Each Term I talk with the younger students about bullying; about their experiences with bullies, their ideas for working things out when they disagree with others, and how they feel about getting help from adults if the situation is out of their control.
I think there has been progress over the past few years. In general, schools have some method for dealing with disagreements and bullying. In most cases, teachers are willing and able to step in and stop the inappropriate behavior.
I believe we still have a lot of room for improvement as evidenced by the suicides over that past several months of teens experiencing bullying. I also think the kids who are bullied end up being bullies themselves in a vicious cycle that takes serious work to resolve.
I share several bully stories with the students in my classes. I plan to put them up here as well over the next month as I have time to write them down. Most are based on true stories I have heard from students in my classes.
If you have thoughts or ideas about bullying behavior, please share it here as well. All input is valuable. I pulled up a few books that might be a good resource:
