behaviordoctor

These are all the Bully Prevention Programs I have found that I think schools could research and consider using:  (I copy/pasted from each website a small blurb to give you an idea of what is there before you click on each of the links).  I do not think there is any one program that is perfect for all schools.  I think each school is unique and therefore each school should choose what is right for them.  I imagine within each district- each school is different so even a district adoption of one program might not even work.  I just hope that each school will adopt a program and do something proactive right now- quit waiting.  We cannot lose one more child.

These are not in any particular order- 

http://ethics4schools.com/counseling/index.html

Step Up Bully Prevention- Videos and Songs

Research shows that children observe and copy their older peers behavior.

So one of the best ways to influence children is to have the older ones accept and demonstrate the behavior you wish to promote.

Steve Couch’s PBIS and Bully Prevention materials use the upper grade level students to show the consequences and solutions to bullying to your children. The examples below are for Elementary Schools using 4th and 5th grade students as performers.

http://www.clemson.edu/olweus/-  

The Olweus Program (pronounced Ol-VEY-us; the E sounds like a long A) is a comprehensive, school-wide program designed and evaluated for use in elementary, middle, or junior high schools.  The program’s goals are to reduce and prevent bullying problems among school children and to improve peer relations at school. The program has been found to reduce bullying among children, improve the social climate of classrooms, and reduce related antisocial behaviors, such as vandalism and truancy. 

http://www.cfchildren.org/programs/str/overview/

The research-based STEPS TO RESPECT program teaches elementary students to recognize, refuse, and report bullying, be assertive, and build friendships. In fact, a recent study found that the program led to a 31 percent decline in bullying and a 70 percent cut in destructive bystander behavior.

http://www.rachelschallenge.org/

Rachel Scott was the first person killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Her acts of kindness and compassion coupled with the contents of her six diaries have become the foundation for one of the most life-changing school programs in America. 

Powerful video/audio footage of Rachel’s life and the Columbine tragedy holds students spell-bound during a one hour school presentation that motivates them to positive change in the way they treat others.

http://www.stopbullyingnow.com/index.htm

As a culture, we are focusing new attention on bullying. According to world-wide research, both mean peer behavior and the harm it causes can be reduced. There is little need to describe the impact of mean actions by peers. Youth who mistreat others frequently are more likely to become aggressive adults and to have criminal records in adulthood. Mistreated young people may grow up with diminished self-confidence and a sense of isolation and helplessness. Youth who witness mean behavior repeatedly are also affected.

http://www.bullyfree.com/bully-free-program/description-of-the-bully-free-program

The philosophy of the Bully Free^® Program is based on child development research; social psychology; research regarding school climate and development of a peaceful, safe, and meaningful community; effective teaching; learning principles; behavior and classroom management; and current thinking regarding effective anti-bullying programs.

http://www.kool2bkind.org/

The program was created using various resources and ideas to help drive out the “bully spirit” from school classrooms with acts and words of kindness.  When we stand together for what is right, we have the power to win.

http://challengeday.org/

Challenge Day’s mission is to provide youth and their communities with experiential workshops and programs that demonstrate the possibility of love and connection through the celebration of diversity, truth and full expression.

Our 6 1/2-hour Challenge Day program is designed for 100 students. Our program is created to build connection and empathy, and to fulfill our vision that every child lives in a world where they feel safe, loved, and celebrated. Challenge Day is more than a one-day program. It is the spark that ignites a movement of compassion and positive change, known as the Be the Change movement.

Challenge Day is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that provides powerful one-day programs as a service to junior high schools, middle schools, and high schools with students in grades 7-12. Challenge Day also serves other organizations and companies.

http://www.pbis.org/common/pbisresources/publications/bullyprevention_ES.pdf

Giving students the tools to reduce bully behavior through the blending of school-wide positive behavior support, explicit instruction, and a redefinition of the bullying construct.  Free download of materials for elementary and secondary.

http://vimeo.com/groups/pbisvideos/videos/37197747  sample video of students at elementary level using “Stop, Walk, and Talk”.  

Please join this discussion- if you know of more programs- send them in and join the discussion- the more we talk- the more we know.  Please join my Blog and Follow.  Share this with your friends- the more followers- the more information we will be able to share with each other.  Together we can change the world.  

Bully Prevention.

I just got back from seeing the movie Bully.  http://www.movies.com/bully/m68307

I highly recommend it being seen by educators, parents, and students together and then some serious discussions taking place afterwards.   I hope the educators in the movie realize how little they did to stop the bullying.  I have been saying in my trainings for quite some time that bus drivers know a lot about bullying and no one seems to be asking them about it.  It was obvious in the movie that a lot of the bullying took place or at least started on the bus.

