Teachers went back to work after Thanksgiving with a professional development work day. The primary focus centered on a presentation by Dr. Elizabeth Englander, director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC) at Bridgewater State College. Last March, Dr. Englander presented to the regional school district parent community about issues pertaining to bullying and cyberbullying. Her visit was co-sponsored by the DSHS PTO and DSMS POSITIVE organizations and was very well received.
Dr. Englander presented to the entire regional faculty (grades 6-12) this past Monday (12-01). She did an excellent presentation on the latest research and trends into bullying. Here are a few key points I took out of the presentation:
-There is a big difference between a "bullying" situation and a "conflict" situation. The key distinction lies in there being a power differential between the involved parties.
-The bulk of issues found in schools are in fact conflict related. Bullying cases are also present in all schools and represent a different challenge for schools to handle.
-Mediation is a highly effective strategy for conflict situations and not appropriate for a bullying situation.
-Bullies are typically among the most popular students in school. Their popularity gives them their power advantage. They are not the stereotypical bully as depicted from the past.
-In a bullying situation, you have different categories of participants: the bully, the victim and two types of bystanders: floaters and eggers. The floaters will literally float between all of the roles and the eggers literally "egg" on the behavior.
-Bullying behavior occurs when adults are either ignorant, indifferent or absent from the situation. This is why it is so important for us to establish good relationships with our students so they will feel comfortable in communicating with us and for us to demonstrate a commitment to challenging and addressing all forms of observed bullying behavior.
-A very high percentage of bullying cases addressed by schools have an online or cyber component. Cyberbullying is the fastest growing and most complex form of bullying, and grows in sophistication and form as technology itself grows.
Our goal as a Region in working with Dr. Englander and the MARC organization is to take the information we have learned and develop and incorporate policies and practices to directly address all bullying issues. I will keep you up to date on this work as we progress. In the meantime, I would encourage you to check out the MARC organization's web link. It has great information on their research and free information for parents and educators to download.
http://webhost.bridgew.edu/marc
