Bullying Sixth Grade Style

At my school, we teachers share the same 120 students.  One of our student's parents contacted our block of teachers to report that their son was being bullying.  A group of students were calling him "gay" and were calling his name with a pronounced lisp.  The boy had been through similar bullying last year and had threatened to commit suicide.  His parents had him in counseling and were calling to let us know that the bullying had begun again and that they had their son in counseling again. 

As a group, we decided that we were going to speak with our students about bullying, share our personal experiences, and let our students know in no uncertain terms that bullying would not be tolerated in our classes or on our campus.  We spoke to them about treating others as they would want to be treated, and we also spoke specifically and in private with the students who were accused of bullying.  One student was placed in In-School Suspension because he continued to bully and call names after our warnings to stop.

Since then, we've had very few bullying reports.  We placed anonymous bullying report forms in all teachers classes and have told students that we would be vigilant in investigating and dealing with any confirmed reports of bullying.

We've had some successes, too.  We had a new student come to our campus from another district who has severe Tourette's Syndrome.  On the first day of school, we invited him to speak to the class about his Tourette's and to tell the kids about it.  After he spoke in my class, I told him that our school was the best place to be because our kids would be kind to him.  They have been wonderful to him.  We had one boy who tried to make fun of him, and the other kids stopped him immediately and reported his behavior to us teachers immediately. 

Our hope is that this behavior will carry over into middle school where peer pressure is so strong.  We use the term "upstander" at our school.  We expect the kids to be "upstanders" - standing up for each other - instead of bystanders when bullying occurs. 

We have a police officer scheduled to give a presentation to our students in a few weeks on bullying - cyberbullying included.  I'll report on what he shares with the kids after the May 24 presentation.

Until then,
Barb