On the Behavior Doctor Website there is a page dedicated to transportation providers- http://behaviordoctor.org/transportation.html-  There is a book, a PowerPoint and a pamphlet on disabilities and types of behaviors that can be expected based on disability for bus assistants and bus drivers.  I have trained bus drivers in many cities and three major metropolis cities and what I have found is the bus drivers have been given very little training on how to deal with the students and are left to deal with behavior in whatever method worked with their personal children.  What works in your home rarely works on a large scale when there are no relationships built with 50- 100 students at a time.  This is why bullying can and does happen on the bus.

Check out the movie on the page above, because video modeling is a research based intervention proven effective at teaching students what good behavior looks like, sounds like, and feels like on the bus.  Students need to see the bus as part of the school day- not as an added token.  They need to understand the rules from school apply on the bus.

I’ve talked previously in posts about www.challengeday.org and how awesome I believe this program is for schools.  I also want to recommend three other programs:  1)  The Stop, Walk and Talk program available for download in English and Spanish on http://pbis.org/school/bully_prevention.aspx  This is a research based program from the National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and has been proven effective at the elementary and secondary level.  You can see a video of this being used in a school at this link:   http://vimeo.com/groups/pbisvideos/videos/37197747  You can download this video to share with your staff to start a discussion at your school.  If you are a secondary school www.pbisvideos.com has several great examples for secondary students.

Steve Couch has a wonderful program- You can see his work at Ethics for Schools  - http://ethics4schools.com/counseling/index.html

The Step-Up Bully Prevention Program has a catchy tune that will stay with students and can be paired.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBh_0SdqaNg  –  Steve goes out to the school and video tapes the actual students being involved in the video, that way the words are more meaningful.  The drama is meaningful too.

What is most important is that you do something- something more than just call kids into the office and tell them not to do it.  That’s what they did in the 50′s.  That’s what I saw the educators in the movie do to boys who were stabbing and hitting Alex on the bus.  That’s not stopping bullying.

I was bullied as a kid.  I was called “cow” from fourth grade to sixth grade by all the boys.  I wasn’t fat.  I was called cow because a boy had to kiss my hand in a school play and he was embarrassed.  My name was princess Rosalee.  A week later, we read a story about a cow named Rosalee.  The boy who was being teased about having to kiss my hand started calling me cow and it caught on.  Boys started mooing at me.  I couldn’t walk down the hallway, walk home from school, or play out in my front yard without hearing “MOOOOOOOO”.  Boys used to put pictures of cows on my desk and giggle as they walked by.  I was miserable.

I told my teacher and she said, “That means they like you.”  I told my mother and she said, “Boys tease you because they like you.”  That’s what people said back in the 1950′s and 60′s.  I was miserable.  I didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t want to go to recess.  I used to circle the teacher during recess just to avoid the boys.   I got kicked several times.  The boys wanted to see if they could “tip a cow”.  If they served chocolate pudding at school they “mooed” and said I pooped on their plates.  I cried a lot.  My self-esteem plummeted.  Luckily, my grades didn’t suffer and I just stuck to myself.  I didn’t have a lot of girlfriends, but I managed to make it.  My bullying didn’t have anything to do with my personal characteristics or looks.  Imagine what would have happened to my self-esteem if the bullying had been based on my looks, my character, my gender identification, my race, my ethnicity, or a disability.

Figure out which bullying program you are going to use and then stick with it long enough – you can bring in a trainer to do a one time training and think you have taken care of the problem.  Bring in a trainer and then assign a team in your school to keep it alive.  For instance, bring in the Challenge Day people- they are very reasonable and have them get you started.  Then hire Steve Couch to make a Step-Up Bully Prevention video specific to your school.  Get your delete arm bracelets like I showed you from Weatherford High School in a previous post to teach students about not tweeting, blogging, texting, or facebooking hurtful information.

The more you do- the less likely we will lose wonderful students like those who took their own lives because they were being bullied.

Alan Johnson said, “What they see is what I get.”  Think about that for a bit and then read the rest of this:

When you watch television programs and the news, it seems everything is bad news and bad examples of people being respectful to each other.  In the 1950′s, Ward doled out advice to Beaver and Wally and helped them solve their problems in 30 minutes.  If they weren’t respectful, they had to apologize and their consequences were natural consequences.  There was not a single cuss word on television and Lucy and Ricky did not even sleep in the same bed, let alone insinuate they did anything else in the bedroom.

