Bully-Proofing Your School

Bully-Proofing Your School Session 4: Scenarios

Shifting Gears Bully-Proofing Your School As you enter, complete the Following… Activity on Moodle: Scenarios • Learning Goal • Learners will understand and be able to effectively implement a bully-proofing program. Benchmarks: Learn New Strategies, Share What Works and What Does Not Work, Practice Interventions 2013 - 2014 Learners will observe students on campus and in the classrooms to determine conflicts as normal peer interaction or bullying. Staff will use strategies and interventions to solve conflicts. Community will observe and support children and staff. Objectives Reflect on your new learning and how you will implement it. Sum-It-Up Essential Questions: What strategies could I use to solve a conflict? What Conflict Resolution Styles would work best, based on the scenario? NEXT STEPS: Session 5: Program Strategies, Consequences, and Reinforcements; Session 6: Planning Your Own School-Wide Program; Implementation Common Language: • Bullying, Passive Victim, Provocative Victim, Bully-Victim, Bystanders, Caring Majority, Caring Community

Goal: • For staff members to practice interventions in specific types of bullying situations for the purpose of discovering strategies that work and do not work. (Strategies found to be effective can be incorporated into the school-wide plan to be developed in Session 6.)

Scenario Examination Goals: • Scenarios 1 – 6 represent a wide range of both bully-victim situations and normal peer conflict situations. • They will assist staff members in: • Identifying the skills and comfort levels of all the staff members in different situations. • Openly discussing feelings and beliefs about intervention with aggressive children. • Developing a plan of action for different types of conflict that can erupt during the school day. • Staying calm and feeling prepared, as bully-victim situations are emotionally intense and require quick and decisive action.

Small Group Activity: • Groups of five to six people • Work on one of the six scenarios (1st Grade – 6th Grade) • Scenario 1: First Grade Secret • Scenario 2: Second Grade Field Trip • Scenario 3: Third Grade Playground Game • Scenario 4: A Fourth Grade Fist Fight • Scenario 5: Fifth Grade Girls Club • Scenario 6: Sixth Grade Frequent Fights • Report on your issues, questions, and interventions designed (Moodle: Forum Discussion)

Whole Group: • Scenarios: Share out your groups report. • Take some brief notes regarding the interventions that the other groups designed for later reference. • Each staff member can feel knowledgeable about responding to all six of the scenarios.

Scenario 1: First Grade Secret • This is your first year teaching at a suburban elementary school of approximately 450 students. Soon after the year begins, you notice that one student in your first grade class, Lauren, is encouraging some of the other girls to perform behavior that makes you uneasy. Specifically, Lauren often makes fun of Tamara, a small, shy girl who has some mild learning difficulties. Lauren will go over to Tamara’s desk on Friday’s when the spelling tests are handed back and loudly ask Tamara how she did. When Tamara refuses to answer, Lauren says things like, “I bet you got an ‘F’ again and just don’t want to tell.” In spite of your reminders that grades are a private matter and that no one has to share his or her grades with another, the pattern persists.

Scenario 1: First Grade Secret • One Day later in the fall, you become more alarmed when you have playground duty and observe that Tamara is rejected by the other first grade girls and actively left out of their play. As you walk closer to observe, you overhear Lauren telling three other girls to remember their “secret.” After school that day, you ask one of those girls to talk with you about the so-called “secret.” You learn that Lauren has made a pact with the other girls to “never talk to Tamara.” If a girl slips up and talks to Tamara, she is excluded from Lauren’s club.

Scenario 1: First Grade Secret • Discussion Questions/Intervention Design • Design an intervention that details the steps you would take with Lauren to stop her from bullying Tamara and encouraging others to join her in excluding Tamara. • Would you handle the problem within your classroom alone or involve other members of the school staff to assist you? • Would you contact Lauren’s parent(s) as well as the parents of the girls and, if so, how would you approach each set of parents? • Design an intervention that details the steps you would take to protect Tamara from further victimization. • How would you offer protection to Tamara both on the playground and within the classroom setting? • What efforts might be needed to restore Tamara’s self-esteem and confidence about her academic work as well as her value within the peer group?

