Introduction

Great New Book

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:35:00 +0000

I want to recommend a great new book on bullying prevention and intervention by Susan Swearer, Dorothy Espelage and Scott Napolitano. The book is titled Bullying Prevention & Intervention, Realistic Strategies for Schools.

This book is a nice summary of the latest information on bullying prevention. The authors cover a variety of topics, including developmental differences in bullying, the social context for bullying, bullying policies, legal issues, online social bullying and the effectiveness level of certain bullying strategies. All of their recommendations are backed up with solid research and some concise case examples from real kids. The book is laid out in an accessible workbook format with lots of tables, graphics and cartoons.

Susan Swearer is Associate Professor of School Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dorothy Espelage is Professor of Child Development and Associate Chair in the Department of Education Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Scott Napolitano is a pediatric neuropsychologist and licensed psychologist in Lincoln, Nebraska.

This book can be found at Guilford Press ( www.Guilford.com ) or at Amazon (www.amazon.com).

Subtle, Powerful Influences of Adults

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

An article in the Chicago Tribune today reminds me of the subtle, yet powerful, influence adults have over children in our schools. This article sites research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from January. In this research, women teachers' anxiety about math seemed to influence the performance of girls in their classroom.

A quote from the article by one of the co-authors is telling. Susan Levine, a psychology and human development professor at the University of Chicago said, "It's not just a teacher's knowledge of the subject, but there's something about their feeling about the discipline (of math)."

So, if a teacher's anxiety about a subject can influence a students performance in school, what other aspects of student behavior are we influencing unwittingly? If we are concerned about school climate, student behavior, bullying and harassment is it possible some part of these problems are influenced by adult attitudes and perceptions?

Of course we have always assumed that parenting has influenced misbehavior or antisocial behavior at school. Parents who bully their children at home may very well be creating either bullies or victims at school. Yet are there subtle attitudes, prejudices and worries by educators that could create some of the trouble we're trying to prevent? Could the way the school day or the school building is designed influence the feelings of the students at the school?

"Whole school" bullying prevention programs often include a module on how adults interact with students, implying that this can improve how kids treat each other. These programs often include how to intervene in conflicts, how to create a welcoming classroom and how to handle student reporting. Nevertheless, the balance of most prevention programs are focused on changing student behavior directly not addressing the subtle influences of adults. This could be why we see only small decreases in antisocial behaviors when we implement some of the "best" programs.

Maybe this math teacher research is evidence that we need to start with adult behavior if we expect to change student behavior. Here are common practices in the schools I have worked in that could influence school climate and student behavior at school:

* Waiting in long lines to be served lunch, early bus dropoffs, etc.
* Inconsistent discipline and rules
* Adult anger, yelling
* Harsh discipline in front of other students
* Favoritism

Yes, students should be held responsible for their behavior. Yet, for what are we, including parents, community leaders and educators, held accountable? It could be the secret to improving school climate, the prevention of bullying and other antisocial behaviors starts with us.

Bullying Defined

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:34:00 +0000

A surprisingly simple issue stands in the way of effective bullying prevention: we lack a useful description of bullying that actually leads to a change in school climate.

Really, bullying is not only an action but a concept. In the literature, including programs for students, there is some energy spent on defining the act of bullying, hopefully clarifying the concept. This is important because adults and students in schools will be using the term and acting on the definition. The most established definition is found in the writings of Dr. Daniel Olweus of the University of Bergen in Norway, a man who could be called the father of bullying prevention. The definition below is taken from the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program website:

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"A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself."

This definition includes three important components:

1. Bullying is aggressive behavior that involves unwanted, negative actions.

2. Bullying involves a pattern of behavior repeated over time.

3. Bullying involves an imbalance of power or strength.

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This definition, or some form of it, has been in use for nearly 20 years and can typically be found in the first chapter of bullying prevention books and materials. This is the de facto standard. In turn there has been a model or dynamic that is the cornerstone of bullying intervention and prevention based on this definition. The child who exhibits the behavior described in the definition is the bully, the target of the bullying is the victim, and the students who stand around and watch are bystanders. Then accordingly, to change the dynamic, we need to create programs that address the thinking and behaviors of the three actors: bully, victim, and bystander.

Finally, there are a list of "bullying behaviors" that are aggressive, unwanted, and create an imbalance of power. The behaviors typically identified range from physical hitting and shoving to name calling to more subtle behaviors like ostracizing.

In practice, educators I have worked with find it hard to fit all these pieces together. They see bullying behaviors (like pushing) but aren't sure if it has been repeated in the past or if this is an imbalance of power. Some kids seem to be chronic bullies or chronic victims, yet others act like a bully one day in one particular situation and quite different another day. An interesting piece of research by Dr. Dorothy Espelage at the University of Illinois found that nearly 80% of middle school students reported that they had done at least one bullying behavior in the last 30 days. Are all these kids bullies? How many behaviors does it take to be classified a bully? Or how many times do you have to be called a "loser" before you are considered a target?

