Taunting Tuesday - The bullies, mean peers and rude friends and how to deal with them

Bullies, bullying and bully policies have all become buzz words that draw attention from just about
everyone. However, I can't remember learning too much about this issue during my four year degree. Stumbling out into the wilderness of the playground, I refuse to go uneducated and so I set about finding materials worthy of reading and reflection to increase my learning in this all-important mine-field of an issue.

It started during the holidays with a Huffington Post article on three bullying important terms, bullying, meanness and rudeness. This made me stop and think about how easily confused and misused these terms are. Too often parents or students will throw these three terms around interchangeably, leaving the teacher with a conflict of interests between one parent saying their child was bullied and another parent saying their child is unintentionally rude. Sounds to me like a potential differentiation for newsletters, parent-teacher meetings, assemblies, etc. After all, the first action in my behaviour management plan (after stopping any immediate threat or danger) is to clearly define the issue. 

It seems to me that all three should be prioritised and addressed totally differently, once identified. If I were to state in a vague way my approach to all three, it is basically this:

1. Understand the issue, concerns and underlying causes (talk it out with every party involved if possible).
2. Discuss with the 'victim' how they are affected by the situation and what they feel could correct the situation and/or restore the relationship, trust, feelings of security, etc.
3. Discuss with the 'offender' how the underlying causes can be reduced (as much as possible) by the 'offender' and plan together how the teachers, staff and/or parents could help. If consequences are to be put in place, I would also discuss this with the student, ensuring they understood why they were being punished and why the type of punishment was chosen (E.g. "You are not allowed to visit the kinders any more because they don't feel safe when you do").
4. Explain to the 'offender' what they did wrong and why it is wrong, walking them through giving a real apology.
5. If a recurring issue with multiple 'offenders' or misunderstandings, discuss the issue with the class, school and/or school community.
6. Update necessary stakeholders (principal, colleague teachers, parents, etc). While stating this last, it is likely that these conversations will be taking part throughout the process, depending on how long the process is.

The above is a basic view of my behaviour management plan for dealing with issues which are major, either because they are recurring in nature or cause students to become upset and needing reconciliation. For more minor issues, such as a student forgetting a classroom procedure, warnings tend to be sufficient.

More specifically, here is how I would consider reacting depending on what the case involves:

• Bulling: I do not consider this acceptable and immediate consequences will be put in place as soon as I hear of it. Stakeholders including parents and principal will be involved. The offender will be monitored for a period of time and supported to overcome this behaviour as necessary. During this process, victims will be supported as much as necessary and possible to regain any loss of self-esteem, trust, or security.
• Meanness: As this is not repeated behaviour and the child feels regret, I would not make such a big deal out of this. I may mention it casually to a parent or ask colleagues to be aware of the situation, but beyond a sincere apology and action plan developed with the child, I would probably punish the child (if the situation calls for punishment, I would probably label it 'bullying').
• Rudeness: As this is merely a slip-up as a result of misunderstanding or lack of social skills, I would not usually 'frown upon' the situation, but deal with it as a molehill to prevent a mountain situation being formed. I would equip the 'offender' with any lacking social skills to prevent recurring situations if necessary and possible. Otherwise, we would discuss what the problem was and what the effect was in order to allow the student to understand and apologise appropriately. In this situation, I would also have a discussion with the 'victim' to explain the misunderstanding and the lack of bad intention the 'offender' had.

But let's not forget that prevention is the BEST part of the behaviour management plan. So here's how I hope to prevent recurrences or even first time incidences of these behaviours in my classrooms:

• Social classes - I prefer to do these regularly to support my students in a range of areas, including how to form relationships and treat others with respect in the classroom and beyond. These are great for dealing with recurring rudeness or anticipating common issues and dealing with them early.
• Share stories - This can be integrated with news sharing, literacy, drama, history, visual art and probably more curriculum areas. Sharing a story, or asking students to imagine a situation and resolve it, provides students with opportunities to reflect upon such issues and apply learning to their own lives.
• Take advantage of National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence - I'm sure there would be a ridiculous amount of possibilities for this. The Australian Government has even published a website for teachers, parents and students addressing bullying.

A brief post, but a huge issue which the media loves, so here are some more resources:

• Bullying Statistics - Why Do People Bully? - Here is a few possibilities for the reasons behind bullying which could be considered when attempting to prevent these behaviours.
• Western Education and Library Board - A Framework for Your Written Antibullying Policy - This is a template with examples to help you get started. If releasing such a document to parents, there is no reason you can't attach similar documents for meanness and rudeness as well, to allow them to see the difference.
• Bullying No More - Anti Bullying Poster Idea - I like these posters because they are not really explicitly about bullying, but they make specific points that can be used to address bullying, meanness and rudeness.