People keep asking me why kids are worse today.  I don’t think kids are worse today.  I believe manners in society are worse today.  Several days ago I was entering a building and a woman was so busy texting that she was heading toward the door and not even looking up.  I held the door open for her since she wasn’t looking.  She just walked on in and never looked up.  She never said “thank you” or acknowledged that I was even there.  This isn’t the first time this has happened to me.  I have held the door open for an elderly person, only to have five or six other people walk on in without even saying thank you, like it was my job to hold open the door for everyone.  We don’t model respect for others in society.

I see people littering.  I see people flipping each other off as they drive down the street.  I hear people cussing in front of children.  I hear people using derogatory terms in front of each other and telling off-color jokes in front of each other.

I think what we see on television is worse today than they were in the 1950′s.  The lyrics we hear in songs are worse today than they were in the 1950′s.  So here is my plan.  I’d like to write a grant to start a new television station.  Everything will be positive:

• The news will only report good things and good examples
• The cartoons will only focus on good behavior and slower paced changes
• Children’s programming will focus on engaging whole families together in thought-provoking discussions
• There will be more programs like:
  • Mr. Rogers type programming
  • Science Experiments families can do together
  • History for kids
  • Zoo shows
  • Cooking experiences families can do together
  • Ways to show respect to each other
  • Books families can read together
  • Songs that teach
  • Parenting shows that help parents understand behavior issues
  • Shows that teachers can show in the classroom about behavioral expectations
• I know a lot of this is on television but it will all be on one channel: no cussing, no insinuations, no bad modeling, no bad news.

I totally believe the adage Energy flows where attention goes.  Obviously, we have not been able to get people to turn off the televisions, so let’s put good things on television and make the games on television educational.  If we all start watching positive things (adults and children) then maybe we will start seeing more positive things happening in the world.

I receive so many emails from schools looking for ideas on how to stop bullying in their schools, so I thought I’d spend a few blogs talking about ideas that I think will work.  Last week I shared the “Delete” bracelets from Weatherford and what they are doing.  Today I have another idea for you.

Another great idea for stopping bullying in your school is to visit the Challenge Day website.  http://challengeday.org/  I remembered seeing a snippet about this great activity on 60 minutes and went spelunking on www.youtube.com and found the information.  I wrote to them for a video and was quite blown away by what I received.  Check out the website and especially the files where the students cross the line “if they’ve ever…..”.  I think this really will make a difference in your school.  The video shows two rival gang members hugging each other.  The tape has a teacher or administrator talking about how she didn’t know if that was going to end well and it did.

I checked out the prices of bringing out the Challenge Team to your school to lead the day because I do think it needs to be done by someone who knows what they are doing and the prices are very reasonable.  I think a school could order the disk from the website and then go to http://www.donorschoose.org/ and write up what you want to do.  Philanthropists would fund the activity for you and you could easily bring the right people out to your school to get this going.  The time to start planning for next fall is now and it would be a great kick off to the new school year.

So here is a clip of Challenge Day on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCqsd7RdGwQ&feature=context&playnext=1&list=PL2DCA56E095E0A8C6&context=C4ed0c5fADvjVQa1PpcFNFiO3FSHhoG8ToRizJ4DAKxtBldi89y5k=

Or you can see more on

http://challengeday.org/  (Make sure you go to .org)  

Please join the discussion if you have great ideas to stop bullying in your school

Weatherford High School in Weatherford Oklahoma has taught their students to “DELETE” all negative statements from their texts, facebook pages, tweets, blogs, and instant messages.  The students all wear these bracelets to remind themselves about their school’s anti-bullying campaign.  Ginger Powell and Valerie Caulkins-Shreck at Weatherford High School say it has made a huge impact.  The students are even campaigning and teaching the students at the area elementary and middle schools about the program.  

Here is a link to Weatherford High School’s website: http://www.wpsok.org/WHS%20WEB/index.html

They have so many great programs going there including:

1) Each one save 5- Each adult in the building is assigned five students.  The adults build relationships by making positive contact with the student weekly through notes, eye contact and visiting, getting to know, notes on lockers, phone calls to parents, letters or post cards home etc.

2) Building an extra 30 minutes into the day.  Students who are making A’s, B’s, or C’s get to take fun classes.  Science experiment classes, psychology classes based on popular crime shows, etc.  Seniors are allowed to leave for a whole hour (their lunch hour) they can go to the elementary school and eat lunch with the students and help tutor students at the elementary school.  

This is a school that is definitely making a difference in students’ lives.  Kudos to Weatherford High School.