Much of the trouble with the definitions comes from our shared understanding of what might be called the "classic bullying situation." This is the scenario where the big fifth grader is stealing the shy first grader's lunch money, via threats and intimidation, and all the other kids on the bus or playground ignore it, day after day. In this classic situation it's easy to see bully, victim, and bystander. But many or maybe most antisocial encounters students face at school are not this classic scenario - yet students still feel the pain and humiliation.

More likely scenarios are a middle schooler being ostracized from a lunch table, cutting remarks on the elementary bus, names called across the hallway in high school. These situations create a climate of fear, intimidation, and hierarchy where the more chronic bullying can occur. And it creates and uncomfortable place for children to get an education.

I propose that instead of stopping bullies, we need to stop bullying behavior, period! Or more broadly, we need stop antisocial behaviors at school whether it's the first time for a student or the hundredth time, whether it occurs between students where there is a power imbalance or not. These behaviors do not belong at school.

Bullying, It's Still Around

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:19:00 +0000

Since the Columbine tragedy in 1999, there has been a fairly vigorous national effort, albeit disjointed, to stop antisocial behaviors, like bullying, at school. The resulting publicity, research, and array of new programs have accomplished at least three things:

• We have clearer definitions of bullying and the forms it takes.
• We have a near consensus that bullying, harassment, and other mean-spirited behaviors should not be tolerated in our schools.
• We realize there is damage done to kids who are the chronic targets of this behavior.

These are significant accomplishments. Unfortunately, the ultimate accomplishment still eludes our grasp: Consistently stopping bullying in our schools.

The current situation for bullying prevention is best defined by two articles in Denver-area newspapers (http://www.denverpost.com/ci_12174189 and http://yellowscene.com/2009/08/05/the-800-pound-gorilla-in-the-school-yard/) . These stories summarize the results of a three-year $9 million effort in 40 Colorado counties funded by the Colorado Trust, aptly called the Bullying Prevention Initiative. There were many positive outcomes, but this sentence from one of the articles summarizes the results nicely:

"Students who said they participated in or watched physical bullying dropped from 69 percent to 58 percent over three years. For verbal bullying, the drop was 76 percent to 67 percent."

This is an admirable effort that hopefully educators and researchers around the country can learn from. In my opinion – and opinions expressed in these articles – it would have been nice to see a greater change. And these results are consistent with other research conducted in the US over the last 10 years; varying effects and difficulty pinpointing a high-impact prevention strategy.

How often can schools and communities muster this kind of energy and resources for a prevention effort? Colorado’s Bullying Prevention Initiative is probably the crème de la crème of bullying prevention projects, as we know it now.

So I would commend the work that has been done so far, but suggest that educators, policymakers, and researchers consider a paradigm shift to an approach that gives better results and, maybe, at a lower cost.

To do this shift there are 4 broad strategies that would dramatically change the way we approach school climate and bullying prevention:

• Acknowledge that some students cannot manage the complicated social situations we have created in our burgeoning school buildings and offer help.
• To change the climate and culture in our schools, we need to first focus on the adults in our school communities.
• Modify the physical dynamics of the school environment, particularly those environments that are conducive to antisocial behavior and hierarchy.
• Use “deeper” prevention approaches like community building, nutrition, exercise, and meditation.

After 15 years of prevention work and some intense efforts with 7 school districts, I can see that prevention and intervention efforts focused almost solely on students are not sustainable; they result in lots of work with a small return.

We need strategies that start closer to the roots in our schools. Surprisingly, the costs are often lower and the changes can be simple. More on this simplicity in later blogs.

Introduction

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Welcome to K12 Associates blog called BullyTalk. K12 Associates is an organization that helps schools districts improve the climate of their schools. This blog is a place to share, discuss, commiserate, debate, and complain about experiences you've had with bullying and other antisocial behaviors with youth. The ambition of this conversation is to learn through the experiences of others.

I have worked on bullying prevention with both public and private schools since 1998, visiting more than 60 school districts. During this time I have worked with 7 school districts very closely. These 7 districts were determined to stop bullying at their schools. In spite of careful attention to a prevention plan and faithful measurement, we saw little change at first. From this initial experience I learned very quickly that without new adult behavior and some "redesigning" of the places and processes of the school, not much will change. After this epiphany, I was able, with the unfailing help of the school staff, to make some significant changes in the school climate, and started to make some inroads into school culture.

I have some experience with what works and what doesn't work. If you have a bullying topic I would be happy to provide some insight and hopefully we can engage others in our discussion too. Thank you.

Brian Koenig
K12 Associates, LLC
Middleton, WI