Do you have any experiences with students who have been bullied or are bullies? How about parents who misunderstand the differences and varying importance of bullying, meanness and rudeness? What are your approaches or resources for this attention-drawing topic?

Holidays! Bring on term two! (After I enjoy my short break though please)

While I had planned on continuing blogging during my holidays, I think it's time to own up. I plan on gathering my resources and continuing engaging in personalised professional development through other social media, but the blog is taking a little break. Life is still busy and I have projects gathering around my ears. Though readers be warned, I shall be back with a vengeance at the commencement of term two. In the meantime, enjoy your holidays and please feel free to connect with me via Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest. Hoping you also find the time to catch up on work, projects, and relax!

How do you believe holidays should be spent?

Wording Wednesday - Planning a day around reporting skills

How many of your students read the newspaper? My bet is, not too many. I remember often being expected by teachers to be a fan of the news, though I am still not sure why. Is it because it is current, local, informative or what? I will openly confess that I still don't read the news. However, I have always loved those reports on certain shows which are known as 'interest articles.' As a child, I used to fight about bed-time because I had sat through over 45 minutes of news to watch that one report that interested me.

Writing or recording interesting reports to draw in young people is certainly a skill. How many of your students will graduate with it? As I continue to gather and create resources for my relief folder, I plan on sharing them here, hence the second freebie in a row now. Today's little freebie is a rough outline from which to form a plan for a lesson, day or even a couple of days running, all based around article writing. Students can involve a wide range of subjects, engage in topic of interest to them, and create a class news presentation, paper, magazine, blog or YouTube channel (these can be private last I checked). This could be done as individuals, partners, or small groups and could end up being published in some form or link to a social action unit. The options are huge so it can be used across a range of grades and adjusted to fit an appropriate time frame.

So here is at least a day of reporting.

Want some resources to compliment this idea and aid in the more detailed planning? Well I happen to have found some I like:

• This form for peer reviews from Classroom Teacher Resources.
• TPT- A Peer Edit Guide to Write Right - While I would not buy this one for the ages I tend to work with, I love the five questions mentioned in the description and can see these being effective on a peer feedback form for opinion and news writing.
• Online Chart Tool - A free online tool for creating bar charts, line charts, pie charts, scatter plots, bar line graphs and more.
• ABC - Behind the News - An online news website designed with children in mind to introduce them to news reports.

Do you see yourself using such a theme in the classroom? How? Do you have any handy resources to add to the list?

Trial Tuesday - 31 math challenges for students

Time for a freebie! This is a short post today, but when you see the freebie, I hope you'll excuse me. This one has taken a bit of time. Be warned that I do use the term 'challenges' somewhat loosely as
some are repetitive games and others activities which allow you to incorporate your own challenges. However, most do allow for students to think creatively and problem solve if properly introduced. Why exactly I chose 31, I'm not sure now I think about it, as there is 31 days in a month, but not 31 school days. Whatever the case, these challenges would provide challenges for more than 31 days as it is, as some will be a 'once off' challenge to solve, and others are challenges students can practice and improve at over time or teachers can adapt for a variety of skills. There are some which will be familiar and are widely known, others have been linked to specific websites, and others I have obtained from unknown sources or created myself, so if any of the ideas are unclear or need clarification, please comment and let me know! Now without further ado, here is 31 math challenges.

What maths challenges have you done in the past with your students? Could you add a game or challenge to the list which has been missed? There are many out there which work on specific maths skills which couldn't have fit in this list, so comment away.

Freedom Friday - Expression through open-ended Easter arts

Looking back over Easter arts I have done or led in the past, I realise they all have something in common - they don't leave much room for real creativity or expression. Just last year I had students decorate egg templates using chalk and tape resist. This technique was new for the students and looked cute but didn't leave much room for experimenting. The tape was laid, they coloured each block in a solid colour using the wet chalk, and waited for it to dry in order to remove the tape. The result was an entire wall filled with pretty colourful eggs, all of which looked almost identical. How often do we engage students in art and crafts which looks nice on the wall but allows little room for actual designing, creative thinking and a variety of results? Upon searching for open-ended Easter arts and crafts, my results were incredibly limited. In fact, Google could show the results on less than a single page. So I wondered, how hard is this people? Commence the brainstorming!

I have created a list of ideas for open-ended Easter arts which will allow students to create pieces which may have commonalities, but allow for a wider range of responses than we usually see. Do note that for ease, I have made most of them 'create,' but you can consider different mediums such as painting, collage, etc. This was simply because I want to leave this option also open-ended for you (and you could even give students some choice between 2-3 mediums, setting up small groups, allowing for greater variety in results).

