Did you experience bullying as a child either as a victim, witness, or bully? How did you survive that experience and what did you learn from it that is helping you now as a teacher?
Answer:
Growing up, my experience with bullying was always the witness, and that was a really tough place for me. My heart always went out to those who were not treated like they should, but at the same time, I did not want to be the snitch. When I talk about bullying, I do not mean physical. I never witnessed that. More, I witnessed emotional and social bullying often between other girls. I would always befriend the person who was being hurt, in hopes that it would help. However, I think that it could become so bad that nothing could help because of the internal self-hurting that the person faced. Knowing this, as a teacher, I bring everything to the surface. I think it is so simple to turn your back on the little girl who says "You are not my friend." Why? Because it happens every single day with first graders. But, if I do that, these little things turn into big things. I think the most important part is to voice the feelings of the person being hurt. I stress the idea so many times that we are all people, and people do not have the right to hurt others. We talk everyday about how we are all different, and we all like different things. If we weren't different, it would be SO boring. One thing we do have in common, is we all have the ability to be kind and that is our job to make sure that our classroom and our world is a safe and happy place to be. :)
Jacey,
ReplyDeleteYour teacher response to the common, everyday occurences of typical first graders' - especially little girls - forming cliques, excluding, etc. is very caring and competent. No, we don't attempt to put out every single camp fire, but instead go for putting out the forest fire. By this I mean that you approach the matter from a whole class standpoint concerning your explicit teaching about major themes such as kindness, respect, friendship, etc. via class meeting times. Also, we can use literature as a means to teach and model. Through this time we can teach specific conflict resolution skills to students so that when a student tells us about some occurence, we can empower that student and others involved to use their skill sets. If that doesn't work, then we can intervene as necessary.
Catherine