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Responding to the Culture of Bullying and Disrespect
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Responding to the Culture of Bullying and Disrespect
New Perspectives on Collaboration, Compassion, and Responsibility

Second Edition
Edited by:


February 2009 | 296 pages | Corwin

"The book gives excellent ways to empower children, help them solve their own issues, and give them real strategies that will help them deal with difficult situations in the future."
—Elizabeth Barrett, Civics Teacher
Clark County Schools, Winchester, KY

Create a safe learning environment so students can achieve!

Bullying is an ongoing concern for students, with as many as half reporting that they have faced aggression or harassment at some point. This updated edition of Breaking the Culture of Bullying and Disrespect provides the tools to successfully respond to bullying and other negative behaviors by creating an environment that discourages negative behavior and encourages greater responsibility and respect.

The authors offer a comprehensive, therapeutic approach, complete with sample transcripts and activities. Instead of using punitive measures, which can model the very behaviors they are trying to eliminate, educators will discover how to establish a cooperative, caring environment and guide students in thinking about positive alternatives to misbehavior. This new edition features:

  • Updated research, including real-life examples of successful experiences
  • Additional case studies and a list of problem-solving questions
  • A new chapter on brain research and how children learn
  • An all-new section focusing on prevention methods

Empowering, enlightening, and practical, Responding to the Culture of Bullying and Disrespect is a necessary resource for teachers, administrators, and support staff dedicated to promoting respect, tolerance, and responsibility in their schools.


 
Foreword by Honey Berg
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Authors
 
Introduction
 
Part I. Laying Foundations
 
1. How Problems Develop: A Frog Story and a Shift in Perspective
Lessons From This Story

 
Useful Options Are Also Eliminated

 
Does Everyone Have the Same Contextual Blocks?

 
 
2. Are Problems of Disrespect Inadvertently Supported?
Competition

 
Comparison

 
Rules

 
Achievement at All Cost

 
Evaluation

 
 
3. Unraveling Assumptions: Educators' Roles and Students' Behaviors
The Effects of Myths and Assumptions

 
Common School Questions: New Ways of Thinking

 
 
4. Responding Effectively to Problems
A Fresh Attitude

 
Chipping Away at the Problem With a Powerful Tool: Externalization

 
Dealing Narratively With Disrespect and Bullying

 
A Narrative Response

 
Additional Options

 
Summary of the Practice of Externalizing

 
Common Questions About the Externalization Process

 
 
5. Being Respectful and Open to Students' Experiences
Defining Experience

 
Experience of School

 
Overlapping Experiences of the Problem

 
Addressing These Experiences

 
 
6. Making Changes Last for More Than a Week
The Dandelion Problem

 
Thinking Outside the Box

 
Multiple Selves: Who Is the Real Person?

 
Stories

 
Creating Stories Through Language

 
Mentally Filling the Blanks

 
Perspectives Create Stories

 
An Educator's Question: If Truths Don't Exist, How Do We Know Which Story to Trust?

 
Audience: You Are Who You Are Perceived to Be

 
The Thread of New Stories: Recapitulation

 
Reauthoring Alex's Journey

 
Common Teacher Questions: New Ways of Thinking

 
 
Part II. Applications and Examples: Success Stories of Overcoming Bullying and Disrespect
 
7. Listening to Students' Voices
Disrespect/Bullying Survey

 
Interviews: Walking in Students' Shoes

 
 
8. Cultivating Respect, Appreciation, and Tolerance in the School
Connection

 
Appreciation

 
Collaboration

 
Self-Reflection

 
Community and Diversity

 
Respect and Shedding Adultism

 
Teacher Question About Shedding Adultism

 
 
9. Dealing With Disrespect and Bullying in the Classroom: The Bugging Bug Project
A Review of the Narrative Ideas That Guide This Project

 
Section 1: Externalizing the Problem

 
Section 2: Building on Successes

 
Section 3: Celebration of Knowledge and Expertise

 
Brief Summary of Classroom Facilitation Considerations

 
Conclusion

 
 
10. Working With Individual Students Around Bullying: Helping a Child Suffering From a "Bullying Spell"
A Problem-Dominated Identity

 
Rewriting the Story in a Vacuum

 
Rewriting the Story in the Community

 
A Past to the Preferred Story at School

 
A Past to the Preferred Stories at Home

 
Extending the Audience to the Preferred Story

 
Conclusion

 
 
11. Brain and Behaviors: How Young People Change and How Educators Can Help
The Visible Story

 
The Invisible Story

 
The Contextual Story

 
The Historical Story

 
Dead-End or Future Possibilities?