Students who are making D’s or F’s get to go spend that time for a week in the class they are failing.  This gives the teachers the opportunity to work one or two on one with these students to get them caught up.  

Love this new wheelchair.  This wheelchair would put students on eye-level with their peers- which I think is so important for building friendships:

http://www.wimp.com/newdevice/

Check out this new wheelchair

The Student/Teacher Rating Sheet Works Best Here’s Why:

A) Research Based:  

1.  John Hattie found in his book- Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement- Available at www.amazon.com that students recording their own success had the highest impact.
2. It builds relationships with students and the following researchers say this about relationships: Dr. Ann Corvin says these 3 things are essential to building a relationship: –Eye contact, –Touching, –Talking  and   Bhaerman R.D. & Kopp, K.A. (1988) says:–  A student is less likely to drop out of school if one adult other than their teacher knows and uses their name.
3. By tying in Dr. Leanne Hawken’s Behavior Education Program (Check-in/Check-out a school can use both components of monitoring their own progress and tying in Dr. Ann Corvin’s research and Drs. Bhaerman and Kopp’s research with her unique way of checking in on a student on an hourly and daily basis.To read more about the Behavior Education Program check out this article: http://www.calstat.org/textAlt/SpEDge_eng/fall05edge.html
4. Ties parents into the system- 
   •Christenson, S. L. (1995). Families and schools: What is the role of the school psychologist? School   Psychology Quarterly, 10, 118-132.
   •Clark, R.M. (1990). Why disadvantaged students succeed: What happens outside school is critical.    Public Welfare (17-23).
   •Epstein, J.L. (1991). Paths to partnership:  What can we learn from federal, state, district, and school   initiatives. Phi Delta Kappa, 72 (5).
   •Henderson, A. & Mapp, K. (2002). A new wave of evidence: The impact of school, family, and   community connections on achievement. Austin, TX: National Center for Family &   Community Connections with Schools.
   •Hoover-Dempsey, K.V., Whitaker, M.C., & Ice, C.L. (2010). Motivation and
   •commitment to family-school partnerships. In S.L. Christenson & A.L. Reschly (Eds.), Handbook of school-family partnerships (pp. 30-60). New York: Routledge.
   •Jeynes, W. H. (2005). A meta-analysis of the relation of parental involvement to urban elementary school student academic achievement. Urban Education, 40, 237-269.
   •Jeynes, W. H. (2007). The relationship between parental involvement and urban secondary school student achievement: A meta-analysis. Urban Education, 42, 82-110.
   •Marzano, R. J. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action.
   •Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

   Sheridan, S.M. (1997). Conceptual and empirical bases of conjoint behavioral consultation.  School   Psychology Quarterly, 12, 119-133

5. Click this link to read more about it:  (This explains it too and how it works) http://behaviordoctor.org/files/tools/0809studentteacherratingscale.doc 
6. Here’s a link that graphs the data for this tool- back to John Hattie’s comment from his meta analysis-    http://behaviordoctor.org/files/tools/ExcelspreadsheetforSBR.xls
7. Here’s a link to the young child version with smiley faces- 

I know this post will bring some angry responses from teachers all across the world who are married to flip charts.  I get told all the time they work.  Yes, they work- on 75% of the students.  If they worked, all the students would be on green every day instead of the same kids continuously on red or yellow every single day.

My question is- It works on 75% of the students – but whose behavior are we trying to change?  The 25% whose behavior is not being changed by these flipping charts. (pun intended)

To me, it is the same violation of FERPA that posting grades on the wall would be for students. Universities have been sued for posting grades by social security numbers and yet, we can post who is good and who is “bad” in a classroom for anyone who happens to walk into the room.  I know, some of you are so smart.  You number the pocket charts so they don’t have student names’ on the pockets.  Trust me.  Every single parent knows who number 13 is and why that card in there is flipped to red.

None of my FERPA Sherpa’s are willing to go out on a limb and help me find some loophole to prove this is a violation- I know it’s not specifically mentioned- but I don’t see how it is much different than this:  

and wouldn’t we all be appalled to walk in a classroom and see this today?

Here’s a true story:

A friend of mine knew how much I was against these charts.  Her son was in second grade and she kept bragging to me that the charts were working for her son.  (He was on green every day).  He was a “good” kid.  Every day he was on green.  In May, when spring fever hit, she called me one night crying. Adam was on Yellow.  I told her not to worry, he still didn’t lose his recess and everyone has a bad day now and then.  I told her not to make a big deal out of it.  The next night she called me again and was crying even harder.  Adam was on yellow again.  I said, “Well, did you ask him “Why” he was on yellow?”  She said, “No, I’ll call you back.”  