Scenario 2: Second Grade Field Trip • You are a second grade teacher in a small parochial school. This year your school has instituted a “family life and self-esteem” building-wide program at all the grade levels. Parent volunteers run the program by following a prepared curriculum designed to teach values and caring for others. In addition, the school has paired different grade levels as “buddies.” Your second graders all have fifth graders as buddies. • The older students come into your classroom once every two weeks. Often the time is spent with the students reading together or completing craft projects. Sometimes a field trip is taken together, with older students being responsible for the children who are their assigned buddies.

Scenario 2: Second Grade Field Trip • During a field trip to the zoo, you discover that Jerold, one of your second grade students, is missing from the group when everyone meets together for lunch. His fifth grade buddy claims not to know his whereabouts. After a frantic search, Jerold is found hiding in a stall in one of the men’s restrooms. He is filthy and visibly upset, trembling and crying, and asking for his mother. It takes much soothing to calm him down and find out what happened. • Eventually the following account is elicited from Jerold. Three of the fifth grade boys began to taunt and tease him when he asked for their help in completing his information sheet about the animals he had observed. They made fun of his drawing and called him a “dummy who doesn’t even know how to write.” Then one boy reached into the goat pen and picked up some goat excrement. He smeared it on Jerold’s arms and cheeks, called him “Stinky” and “Poop Face.” The other two boys laughed and picked up more, and all three rubbed the excrement on Jerold, daring him to go back to the group with “poop on his face.”

Scenario 2: Second Grade Field Trip • Discussion Questions/Intervention Design • How would you respond to the immediate situation of finding a filthy and distraught Jerold in the restroom? • Design an intervention for the three fifth grade boys involved in humiliating and intimidating Jerold. Would you elect to handle this within the school or would you report this incident to each boy’s parent(s)? • Design an intervention for Jerold that will assist him in reentering your second grade classroom. What would you share and what would you not share with the class as a whole? • Would you continue the buddy program between your classroom and the fifth grade classroom?

Scenario 3: Third Grade Playground Game • You are a third grade teacher in a small, private school of approximately 500 children. Playground time is supervised by different staff members within the school; there are no actual playground aides. One of the physical education teachers comes to you with the following report after supervising your class at recess for the past week.

Scenario 3: Third Grade Playground Game • She reports that the majority of your class is playing a game called “Capture.” This game consists of a group of five children, four boys and one girl, who chase the others and capture them. Once captured, a child is taken to a corner area of the playground that is called “The Dungeon.” The captured child must perform certain duties as a “slave” before he or she can be released. There is a great deal of belittling and teasing about being “dumb” or “small” as part of the capturing. If a child refuses to perform the duties as ordered, he or she is threatened with physical aggression the next time captured.

Scenario 3: Third Grade Playground Game • Discussion Questions/Intervention Design • Do you believe that any intervention is called for or is this game of “Capture” a reasonably normal recess activity for third graders? • If you feel intervention is necessary, what other information would you need to gather before intervening? • (Elaborate on the situation by adding this information before planning your intervention.) • If you feel intervention is necessary, design an intervention that includes a plan for both the leaders of the game and the victims who are captured. • Since you do not supervise your own class at recess time, what intervention, if any, would you suggest to be used by the staff who are on the playground during your class’ recess time?

Scenario 4: A Fourth Grade Fist Fight • You are a fourth grade teacher in a suburban public school. Following lunch each day, the children go out on the playground for 20 minutes. Aides supervise that time and you rarely visit the playground. Thus, you are not really aware of how the children interact during this free play period. One day in mid-October, an aide comes to get you, reporting that Brent and Mitchell, two of the boys in your room, have been sent to the office because of a knock-down-drag-out fistfight.

