Teachers Experiences

Date: 2014.08.19

Posted by Murat Topal (Turkey)

Message: Bullying sometimes illustrates that a child does not have the ability to deal with disappointment or he/she does not have the chance to talk about the problem. We can understand that the teacher did an appropriate thing. He let the students have a sentive feeling, emotion or attitude towards their friend. He was able to prevent a likely big space among the student and her friends. As teachers or would-be-teachers, we should be careful about what we are doing in order to prevent this kind of problem because our world is changing as my colleague mentions. The people are becoming more aggressive and violent. We can see the same problem on little children. Because of that situation, we had better make some plans about the way our students, in fact, all the children respond to the situation in an appropriate way. We can have some students some of them are successful and unsuccessful. It is also possible for them to envy or to be jealous of one another. I also believe that the unsuccessful students support the one who is also unsuccessful and tries to cause the successful student to lower his/her motivation which they believe the successful one will fail and they will be the same. They can believe that because they can feel alone perhaps because the teacher can ask other peers of the successful student to applause for him/her since he/she does something good or gives correct answers to the questions that are asked by the teacher, which results in great enviousnes. From my point of view, the teachers should behave the students fair so that they will not feel envious and hurt one another in terms of not only physical, but also emotional. That is to say they have an attempt to bully him/her. Another fearful thing about that kind of situation is that the students who are bullied feel alone and keep waiting for the solution silently. They cannot do anything on their own for the fear of being bullied more fiercely. To put it in a nutshell, teachers should find the best solution for the problem that will make both the bully and the victim. I believe that teacher can come over those problems in cooperation with the families of the bully and and the victim successfully.

Date: 2014.06.05

Posted by Julien Lecomte, Gilles Fossion and Erika Benkö (Université de Paix) (Belgium)

Message: We have based this comment on our experience as supervisors in the pilot project “well-being units” in schools.
This pilot project is part of a project that brings together three ministries (Education, Health and Equal chances, Youth and Youth Aid): “the policy regarding well-being at school will be thought in the long-term. It will be integrated in a global well-being project modulated according to the context and needs. It will foster interactive methods built in partnership with young people” (from enseignement.be)
In this framework “Université de Paix” assisted ten schools during two years. We are recognised as a youth organisation. Our specificity is violence prevention and conflict management. Our interventions fostered dialogue between the different stakeholders at school or related to school, including the students, the teachers, the headmasters, counsellors and other professionals who work occasionally or not with the school (speech therapists, psychologists, etc.), parents, the parent association, associations to promote health and protection of environment, the municipality, etc.

Reading the experience, we distinguish different levels of intervention:

- Informing teachers on the phenomenon of bullying and scapegoat (here, the problem student eventually becomes a scapegoat) – prevention and awareness level. To this must be added an exchange of thoughts on how to welcome new students in a school, in a class, etc. The whole educational team can define common ways to manage and guide group dynamics.

- Carry out activities in the classes:
* On the one hand, activities to better know each other, learn to “live together”, create links between students (general prevention)
* On the other hand, activities on the following themes: group norms, discussion on the dynamics of bullying, etc.

- In this specific case, assisting every person seems important, whether these are victims or the bully, not only to preserve their self-esteem, but also to help them develop more appropriate attitudes.

- Still during problem resolution, gathering all the stakeholders is important: not only the bully and the victim, but also the witnesses, the “others” who may unconsciously support bullying (because they are watching, laughing, not trying to make it stop...). It seems interesting to question everyone’s responsibility and have a systemic view on the problem, which is also a way not to stigmatise people in a role we want them to abandon.

- Finally, an “external communication” dimension, toward the parents, on what the school sets up and why.

Date: 2014.05.30

Posted by Gabriela Adomnica (Romania)

Message: Bullying is oftentimes a symptom of not being able to face your frustrations or not having the opportunity to let the steam out. It is a good thing that the teacher made the pupils regain a sensible attitude, but, in order to prevent a relapse, should never forget how far this could go. We live in an increasingly aggressive world, so we should be prepared and get our students prepare mechanisms of appropriately reacting to it.

Date: 2014.05.19

Posted by Conceição Vasco (Portugal)

Message: The bullying cases at the S. Lourenço school have become more frequent. Sometimes it is difficult to recognise symptoms and signs in students. Each one of us should keep bullying at the back of their minds, when there is some kind of significative change. Fortunately thanks to the teacher this case had a happy ending.

Date: 2014.05.16

Posted by PATRIZIA SIMONETTI (I.P.S.I.A “G. FASCETTI” PISA (A VOCATIONAL SCHOOL) COUNTRY: ITALY)

Message: The story of our collegue, Helena Castro is similar to mine: we have got, on the one hand the victim, a polite, respectful, kind, honest , hardworking student and on the other the envious bully who can’t stand to be inferior to her in intelligence and so he tries to throw discredit on her, by making fun of her without being detected by the teachers. Moreover the bully finds the support of his classmates because he needs the admiration and approval of the group. In fact from the bully’s point of view, only belittling the qualities of a weak person, it’s possible to strengthen and consecrate his prestige and strong personality. Therefore the adult’s main task is to deny the consent to the bully and to suggest him new ways to seek his affirmation and self confidence. Lì like Angel are victims who suffer silently, alone and only a sensitive and careful adult can catch on the uneasiness that the girls try to hide. At school ,the colleague Castro was the first person who realized something was wrong with Lì and she tried to solve the problem immediately, she informed her colleagues, Lì’s family and she faced the bully by herself. In my opinion , all the Consiglio di Classe (school board of governors) should co-operate in order to recognize the problem, understand the problematic situations, and adopt shared strategies of intervention . According to me, the key to face the problem of bullying is the adoption of an integrated school policy that is a co-ordinate plan of interventions which involves all the scholastic members and where the adults (parents, teachers and school attendants) undertake the responsibility of the relationship with students. In order to prevent bullying, it’s necessary to agree on clear and understandable rules of behavior. Moreover it’s important to state respective sanctions and above all undertaking to make them respect uniformly and unanimously. Bullying in fact spreads fast where there aren’t any rules or when it’s possible to break them. For this reason it’s absolutely necessary that there are disciplinary measures which are indisputable and reliable.