As I have said many times before, children need to learn at an early age that it's okay to let others know that they need help when confronted with a bully. They also need to learn skills to stand up to the bully and how to become active bystanders.
At Tower Hill School the children are learning this by being Bully Busters. Thanks to some of my favorite resources, Teaching Tolerance magazine from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Peter Yarrow's Don't Laugh At Me, as well as some great literature, the kids are learning some important tools to hopefully help them defuse situations they may encounter.
This week after reading the book, Bullies Never Win by Margery Ceyler, we created a "bully buster" machine. This involved 2 lines and someone had to role play the bully and go through the middle of our machine. Another student had to be the bully buster by saying something to stop the bully. It was inspiring to me to see how comfortable these young kids were with the role playing but also that they seemed to really care about defending their friends.
I will continue to post resources and the responses from the kids as we progress, but I am very excited that these young children are showing us that it is not too early to teach these necessary skills. Hopefully they will help us break this current cycle of aggressive behaviors.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
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