Melissa Rodriguez
TED 414, summer 2016
Bullying
The student and Behavior
Harry is a second grade student whom suffers from social skills. He is excluded by classmates and called names by them. When working in groups his classmates don’t pay much attention to this. He is aware of the situation and used to opt to work alone, yet lately in order to catch classmates’ attention he is acting out. The act of this classmates bullying him verbally is hurting his emotional and social skills even more, when questioned about situation he stated that no one liked him not even his younger sibling. Such cases of bullying can lead to students to feel and believe what is said to them, therefore causing them to also interfere with student’s academics.
The Purpose of the Behavior
Understanding the causes of bulling is complex yet, there are numerous of negative effects that come from it if we don’t prevent it. As said Harry is being harassed verbally and is excluded from many group activities in class. The explanation to this behavior is that the aggressors believe that they are superior to the victim. Stomp out Bulling, is an online site to fight against bullying states that it is very common for aggressors to model the behavior modeled at home. Therefore the aggressor is seeing such behavior at home, and copies the behavior at home. Also it states that such students are neglected in one way or another and want to release their anger upon people (students) that to them (aggressor) are weak. One the other hand the behavior showed by Harry acting out to try to fit in, is an attempt to show aggressor that he is no longer “weak” he is affecting his academics negatively. Harry wants to model the negative behavior learned from classmate to avoid being targeted again, yet it only makes the problem worst and cause a greater problem for all the people (students) involved in the situation.
Two Teacher’s Perspectives
-My strategy to preventing bullying in the classroom is to build a trustworthy relationship with students, so they are able to trust me if they at any time feel threatened by students, staff, or parents. By doing this children trust you to help them with their problems and therefore help bullying or other problems from becoming greater and having a greater negative impact on students’ lives.
-J. Zellner (2nd Grade Teacher)
-The strategy used by L. Estrada is that when someone hurts someone either physically or verbally, she asks them to apologize. Yet, not only a simple I’m sorry and It’s okay , she wants aggressor to say “I’m sorry and I will try to work on my behavior” so this doesn’t happen again, while victim responds “I accept your apology”. This helps both students know that the behavior is not acceptable and that behavior needs to be modified.
-Lorelei Estrada (Kindergarten Teacher)
Strategies to Modify the Behavior
- Establish Rules – it is important to establish the rules and consequences of positive and negative behavior. Begin the school year by sternly stating that you have zero tolerance to Bullying. Make students know that any sign of Bulling should be reported, and as teachers we should not take any report lightly. We need to show students that we care for them and will try our best to deal with the problem.
- Bullying Awareness-We now live in a technological age, where students are exposed to social media and technology earlier than before.As teachers we should make students aware of all the forms of bullying. Bullying can be physical, verbal, and now digital; any student can anonymously harass another online and hide behind a screen. We have to present students with signals and behaviors of being bullied in order to know what this behavior looks like and if they or other classmates are being bullied, the behavior is reported.
- Create Safe Environment-Teachers have to build relationships with all students, in order for students to trust them and approach them if they ever feel like they are in any way being bullied or have any other issues. If students don’t see a teacher as approachable they will not open up to them about any situation happening in the classroom, students need to know we as teacher care for them and we need to show them we do in a every way possible.
- Have a Plan-Once we set rules, give awareness of bulling, and create a safe environment; teachers need to have a plan on how to deal with a situation if encountered. As read in an article every teacher at one point of time encounters this situation and should have a plan on how to treat situation. It is important to be prepared on how to properly proceed when dealing with a bullying problem. It may be from calling out student, reporting to office, or calling parent; whatever plan a teacher has, they need to make sure they appropriately address the problem to avoid the behavior. As we see Bulling has been a very common issue at schools nowadays and negatively affects students around the world, as teachers it is our responsibility to keep our students safe and having a plan can help prevent, or solve bullying in our classroom.
- Get Parents involved- It is important to get parents involved so students know that they not only have support at school, but that they also have help and support from parents.
- Easy Access to Help- Make sure to provide website or phone numbers students can call if they feel like they are being bullied and do not want to directly talk to the teacher. Another way to help students that are not comfortable sharingis for the teacher to set up an anonymous comment system. Teacher sets up a box where students can anonymously report any problem going on in class. This gives studentshave easy access to reporting any problems in the class without feeling uncomfortable.
Online Resources
- This site helps parents, children, and community how to prevent, respond to and how to get help if someone is being bullied. Please visit-
- This online resource caught my attention because it provides educators many resources to deal with bullying in the classroom. It provides lesson plans, class management skills, and teaching strategies for all teachers to incorporate in a classroom and provide a safe environment. Please visit at -
- Technology and social media plays a significant role in this generation, nowadays children are exposed to this at an early age. Today most of bullying is done online and anonymously, technology is at the tip of everyone’s fingertips from a very early age. Therefore if help on cyber bullying -
References