Bullying and Building Community at Conn Elementary School

Ashley Rhodes, Madison Cosby, Brittney Craven, & Maura Murphy

This year, we were placed in a first grade and second grade classroom at Conn Magnet

Elementary School of Entrepreneurial Design. During our time at this school, we have noticed

many positive student to teacher interactions. One

opportunity for growth that we have identified in our school

is student to student interactions. One reason that we believe

that this is such an issue is because the administration at the

school has implemented a hands-off approach to discipline

and learning. While the goal of this approach is to allow

students to take more control of their actions, many students

take advantage of the lack of structure. Some classrooms lack

A student in our classroom was upset much needed positive reinforcement and shy away from
because another student was making fun of
her.
negative reinforcement as well, which does not promote

students understanding of the type of behavior that should take place in the classroom.

This hands off approach to discipline has led the students at Conn Elementary to have

negative interactions with each other, which forces them to use bullying as a means of

communicating. Bullying is defined as, any ongoing physical or verbal mistreatment in which it

is repeated, unprovoked and intentional (J. Koch, Powerpoint Presentation, Oct. 19th).

Unfortunately, there are no real strategies in place for students to turn to when they are in these

situations. Therefore, this becomes a cyclical sequence of events where there are no incentives

for good behavior and no consequences for bad behavior such as bullying. This becomes

problematic because it negatively affects student learning and their mental health (Violence
Prevention, 2015). This issue spans further than Conn Elementary and can be seen in schools

throughout the world. Bullying has been proven to decrease by up to 25% when school based

bullying prevention programs are implemented (McCallion and Feder, 2013).We believe that a

program like this would prove effective in classrooms at Conn Elementary.

Action Plan

Steps and Timetable:

Week 1

1. Discuss the issue of bullying with our mentor teachers

During this step, we will talk to our two teachers about

what they have noticed about bullying in their

classroom and throughout the school. We will ask the

questions: What strategies are already in place to

combat bullying? Are those strategies proactive or

reactive? How do these strategies impact the students?

A student in our class became upset
What have you noticed what works well to either because another student was using unkind
words toward her.

prevent or stop bullying in your class?

2. Survey students about their understanding about bullying

After assessing the teachers understandings of bullying and the impact of the strategies in

place, we will assess the students understandings of bullying. This will help us to direct a

lesson to have the highest influence possible for the students. The questions we will

include in the survey will reflect those asked of the teachers. Examples of these will

include: What do you know about bullying? Where did you learn about bullying? How
 are you affected by bullying? What happens to the bully after they bully someone? What

are ways you can prevent bullying?

Week 2

3. Teach a lesson about bullying

Based on the information collected from the student surveys, we will choose a book that

directly addresses bullying. An example of a lesson would be reading The Juice Box

Bully: Empowering Kids to Stand up for Others by Bob Sornson and Maria Dismondy.

After reading this book, students will collaborate to create a classroom promise. They

will all agree on the points added and then

individually sign the promise. Continuously

remind students of the promise they made!

This IS NOT over when the lesson itself ends.

Students should be expected to follow through

with all that we talk about and be active in

making the class a better environment for

everybody. Make the students feel individually

important and that they can make a difference!

Referring back to this promise and daily This is the Classroom Promise we made during the
lesson.
reminders of it help keep each student

individually accountable for their actions. (Teachers have option to incorporate subject

standards in this lesson such as identifying authors purpose, etc.)

4. Implement Warm Fuzzies Jar

 Have a jar that when it gets full with warm fuzzies (little pom-poms) the class gets a

reward. A way to get a warm fuzzy would be helping

others, using kind words and actions, good behavior,

receiving a class complement, etc. Examples of class

rewards would be bring a stuffed animal to school day,

popsicle party, extra 10 minutes of recess, etc. Because

filling the warm fuzzy jar is a class wide goal,

implementing this will build classroom community and help

students think about how their actions affect others. Image Citation: http://juliehildebrand.com/teaching-your-kids-
to-serve-others/

Week 3

5. Start personal reflection journals

Give students journals that they can use daily or weekly (or when they finish their work

early) to write down their reflections about how they think they are improving and

growing by following their class promise. This is a safe place where students can write

whatever they want, whether it be their frustrations or their accomplishments.