• Create a picture of a hidden egg or eggs in whichever scene they like. This allows their scenes to be as varied as their imagination allows, and the eggs can be hidden or even camouflaged as hard as they like. I can imagine they would have fun trying to find all the eggs in other pictures if displayed too. (I can't help but think this would be an awesome collage activity.)
• Create an Easter scene without including eggs, chocolate or bunnies. This could be interpreted two ways, what would Easter be like without those things and how can we communicate Easter in other ways. (For religious schools, this challenge will help students focus on other meanings of Easter beyond the chocolate as well).

Large stone statues, or moai,
of Easter Island.

• Design or map what you imagine it would be like in a place called 'Easter Island'. After completing the activity, introduce children to the fact that Easter Island actually exists. You could follow up with research, a book, or time exploring Easter Island with Google maps. Concluding this learning, they could redesign their map or print off a real map to place next to their original design and compare their imagination and the reality. This could again be used to play a spot the difference and discuss assumptions made because of the name of a place (do they know about Greenland and Iceland?)
• Show one body part and what it looks like on Easter (along with possibly some small scene). Students may need some help to think about this. What do their mouths do? Get covered in chocolate? What do their eyes do? Could they show a reflection in the eyes or glasses of what they might be seeing? What different things do their hands do? Are they likely to be painting eggs, collecting eggs from hiding places, holding a huge collection of eggs, holding the messy hand of a younger child, or praying? Perhaps they could show feet running right past a hidden egg. The options here are again limited only by the imagination.
• Create an abstract design showing how Easter feels using carefully chosen colours and lines. To

  

  Bright colours, 'excited' lines and
  a circle of 'love' is used to express
  Easter feelings very simply here.

  combine this idea with the religious significance, you could ask them to create two designs, with one representing the feelings associated with the crucifixion and the other representing the resurrection. This may result in more similar results than some of the other activities here, but it allows them to carefully consider communication and specific design elements. If you so desire, you could use this design on an egg template, chocolate wrapper, or even Easter card.
• Create a poster advertising your favourite chocolate for Easter or communicating what Easter means to you. Have a look at advertisments before letting them loose in order to encourage creative thinking. They could keep it simple and draw the chocolate with a "The best option for Easter" or design a scene of cleverly hidden chocolates with a child searching eagerly and a line saying "worth searching for" or the reflection of the chocolate shown in big eyes, etc. Communicating what Easter means for them could also yield different results, especially if you encourage them to think beyond simply chocolates. This could be presented as a form of both expressing themselves and communicating to others in order to remind others that it isn't just about the chocolate (sorry for all you chocolate lovers out there, but I have talked about chocolate so much I don't think I can cope with much more).
• Collage a shape using words which could be associated with Easter, how it feels, what it means and words that could be said on Easter morning.
• Show a dream of the perfect Easter. Challenge them to think about the repercussions of receiving a chocolate egg as big as a house. It would probably melt before it was finished and make them quite sick as well as leaving no room in the yard for a little egg hunt. My family used to celebrate Easter with gifts instead of chocolate and this was perfect for me. I still have some of those gifts now and they remind me that Easter for me is not all about the chocolate. In fact, I remember getting one of them while camping with friends and family and the chocolate really didn't matter at all, so perhaps where they are and who they are with could even be the focus.
• Communicate 'new life.' Whether you are religious and thinking of the crucifixion, or not and

  

  Two popular ideas representing
  'new life.'

  thinking of spring (in some lucky parts of the world), eggs, bunnies and baby animals, these words are significant to the symbolism of Easter. Such a focus again allows for a range of responses that may not usually be seen in Easter arts.
• Create a visual representation of a quote. Find an abstract quote about Easter and have them communicate a similar idea visually, without the use of words. For example, "Easter is very important to me, it's a second chance." - Reba McEntire, or "Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there." - Clarence W. Hall, or "It is the hour to rend thy chains, The blossom time of souls." - Katherine Lee Bates. Google will soon give you more results. Encourage the students to think figuratively as well as literally in order to provide more possibilities.
• Design or create the ultimate Easter basket. Encourage them to write a list of requirements before starting. What is important for them? Should it be colourful, shaped like a rabbit, soft, and easy to carry? Is it preferable to be strong, large, close-able, lockable and come with an inbuilt 'chocolate detector' attached to a robotic arm? If they have a robotic arm, is it automatic or controlled and is it a thief? Don't forget you have boys in your class and their creative responses should also be accepted and encouraged.

This concludes my list and brainstorming for now. Can anyone else add to my list? Have you found an open-ended project that Google didn't show me? How do you feel about open-ended vs. closed art projects for special occasions like Easter?