 
The Possible Future

 
Conclusion

 
 
Part III. Prevention: Scaffolding a Complex and Sound Culture of Respect
 
12. Creating a Partnership With Response-able Youth
Bubble Trouble

 
Lessons From This Story: The Beliefs

 
The People

 
The Relationship

 
Teacher Questions

 
 
13. Spotlight on Stories of Successful Prevention
Story 1: "You're Ugly"

 
Story 2: The Clipboard

 
Story 3: Sign Language

 
Story 4: The Violent Drawing

 
Story 5: Girls' Meanness

 
Story 6: The Brand New Atlas

 
Spotlight on a School With a Successful Prevention Model

 
 
Conclusion
 
Resource A: Glossary
 
Resource B: Summary Table of Strategies
 
Resource C: Discourses
 
Resource D: "Yes and" Exercise
 
Resource E: Educators' Problem-Solving Questions
 
References
 
Index

“The authors present respectful ways for dealing with bullying and disrespect, something that most educators, therapists, and parents will welcome.”

Virginia Miller, Counselor
Jessieville Middle School, AR

“The book gives excellent ways to empower children, help them solve their own issues, and give them real strategies that will help them deal with difficult situations in the future.”

Elizabeth Barrett, Civics Teacher
Clark County Schools, Winchester, KY

"Provides educators with positive and realistic approaches to help alleviate bullying and disrespect in schools."

Melissa Amison
School Social Work Journal, September 2010 (Vol. 35, No. 1)

"This book is a well-organized, easy-to-understand resource to help teachers make appropriate accommodations for children displaying a variety of difficult behaviors."

Kathryn Lohmeyer
School Social Work Journal, September 2010 (Vol. 35, No. 1)

Written for a broader age group, this new expanded edition provides readers with inspiring ideas in two new areas: First, how to use the fascinating findings from brain research to respond more effectively to existing difficult situations; Second, how to pro-actively prevent the development of relationship problems in the current world of bustling school cultures. Drawing from social research and neuroscience, this edition provides not only thought provoking insights into the thinking of students who struggle with various problem behaviors and how to help them, but also effective ways to cultivate their personal preference for respect in the school community. Rather than attempting to over control students, educators are invited to assist young people in the development of their own intrinsic motivation to be respectful. More specifically, this book provides concrete ideas to reduce the development of underground resentment, and, encourage students to make choices based on their personal values. This is done by providing a number of real life scenarios and respect promoting responses, transcripts of conversations with students who "hate" or "don't care", interviews with successful teachers, solutions to tricky situations, fun classroom activities, examples of programs and the detailed profile of a public school with low bullying rates. A particular emphasis is placed on changing problematic interactions that repeat themselves over and over again between either groups of students or a specific student and an educator. Ways of changing these pervasive patterns of interaction and avoid their escalation throughout the school year are discussed, as well as ways to develop more constructive and collaborative ways of relating.

With three new chapters loaded with strategies and creative ways of supporting positive changes, this book offers a realistic understanding of problems and many possibilities of actions to help all students become more response-able and respectful.

In sum, this new revised 2nd edition contains the material of three books in one: 1. The socio-cultural understandings of relational problems such as bullying and disrespect, 2. Effective and brain congruent ways of responding to such issues without damaging the precious educator-student relationship; and 3. Proactive ways to prevent relationship problems from escalating in a school community. This is an ideal book for educators and counselors who are interested in learning new skills to bring the best out of each and every person in the school regardless of their struggles, age, gender, race, and ethnicity. When adults and students co-create a culture of respect, collaboration, compassion and responsibility, schools can finally become safe places for learning.

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