Here is a case study of a bullying situation in an Elementary classroom. Please share what steps/ideas you might take as the teacher in this case.
Tim transfered from another school into your Grade 5 classroom in September. His parents informed you that he was bullied at his last school to a point that the only option seemed to move schools.
Tim is not confident and he struggles with learning difficulties. He does not know how to behave in class all the time - sometimes laughing out loud at seemingly nothing, or sitting too close to other children, or copying homework. His parents and you are aware that he is working on improving these social skills as well as working on his learning difficulties. However, the other children are not aware of these other complexities that Tim struggles with. They only view his immediate behaviour as strange, annoying, and sometimes interferring with their learning.
Consequently, the other children isolate Tim, make jokes about him that he sometimes hears, and a group of students that were supposed to work on a group project approached you and said that they don't think it is fair to have to work with Tim and they would rather work as a smaller group than have him as part of the group.
Tim seems not to notice, but you have not spoken with him. You can see how the bullying may have happened in the last school and you are not sure how to ease the relationships between the students without making Tim feel more awkward, without revealing too much information to the students, and without the problems escalating.
It is late November in the school year - what do you do? What steps can you take? What can make this different?
9 comments:
This is a very difficult and challenging situation for Tim, the class, and the teacher. I think it is important to create a sense of community in the classroom that has 0 tolerance towards bullying.
It is unfortunate that Tim had to experience 2 months of isolation again. Now that it is November I think it is time for the teacher to step in and create awareness about bullying. I think it is important to have the students understand that the school takes bullying seriously and how it can harm one. This does not mean that the teacher has to provide specific examples from the class, like Tim, but other realistic examples to help the students understand how it can affect an individual. As the teacher, we can find many ways to incorporate this subject in our curriculum, and find creative ways to weave bullying themes into language arts, socials, drama, etc. For example (drama), we can have the student’s role play different scenarios and then debrief about them. This way the students will be able to put their feet in the shoes of the bully, and the victim, hopefully realizing how detrimental it can be on someone.
This is one way I would go about dealing with this situation, but then again I’m not a hundred percent sure if it would solve the problem.
I totally agree with what Navi had to say about the bullying case study. From day one a teacher needs to set their rules and make them clear especially in regards to the treatment and respect of others.
I think because this teacher had a heads up that Tim was having a tough time with school before coming into her class should have encouraged her to seek out some strategies and ways of implementing fairness and quality in order to promote and form a flourishing classroom community. I am actually quite shocked that the situation had still not mean dealt with by November!
I think now it will be much harder for the teacher to change children's perceptions and ways they are used to acting with Tim because they have become so used to their ways.
Although the teacher would have been better off starting to implement these methods of teaching a "0 tolerance policy towards bullying" (-Navi. B) in September, she/he is still able to effectively make sure students start to understand how they are being inappropriate and show them the need to change/control themselves in a different, more ethically manner.
The teacher can integrate equality into her lesson topics by using videos and other great resources in her classroom. Videos and books on learning disabilities can be a very effective approach in which he/she might choose to take. It is also very valuable to have guest speakers come in and talk to the class on a regular basis in regards to some of the major/serious effects that bullying can have on someone.
If children are able to relate to a lesson or find it interesting they will most likely be able to apply it to real life situations in the moment and further down the road.
I had a similar situation happen in my grade 6 class in elementary school. We had to get into groups for a project where we were to create a play about a story we read. Well we all created our groups except for one girl, she was our outsider. So the teacher put her in our group. We were so happy with our group that when she got into our group we were very upset but we dealt with it and it started off fine. Then she started not to help us and never came to practice so we went to the teacher and told her we didn't want her in our group because she never did anything. So she ended up talking to her and to us about arrangements we could make to meet and make sure everyone had equal amount of work.
I found that our teacher handled it very well. I remember not being very nice about the whole situation. She handled it calmly and solved it very fast.
With the situations in this case, it looks like the teacher needed to inform the students more about the ideas of bullying and getting to know people more on the inside. I would try to do more activities in groups so they can get to know each other but always mixing up the groups so that he gets to know everyone a little and that the other kids don't feel overwhelmed always being his partner.
