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Saturday, May 11, 2013

Committing to Make a Difference

I've already posted about the Trudy Ludwig books that make my heart sing!  This year I worked with 5th grade on bullying between friends.  We read the story My Secret Bully and had a great discussion on how bullying between friends can occur.  Later in the year, I decided to focus more on bullying and what role each and every one of us plays.  I had one 5th grade classroom who had a particularly hard time, so I went in for 5 days to co-teach with the teacher.  After this, we decided for me to focus my monthly guidance lesson in all of the 5th grade classrooms on bullying again.  I picked out parts of Confessions of a Former Bully to discuss with students, focusing on the roles of the bystander, the bully, and the target.  We talked about what each of us could do to make an impact on bullying.  As we read the story, I told the students that whenever they felt inspired to do so, they could go up to the poster and write down their commitment to stopping bullying.  Here's what the end result looks like:



I also hung up a poster with some of the helpful information from the book so that students could reference it if needed.  This is hung in the 5th grade hallway so that students can always be reminded of their commitment.



How do you get students to commit to stop bullying at your school?

2 comments:

  1. I wanted to share that I was in 5th grade doing a lesson today and we were talking about middle school. A question came up about bullying so I asked students if we know what to do in case that happens. Another student chimed in confidently "use your power tools!" Success!

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  2. When I look back at my life and see how it has changed in the last ten years, I, for one, can see the power in poetry (and the enormous power that is released when someone follows their dreams). Ten years ago, I was the typically lost 35 year old. I had a young family to raise and was struggling to hold down a high-powered job in the logistics industry. Thanks for sharing to wonderful post...Counselling Croydon

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