The Bully
Sebah Al-AliI’m sure you’ve heard about numerous stories that portray the devastating effect bullying can have on its victims. One of the most recent stories was that of a 13-year-old kid who killed himself because of bullies (link). I do understand that, thankfully, bullying stories don’t go that far in our classes, but it doesn’t have to go that far for us to do something about it, right?
Forms of bullying?
To bully someone doesn’t only mean to physically harm or abuse someone. The physical aspect of bullying is only one aspect of a few others that take place in classrooms, and can cause a lot of harm to our students and their willingness to learn.
KidsHelpPhone nicely illustrates four different kinds of bullying in this image:
What can we do?
Not a lot of our students (new ones at least) are aware that we have designated counselors and academic advisors that are here to help them with these issues. A lot of our students think that help can only be offered for academic purposes. So, although we might not be around to actually witness these harmful actions, as teachers we can always let our students know who their counselors are and how to reach them. Also, counselors or academic advisors are more than willing to pay your classroom a visit if you feel there is a need to address this issue in class.
Another thing we can do is to actually discuss this phenomenon in class. They are probably aware of it, but they might know how serious or harmful it is. They need to learn about its different forms, harmful effects, and how/why it needs to be addressed and dealt with. There are different websites and videos to help with that, like:
Different language learning activities can help raise awareness. Students can be asked to interview students on campus about their views or understanding of the concept. This activity can be used to target different learning objectives like forming questions, using helping verbs, verb tense, and even using new vocabulary words in context.
Students can also be asked to create a story to showcase the harmful effects of bullying. Their stories can be as simple as drawings on a piece of paper, or videos created using different apps like: StoryMaker and Adobe Spark (previously known as Adobe Voice). Students can be required to use different sentence connectors, to write different kinds of sentences, or to use passive/active voice as they tell their story.
Students can also create posters offering advice for students on how to stand up to or deal with a bully. Of course, they need to do research (basic and simple) or ask their counselor for help to make sure that they offer solid advice. These posters can be used on campus as well, after they’re approved of course.
