags are located and click on any of the tags dealing with bullying. That will take you to the articles. There’s lots of information there about all forms of bullying- cyber-bullying, student-teacher bullying, teacher-student bullying, getting help for a bully, getting help for a victim etc. There’s really a lot of information there and much of it is based on research I did as well as my experience as a special education specialist in behaviour at the high school level.
Usually the feedback I get from the articles comes in the form of a question about what to do when your best efforts don’t work. This is really an important issue. So, today I’m going to focus on what to do to stop a teacher from bullying another teacher. First realize that no one deserves to be bullied. Period. Case closed. Now that I’ve said that here are some things you can do to stop a teacher from bullying another teacher. Even though it may seem hopeless at times, there’s lots you can do to help stop the bullying.
1. Tell the bully to stop the bullying behaviour. Sometimes people don’t realize their behaviour is bullying behaviour. For them, it’s just the way they do things. They need to know that their behaviour is not acceptable. I know that sometimes that’s easier said then done. So if you don’t feel comfortable doing that yourself on your own get support from other people. Getting support when you need it is the thing to do. Everyone needs support at some time or other for any number of things. There’s nothing wrong with getting support. Some times you give support; sometimes you need support. That’s just the way it is. Get a friend to be with you when you tell the person to stop the behaviour. The bully will give you lots of chances to do this.
2. Document the bullying behaviour. If the bullying doesn’t stop after you’ve told the person to stop, start documenting all the bullying behaviour. Include details like date, time, location, circumstances, interactions, what was said or done etc. The more information you have the better. Even if someone does things like leave anonymous phone calls, emails, or notes in your mail box, record everything. keep a copy of the emails, notes , phone calls or text messages There are ways to find out where emails and phone calls came from. This information will be invaluable at a later date.
3. Go to the administration at your school and advise them of the situation and ask for help. Take someone with you for support. The administration has an obligation, even if it’s just a moral one to stop the bullying behaviour.
4. Keep documenting the bullying behaviour. I can’t say that enough. Also document steps that were taken to try to stop the bullying behaviour. The more details the better.
5. Go to your federation or union and tell them about the bullying. Get the federation’s support. That’s what they’re there for. Talk to the representative at your school or call the local office and talk to someone there if you don’t feel comfortable talking to someone at your school. Remember, the federation is there to support you and to stop the bullying even though the bully may also be a member of the federation or union. I know that sometime it seems that the federation protects it’s members from everything, but that is simply not the case. The federation has people specifically trained to help you deal with bullying behaviour and support you emotionally during this exceedingly difficult time.
6. Talk to your federation representative if the administration at your school does not deal effectively with the bullying behaviour, and someone from the federation will meet with administration and together they can work to problem solve. Both the school boards and the federations have people who are trained to deal with the bullying issue because bullying in the work place is a common thing. The work place has to deal with it. Don’t forget the bully needs help too, not just the victim of bullying.
7. Access any employee assistance plan your school board or district might have to help get support from counselors who deal with the issue of bullying all the time. Unfortunately, bullying in the work place is more common than we like to think. Often people won’t speak up because thhey think that it’s just them. Well, it isn’t just them.
Now I want to make it clear that I am not a counselor trained in dealing with bullying issues, but my recommendations will put you in touch with people who are. They will be able to give you in depth help for dealing with all the issues that arise out of being bullied. Unfortunately, bullying is a problem at the workplace and it needs to be dealt with. I hope that my suggestions are helpful.
Here are some other articles I wrote about bullying. I hope you find them useful
Some Students Bully Teachers Too
Cyber-Bullying:Relational Aggression-Part 1
How effective are anti-bullying programs?
Fear Not- a new role playing game to help stop bullying
Bullying is a cry for help. We’d better listen.
Cyber-Bullying- Educating Kids is Better than Incarcerating them
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