BULLYING What is it and what can we do to prevent it

IS BULLYING A PROBLEM HERE? Class Survey Victim Bystander Bully Unsure if you have been a bully?

WHAT IS BULLYING? Bullying is intentional and harmful behavior initiated by one or more students and directed toward another student. Bullying exists when a student with more social or physical power deliberately dominates and harasses another student who seemingly has less power. Bullying is unjustified and is repeated.

SCENARIOS-IS THIS BULLYING? 1. A student walks up to the front of the line and says “I’m getting in front of you” and cuts in front of the other students who have been waiting in line. 2. A group of girls play jump rope at lunch. Another student wants to join in but is denied every day. She begins screaming at the girls. 3. One student writes a rude note in class about another student’s body. The note is passed on to several other students who read it, laugh and pass it on. Eventually it is passed to the person it is written about.

SCENARIOS-IS THIS BULLYING? 4. A group of girls decide one day that another girl in their group will no longer be their friend. They don’t explain anything to that girl, but make it really obvious that they don’t want her around by ignoring her writing mean notes about her and teasing her. 5. In PE class, after clear instructions to throw the ball below the waist level, a student throws the ball at other kids’ head on purpose. 6. Two students who are friends always say to each other, “you’re so gay!” They don’t take offense, but there are other kids standing around when they do this.

SCENARIOS-IS THIS BULLYING? 7. Every day in class one student walks by the desk of another student and takes his pencil off the desk. Each time the student tells the teacher, the first student denies that he took the pencil. 8. A student has been called “gay,” “fag,” and “girl” on several occasions by other students. After weeks of this, he starts using these terms to describe other students.

SCENARIOS-IS THIS BULLYING? 9. Two friends are walking in the hall together. One sees a student he picks on regularly and pushes that student against the lockers and holds him there. The friend kind of laughs and just stands there until his friend is finished and ready to go to class. 10. At lunch a student tells another student, “give me your money. You don’t need it, you’re not hungry.” The student gives up his money. The guidance counselor sees this and tells the students not to loan or borrow money. The student who gave up his money says, “it’s ok, everything is fine.”

5 FORMS OF BULLYING PHYSICAL - Harmful actions against another person’s body or belongings Hitting/punching Shoving Tripping Destroying personal property Threats of physical harm

5 FORMS OF BULLYING VERBAL – Speaking to or about another person in an unkind or hurtful way Name-calling Put downs Rumors/gossip Teasing/sarcasm Mean/nasty phone calls

5 FORMS OF BULLYING EMOTIONAL - Behaviors that upset, exclude, or embarrass the person Cyberbullying-texts, Facebook, twitter, uvoo, etc. Intentional exclusion Humiliation/embarassment Intimidation Comments about a person’s family

5 FORMS OF BULLYING SEXUAL - To single out a person because of gender or sexual orientation; demonstrates unwanted sexual behavior Sexual comments Unwanted physical contact Inappropriate/abusive comments Inappropriate name calling such as gay, slut.

5 FORMS OF BULLYING Racial -Rejection or isolation of person because of ethnicity Racial slurs Stereotyping Making fun of a person’s customs, skin color, accent, dress or food choices

Ryan Halligan’s Story A Cyber Bullying Suicide Story -- Ryan Halligan age 13 - YouTube

What Can You Do? If it is mean, intervene: speak up! Reporting v. Tattling Change the way you think about bullying: it’s serious! We need to work together to make GH a safe and positive place to learn