Scenario 4: A Fourth Grade Fist Fight • You know that Brent and Mitchell live in the same neighborhood and ride to school together on the bus. Brent is a quiet boy, an excellent student. Mitchell, on the other hand, is mildly hyperactive and often has difficulty completing his work. In spite of their differences, you have seen them together from time to time, before and after school. • You walk down to the office and find both boys in a conference with the principle. Peeking through the window in the door, you observe that both boys are crying as well as talking excitedly and animatedly.

Scenario 4: A Fourth Grade Fist Fight • Discussion Questions/Intervention Design • At this point, would you consider this altercation a bully-victim problem or a normal peer conflict? • What other information would you need to gather, if any, to determine whether this is a bully-victim situation or a normal peer conflict situation? • Would you let the principal handle the situation or would you knock on the door and join them? • Design an intervention that details the steps you would take, if any, when the two boys are returned to your classroom.

Scenario 5: Fifth Grade Girls Club • You are working with an elementary school of 400 students. The school is located in a racially diverse neighborhood with some tension around racial issues. • The fifth grade teachers have alerted you about a “girls club” consisting of Tonya, Jessica, and Jennifer. These girls have been spreading malicious rumors, frequently using ethnic slurs. They have in particular targeted two students, Leah, who is new to the school, and Stacy, who has a mild learning disability.

Scenario 5: Fifth Grade Girls Club • The school nurse has noted that she has seen both Leah and Stacy in her office frequently with physical complaints that usually appear to be psychosomatic in nature. She’s noted a pattern of the girls visiting her most often in the afternoon after recess. • The fifth grade teachers have never directly observed nor overheard the girls in the club, but have had many complaints from other students in their classes. Stacy has not reported any incidents herself, but recently seems very distracted and anxious.

Scenario 5: Fifth Grade Girls Club • Discussion Questions/Intervention Design • What other information would you need to gather before intervening? • (Elaborate on the situation by adding this information before planning your intervention.) • Design an intervention, incorporating appropriate options such as building-wide strategies, classroom work, and so forth.

Scenario 6: Sixth Grade Frequent Fights • You are working in an elementary school of 600 students. It is racially diverse neighborhood. During unstructured times (i.e., less teacher supervision) students are involved in frequent fights. Jonathan, a sixth grade student diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), appears to provoke situations that escalate into aggressive actions. Jonathan is named as the instigator of these fights, but usually ends up getting hurt.

Scenario 6: Sixth Grade Frequent Fights • Recently, another sixth grade student, Chris, has been identified by classmates as being involved in a number of fights. Chris is threatening to beat students up after school. Two parents have called to report that their children are fearful about walking home from school. • Yesterday, it was reported that Chris hurt Jonathan. Due to problems escalating overall with the sixth graders, class meetings were held by all of the sixth grade teachers. The students were asked to tell their teachers, via anonymous feedback, which students have been aggressive towards others during the last few months of school. Chris’ name appeared twice as many times as Jonathan’s name. This was a surprise to the teachers.

Scenario 6: Sixth Grade Frequent Fights • Discussion Questions/Intervention Design • What other information would you need to gather before intervening? • (Elaborate on the situation by adding this information before planning your intervention.) • Design an intervention, incorporating appropriate options such as building-wide strategies, classroom work, etc.

More In-Depth Study: • Small Group: • Have all of the groups study a particular scenario or scenarios • Whole Group: • Compare the results of each group

Create Your Own Scenarios: • Small Group Collaboration • Share thoughts and feeling about scenarios that have happened to you or could happen in your environment • Write about a scenario that has actually happened from personal experience • Create a scenario that could happen • Develop Discussion Questions • Develop Intervention Designs • Share with the whole group • Whole group feedback: • Help to develop other Discussion Questions and Intervention Designs

Create Your Own Scenarios: Ideas • Some examples of these issues include: • Racial/cultural clashes • Socio-economic disparity • Frequency of child abuse reporting • Influence of gang activities • A frequent incidence of domestic violence • Possibly viewed by children at home • The struggle for acceptance in a homogenous school setting.

Next Session: • In the next session, staff members are presented with the strategies included in the classroom curriculum component of this program and suggestions for consequences and reinforcement.

Bully-Proofing Your School