She called me back a little while later.  She said, “You won’t believe what he said,”  (I thought, oh wanna bet?)  This teacher had 5 colors- Green, Blue, Purple, Yellow, Red.  She said, “Adam said, he was tired of sitting in his seat.  He figured out he could get up out of his seat and walk around to go flip his chart by acting up a little bit and still not lose his recess.”  

If the teacher had just used positive reinforcement, she would have never had this sort of problem with Adam or any other children in the class.  Here’s what teachers should do:

Three levels of reinforcement:

First Line of Defense:

Group Reinforcement- Group Reward- Entire Class Working Together to Earn a Group Reward

This can be as simple as marbles in a jar, links on a chain, tallies in a box etc.  

Sound like this:

“Boys and Girls, you are all working so nicely that I am going to give you a class compliment, link, marble etc.”  Class cheers or whatever you’ve taught them to do when they earn one of these.  I had a class goal of 25 for these group rewards.  Typically the class reward was me reading an extra chapter at the end of the day or time to work on an art project or just something I felt like giving away anyway- like drawing freehand on the board or acting out a story. (Nothing that cost money)

Second Line of Defense

Individual Contingency – Group Reward

This is where individual students earn a reward for the whole class.  I used to keep an orange juice can with tongue depressor sticks in it with student names on the sticks.  I would pull up a stick and sneak a peak at the name.  I’d watch that student all day to see if they followed a rule stated in the morning.  (Remembering the raise their hand and wait to be called on, etc.)  If the student followed the golden rule of the day, they earned a class reward which might be 5 free answers for an assignment.  The kids don’t even have to know I added five on to what I wanted them to do in the first place.  At the end of the day, if the mystery student had not had exemplary behavior I had a back-up student I could use as the mystery student and then I had a private conversation with the other student about their behavior and how I would hope that if their name were drawn the next day they would be a good example.  This way they don’t get beat up on the way home for “blowing it” for the class.

Third Line of Defense

Individual Contingency- Individual Reward

This is for those students who need their own token economy.  This might be students with ADHD or ASD or ODD.  Remember, a token economy is not for stickers or candy.  A token economy has to match the function of the behavior.  A student with ADHD needs and wants sensory stimulation, so they earn tickets to get to sit in my chair which provides them with pro-prioceptive motion.  A child with ASD might need escape from the noise of the fluorescent lights so their tokens might earn them a trip down to the office which gets them away from the lights above their desk for a few minutes.  A child with ODD might want to escape work, so their tokens might let them earn a chance to do some of their work on the computer.

I know some people reading this will say, “Boy this lady is some namby pamby who just coddles kids.”  I taught Pre-K through High School and in 31 years, I only took one student to the office.  I taught emotional behavior disorders, autism, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, typical development, children from the foster care system, reactive attachment disorder, children on a military base, and children who were adjudicated.  The only student I ever took to the office was on the first day of school.  He threw a rock and hit a little girl.  She had to have stitches.  He wasn’t in my class, wouldn’t tell me his name, wouldn’t tell me his teacher and I had to take care of my class and couldn’t call his mother.  I dropped him off in the office and pointed to the girl in the nurse’s office.  I told the principal, “He caused that.  He won’t tell me his name or his teacher’s name.  Sorry to leave him with you- but I have no choice.”  

I did send kids to the office to read to the principal or to brag about something they did “cool” in the room.  To me, sending a kid to the office is admitting that I have no control over my classroom.  I know this is a jump from the charts to the principal’s office.  However, some of the teachers I know send kids to the principal’s office when they get to red.  Some teachers take away recess.  Do you know that when you take away recess, you only punish yourself?

I think you should never take away recess from a child.  Take away choice.  You have to go to recess, but instead of free choice at recess, I choose you have to play four square, or basketball.  Trust me, to kids choice is a bigger deal than standing on the wall.  I took away choice once and the student was good as gold the rest of the year.  I didn’t make him go out and play something boring or anything, I just switched what I knew he wanted to do.  He was offering to clean the chalkboard after that.  

You really can change behavior without pointing out who is good and who is not good in your classroom.  Please don’t send me hate mail about this- I don’t teach any longer so you aren’t going to change my mind.  I hope to change yours.  I hope to start a FERPA revolution about getting it off the wall.  I’m going to find a FERPA SHERPA one of these days who will support me in this.  Try my way for the last 9 weeks of school and see if it doesn’t end your school year better.