Reason #13 They Have Innovative Ideas

My class has a problem with bullying. I feel a little ashamed to admit that on such a public forum, as teachers are often only seen as effective when they can manage their students, and this indicates a deficit in my management. Also, I have written some flowery posts about their care and concern for one another. That's all true. Also, some of them are absolutely hateful toward one another. That's also true.

Sometimes the bullying is small, like laughing at another student every time they make a mistake. However, one of my students with special needs had started going home and telling her mother she didn't want to go to school anymore. That broke my heart. I pride my classroom as being one that students want to come to each day, and take great measures to make it a friendly and supportive atmosphere. So several weeks ago I called an emergency class meeting. Something had to be done about our bullying problem.

We sat around our meeting rug and shared times that we had felt bullied or teased. Then I asked the students how they felt we should deal with this problem in our classroom. Malika got up to take notes on the white board, and the students started brainstorming various ideas.

"What if we made posters that reminded us not to bully?"
"We could have a petition and people could sign up not to bully."
"We could have conversations with the person who is being a bully."
"What if we had a bully ticket and we could give it to people who are acting like bullies?"

That night I started to put their plans into action. I went to the library and checked out twenty books about bullying (plug here that the library is AWESOME!) Then I went to Staples and got poster supplies and twenty mini clip boards for all my students. The next day, we had a working afternoon, planning out our anti-bully campaign. One group worked on posters, another designed the bully ticket. A third group made a petition, and the final group decided to make "Caught Doing Right" tickets to recognize good behavior. Everyone decorated their clip boards that they could carry everywhere, fully stocked with their Bully Tickets and Caught Doing Right tickets. Since markers, foam stickers, and clip boards were involved, the activity was a raging success. But would this decrease bullying?

After a week of collecting tickets we sat down the next Friday to discuss the bully tickets. The students decided they wanted names of people receiving the tickets to be read, but not their behaviors or who had given the bully tickets. Then we would talk to the people who were having the biggest issues. After reading off close to 100 Bully Tickets, we had our two culprits: David and Andrew. Andrew was particularly distraught hearing his name so many times, so we started with him.

Andrew called on students to give him suggestions of how he could make sure that his name wasn't on Bully Tickets the following weeks.

"I think people would like it if you didn't talk about their families."
"Maybe you shouldn't make inappropriate gestures toward me."
"Probably you shouldn't use bad words."

It was a hard lesson in constructive criticism, but overall Andrew took it like a champ. It was followed by compliments of things we like about Andrew, of which there were many. I was so impressed with my students' articulation, thoughtfulness, and maturity in handling the situation. Also, those 100 Bully Tickets represented 100 less times that someone came up to me to tattle, so at least in my eyes, my students had come up with great ideas, taken ownership, and been truly successful.

Andrew learned a lesson, too. Going back to his seat I overheard him saying to himself, "My mom always told me that my mouth would get me in trouble some day, and boy was she right!"

We have all learned some good lessons in our class. There's still some bullying, but having a method to deal with it when it happens has helped give agency to my students and eliminated some of the unnecessary bullying. Sure, it's not perfect and Carter punched Joe in the stomach when he started writing a bully ticket about him, but hey, we're making progress.