When I went to elementary school I remember a student who had the exact same qualities that Tim possessed. This student who I went to school with was picked on by everyone. I think it was in grade 2 or 3, our teacher and the principal sat our class down and we had a huge discussion about this student, including the disabilities he was dealing with, what/how he thinks and how he feels. As I think about it, it seems as if grade 2 or 3 was too young to be telling us all of this information. But it turned out that while I wouldn't say he made friends, the students stopped being mean and did start to leave this student alone.
I think it would be unrealistic to think that we will never have to deal with issues like this as teachers. While we absolutely have to encourage a 0 tolerance environment for bullying, that doesn't mean we will be able to stop bullying from happening.
In extreme situations I think it is important to tackle situations head on. Students in any grade have the ability to understand other's and other peoples feelings. I hope to establish a classroom environment that is safe and supportive, but along that same line I will not shy away from talking openly and honestly with my students about important situations. They have to know how to work and interact with all sorts of people, and we have to give them the tools to do that in real life situations.
As we have learned in our psychology class, it is extremely important for the teacher and students to set out some frames and contracts. This set of classroom guidelines must be established at the beginning of the year in order for them to have a full effect. It is important that each and every student feel safe and welcome at school because unfortunately some children are not granted this at home. Therefore, it is extremely important that a zero tolerance for bullying be implemented in the classroom and on school grounds.
I am not impressed by how the teacher has handled (or lack there of) the situation with Tim. She was informed of his learning disabilities and past experiences with bullies to the extent that his parents had him transfer schools. If I were the teacher I would have incorporated a broad classroom discussion on the effects of bullying. I would utilize videos, engage the students in role play, and invite a guest speaker and encourage the students to think about the effects of their words and actions on the feelings of others. I also think it is important that students be aware of different learning disabilities, which could be easily integrated into a classroom discussion. I find when children understand why other students are different they don’t judge the other students. It is when they don’t know the reasoning for the interruptions the students tend to judge more.
In this case, I think sometimes if the teacher finds a skill or ability that Tim is good at and presents that ability to the class with his consent the class may change their opinion of him. This will allow the students to associate Tim with a neat or interesting ability which may help take the negative feelings towards Tim away and end the bullying.
I also agree with the other posts that the teacher at the beginning of the year needs to implement a zero tolerance for bullying and establish classroom rules that ensure respect of all students.
I really like what Navi brought up in regards to this bullying case study - I think that most students can benefit from bullying awareness, regardless of whether they are actively engaging in bullying or not. Dealing with this awareness in a non-spcific manner is also a really good idea, because I think that by Grade 5, most students could make the connection between a fictional situation and a real one they are currently experiencing/witnessing.
Carly also brought up some really good points in her recounting of her own personal experiences with bullying in the classroom - she brought up the idea that our students "have to know how to work and interact with all sorts of people, and we have to give them the tools to do that in real life situations." This to me is a really key concept, as in our traditional classroom setting, we force a wide range of people to interact closely in ways they normally would NEVER do so in real life, and we expect them to do so in a caring and appropriate manner.
For whatever reason, if it were already November, as in the case study, and the bullied student was not fitting into the classroom community at all, I would feel the need to actively engage him in the classroom - while not singling him out, trying not to accept his loner/outcast status as well, which I understand is a very fine balance.
I can relate on a personal level, and while not everyone would agree with this method, it might work if the situation were this extreme. In grade 6 we had a new student come to our class from Iraq who seemed very, very different from us, at a time in our lives when being different was really not "cool". He had an extremely hard time fitting in,and while he was not overtly bullied, he certainly wasn`t accepted into our classroom community. It got to the point where our teacher - which, as I recall, was in fact a student teacher, sat down with us on a day the new student was absent and talked to us about our behaviour. I remember simply feeling very embarassed about the whole situation even though I had never teased or overtly made fun of the student - I felt like I could have made much more of an effort to be a more accpeting person towards this new student. While this tactic wouldn't work with every class, and certainly not with all ages, it might be worth considering in extreme situations.
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