The following brief article shows some approaches that really do work.
Teachers' strategies for promoting student wellbeing and preventing bullying in Steiner Schools
Teachers in Rudolf Steiner schools believe in teaching through relationships. They believe that you only learn from people you like and respect and that to be able to teach effectively you have to be able to recognise the strengths of your students. By doing this you model respectful relationships and prevent bullying.
They begin the day or the lesson by shaking the hand of each child as they enter the classroom. By greeting each child individually you have a chance to have a quiet word with those who need it and see which children are a bit fragile and need extra care to prevent blow ups. Then at the end of the session, before letting the children go out into the playground you do some group activity like saying a poem. This is believed to have an effect on preventing playground bullying.
Steiner teachers use poetry in much the same way as it was used in the past. They find that by saying a poem together, children learn to work together because they have to accommodate to the speed at which others are speaking the verse. Poems are also useful to show children how clever they are because they are much better than adults at rote learning. Poems are always taught orally (to teach concentration and validate poor readers), a line, then a couplet, then a verse at a time. This shows the children everyone can learn and prevents children being labeled as stupid and so targeted by bullies.
Each week Steiner teachers meet after school and discuss a class of children. The rule is that everyone who teaches the children or who has supervised them in the playground contributes ideas about what works with each child. There is no negativity; the focus of the meeting is to teach the children better. Steiner teachers have the same class for many years so they understand that it is their responsibility to reach each child and to keep harmony in the class by showing the children that all are valuable.
They understand that they have to find a way to like each child and so they are encouraged to meditate on their class each night and think of each child as the person they have the potential to become. When they dislike a child they recognise that it is their problem not the child's. They have to ask themselves why they find errors in social behaviour so offensive when they know it is just immature performance of a skill. Children who are liked by a teacher are rarely bullied unless the teacher shows favouritism. Teachers have a great deal of power to prevent bullying by showing they believe that everyone in their class is a worthy person.
Alison Soutter
ANTI-BULLYING WEBSITES:
One of the most active organisations in Australia is the National Campaign Against Bullying (NCAB) Their annual conference in Melbourne early November 2007 is on Promoting Positive Relationships for Safer School Communities
Bullying No Way is the site developed by educators for schools. It emphasises the importance of relational values such as respect, equality and care. It ha many great resources
This site on Friendly Schools and Families links to the Federal Safe Schools Framework. Professor Donna Cross has been instrumental in getting this program up and running.
You might be interested in what happened around Australia in Safe Schools Week 2006
Read this short account of what Braybrook School in Victoria is doing to develop friendly connections between everyone in school
This is what UNICEF say should be included in the framework for a Child Friendly School
The UK DfES has a useful page on their site called Don't Suffer in Silence which has information about cyber-bullying and some video resources.
The Safe Schools Coalition is an American site which deals primarily with homophobic bullying
http://www.teach-nology.com/ideas/bullying/This site has comments from teachers in the US about what has worked for them
Useful Articles
Safe Schools are Effective Schools (pdf). If you need to persuade people about the importance of addressing bullying issues download this PDF!
A meta-evaluation of anti-bullying strategies by Ken Rigby shows that the earlier you intervene the better. Download this report from the OECD here
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