Students Speak Out: Minnesota
Bullying.....
I think the reason that bullying exist in schools is due to the low attention that the bully itself gets from home and teachers. Bullying starts when the person has a low self-esteem. They feel that they need to be at the top of everyone else. I have never been bullied before, but i feel that to better relations in the school, teachers have to keep an eye on bullies. Overall, the bully and the teacher will have to build a relationship for the teacher to understand how the student feels. This can lesson the bullies anger and actions if there is someone willing to help the student. I have seen many of my friends who were bullied and i have stepped in and resolve the problem. I resolved the problem by telling the bully to stop it or i will have to beat him up, but i never did take such actions. I feel that students who are being bullied does not put themselves at a certain level above the bully, then the bully will take advantage of the situation. Bullies take advantage of our fears, but we can stand up and protect ourselves by being aware of our surrounding.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Victoria Ford on
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Thomas, this is a great post. Thank you!
You brought up something that I don't think we've talked about on here much - the relationship between teachers and BULLIES (we've mostly been talking about relationships between teachers and students who might get bullied). I think you're saying that better relationships between teachers and bullies could help the bullies stop bullying... right?
Victoria
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Permalink Reply by Stacy Becker on
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Wow Thomas--thanks for the insights! I love Victopria's question, and I have another.
Did it take a lot of courage for you to step in and stop the bullying? Do you think this is something that other students could do?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Atherton on
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Actually, I think that student teacher relationships can have only a small influence on bullying. Why is this the emphasis here?
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That's the topic that the student leaders came up with. When we first got the group together, they spent a lot of time talking about the safety issues that they were most interested in, and the relationship between students and teachers sparked a lot of great conversation.
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Ah, then maybe the students could explain why they think teachers are important. Also, there appear to only two people here who have experienced persistent and oppressive bullying, me and Cori. I am incorrect?
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Permalink Reply by Brett on -
I also have. It’s complicated about how to explain it . . . but a lot of it has to do with the fact I don't like conflict, especially physical. Also my personality and just . . . I don't even know most of the time. . . I guess I was an easy target. People would take advantage of that and not much would be done. Not much from teachers or students. This was a MAIN reason I left the Minneapolis Public Schools was because of the issues I faced with negative interactions and the fear of it continueing in High School. Part of that had to do with who was bullying. When you have a group of students with a lot of that negative power it is very difficult for people to stand up to that. Even more so if they have gang affiliation. You just don't know what you can safely do . . .
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Permalink Reply by Brett on
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Do you remember when there was a lot of talk about passionate and "great" teachers? It has a lot to do with that. When you have an inspiring teacher, or a mentor you look up to, they matter a lot. A lot of who you look up to brings out certain actions. When kids don't have that good role model at home, that connection with a teacher is like a mentor or the good role model and can influence your behavior a lot. That is why we want good relationships. Connections are very important, and so are people to look up to. Your actions are influenced by that.
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Brett, thanks for your personal experiences and yes, bullying can be very difficult to standup to. If I had had the opportunity to change schools I would have. I dropped out anyway, not in response to bullying by students, but bullying by the administration.
Research has shown that in the long term inspiring teachers don't make much of a difference, but somehow we have an emotional commitment to this ideal.
BTW, do you have access to Netflix?
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Permalink Reply by Brett on
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Its kinda a funny story, because we decided today to sign up for it. So . . . soon we shall have it!
Just curious, but how do they find statistics about that type of information? I can't seem to understand how someone goes about researching and gathering accurate data about that topic.
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I wish I could remember the reference. I think the story was reported on in the NYT, but I suppose they could have just asked people if they could remember an important teacher and then correlated that with their success (actually, I hope it was more rigorously done than that).
When you get Netflix you should watch August 15th, it's a Sundance short film. It deals with some of the issues we've been discussing. However, the story involves a rape and it's Unrated. My guess is that it would be rated PG, but maybe you should check with your parents.
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I may have access to the research, although I'm not sure it's the same work that you were referring to Michael. A tae kwon do colleague works in special ed at the UofM and just returned from a conference where a paper was presented that concluded that teachers don't make much of a difference to student achievement. Might this be it Michael?
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Sorry, no. It was another study specifically about teachers' influence as inspirational role models. I probably cut it out, but finding it in my office is another matter!
There are many studies that DO show that teachers make a difference in student achievement, but because of their teaching not because they're great role models. I'm sure there are some teachers who do make an impact on a small number of students. I just don't think that it has much effect in the big picture. If you really think this out, why would it? You might see someone for a several hours for a few months or even a few years, but it's not someone you go home to at night. Teachers can't be buddies to all their students and I'm not sure it's even a good idea. Teachers should set examples by being professional and good at what they do.
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