6. Begin weekly sharing discussions

Each Friday, have a whole class discussion where students have the opportunity to share

from their reflection journals, but be sure that students know that they do not have to

share if they dont feel comfortable; remind them that the classroom is a safe space. This

is a time to talk about how the whole class is growing and keeping the promise to make

the classroom environment better for everyone through kind and careful actions.

Collaboration, Constituents, and Social Change

 For this plan we will be collaborating with each other, our cooperating teacher, and the

students in our classrooms. The key constituents we need to engage would be grade level

teachers and eventually administration. We will keep them engaged by making sure they are

informed about the issue of bullying and by reminding them of the ultimate goal of reducing

bullying in the school community. From the teachers, we would need support and discussion of

what is working or not working, new ideas of how to best solve this issue, and what they have

noticed about bullying in their specific classroom. Later on it would be important to get

administration involved by having meetings with them where we would explain our plan, the

effectiveness of it so far, and how it could be implemented on a wider-scale in the school.

Some individuals may resist our changes, consciously or subconsciously. The conscious

resistors might be parents who do not believe that their child needs bullying intervention, even

though it is a whole class initiative. Students may subconsciously resist change due to their old

habits being hard to change and not yet being self-reflective to where they realize how their

actions may be affecting other people. However, constantly reminding them of their classroom

promise and their goal of filling the warm fuzzy jar will help change these habits so that they

no longer resist the social change.

Resources and Desired Outcomes

There are not many resources that address bullying and the

classroom community at our school. This poster on the right is in a first

grade classroom at Conn, but there is not one in every room. Also, there

are no resources in common areas such as the hallways or office that

address this issue either. We believe that having more of these reminders,
A current resource that exists in
the school.
especially ones made by students, will help combat the issue of bullying
and help teachers and students build a classroom community where each person feels safe and

welcomed.

Our biggest resource in implementing this social action plan is time and commitment

from the students, teachers and administrators. Although posters are a great reminders, students

need a call to action and incorporation of the prevention of bullying. Our desired outcomes for

our social action plan are to teach students how to treat each other with respect and kindness, to

build positive classroom communities, and to remind students to think about how their actions

affect others. All of these outcomes would lead to a reduction in bullying in our classrooms

because students are more aware of what behavior is expected of them.

Beginning Implementation

As we have begun implementing our social action plan, a major step that has stood out to

us has been the lesson we taught about bullying. While reading The Juice Box Bully:

Empowering Kids to Stand up for Others by Bob Sornson and Maria Dismondy, students were

extremely engaged and invested in the actions of Ralph, Pete, and the other characters in the

book. They enjoyed trying to predict what the classroom promise was in the book. While

creating the Class Promise, each group of students had the opportunity to share a point to add to

the Promise. This allowed students to have their voice heard and feel important in contributing to

something for the entire class. Students were able to share their own cultural values and have

them represented in front of the class. Each student had a voice. When put into groups, students

worked well with each other by collaborating to identify a point they wanted to add to make their

own Classroom Promise. With each point suggested, we made sure every student agreed to add it

to the promise. By all signing the Classroom Promise, students pledged to follow it and make the

classroom a better place. It will be interesting to see the effects of this lesson. By the engagement
and willingness of the students to participate in the lesson, we believe creating a Classroom

Promise will be effective and beneficial to the classroom. We will continue to refer to the

Classroom Promise, and expect students to follow through with what they added to it. We would

encourage other classes within Conn Elementary to implement similar lessons.

Our future steps for this social action plan will be to continue following our social action

plan and eventually make it a schoolwide effort. We will engage the administration and ask that

they implement this plan on a wider scale depending on the effectiveness within the two

classrooms. As teachers, we should continue to be reflective in our efforts to prevent bullying;

we need to identify if our efforts were actually paying off and adjust steps accordingly.
 References

Hildebrand, J., (2015, October 8). Warm fuzzy jar. [photograph]. Retrieved from

http://juliehildebrand.com/teaching-your-kids-to-serve-others/

Koch, J., Safe Classrooms [PowerPoint Slides].

McCallion, G., & Feder, J. (2013, November 05). Student Bullying: Overview of Research,

Federal Initiatives, and Legal Issues. Retrieved November 29, 2017, from

https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc227947/

Violence Prevention. (2017, June 23). Retrieved November 29, 2017, from

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/index.html