Bullying at Fuller Elementary

My action plan has to do with bullying. In my classroom I conducted a survey with the

students and asked them what they did not like about school. This survey revealed to me that

some of the students do not like going to school because they are being bullied or see bullying.

The students need to see how to build a friendship instead of bullying. The students in my

classroom do not seem like they bully but are getting bullied from students in other classes.

This is problematic for every grade level but especially for my class because they are in

Kindergarten. I think this because this is their first year of actual school and if they are getting

bullied they are not going to want to come back to school. This could affect them for the rest of

their academic career 1 out of 10 students drop out of school because of repeated bullying

(Facts about Bullying). My mentor teacher has also talked about how in the past she has had

really aggressive students who could benefit from a lesson on bullying and how to build

friendship instead. Bullying is way to common in our schools, over 3.2 million students are

victims of bullying each year (Facts about bullying). Its important to teach students about

bullying so they do not become bullies and so they can recognize if other people are being

bullied or are being bullies. Teaching students about bullying also makes students feel like you

care about them and feel like they can come to you if they need an adult to talk to. It is

important to teach this to kids young so they are quickly introduced to the idea of bullying and

why it is bad. Students do not always get the proper education about bullying and may not get

it until later because they may not think that little kids bully. Bullying will always be a huge

social issue that needs to be addressed every year to students to reiterate why bullying is not

okay. Lastly, bullying needs to be addressed because students need to learn what they can do
when they come across a bully and different things they can do to not be bullies (sharing, being

kind, etc.). Bullying needs to stop happening and the only way for it to stop happening is to

educate students on it and make sure they are informed.

Social Action Plan with Timeline:

Week 1

1. Talk to mentor teacher about bullying

In the beginning it is important to talk to my mentor teacher about what she has seen or

heard from other teachers about bullying. This would give me a better idea about if there is

physical or emotional bullying happening. I will also talk to my mentor teacher about what

type/how much formal education the students have gotten about bullying. It is important to

see how much they have already been taught in the classroom and school wide to try and

gauge their prior knowledge. Some examples of questions would be: Have you personally

seen any bullying? What type? Have other teachers seen bullying? What type? What formal

education have the students/school have on bullying?

2. Teach a lesson on what bullying is

During this lesson students will get a basic understanding of bullying and how to build

friendship it will give them a little insight into what bullying is.

3. Provide resources on bullying

Provide plenty of independent reading, shared reading, and read alouds with books that

deal with different types of bullying. By doing this, students are deepening their

understanding on bullying and all of the forms it can happen in (emotional, physical, sexual,

cyber etc.).
 4. Discussion on bullying

Ask students ways that they could combat bullying. Some responses could be put up anti

bullying signs or having a school wide assembly about it. Have students come up with their

own ideas and suggestions on how they can combat bullying.

Week 2

5. Talk to students about building friendship

Do not necessarily talk about bullying but instead how students can be nice and build a

friendship. This could be things like being kind to one other or sharing their toys.

6. Spreading friendship

Have students write down something that they like about each student (or have them pair

up). This provides the students with an opportunity to be kind to each other. This also

makes students feel good about themselves and they feel like other people care about

them.

7. Read friendship books

Throughout the week to students that involve students making new friends and about what

goes into being a good friend.

8. Connect to bullying

Ask students how building a friendship with other students connects to bullying and how

building friendship is the opposite of bullying. Promote to students how much better being

nice to someone is than being mean. Talk to students about how even if someone is mean

to you it is still important to be nice to them. Some things you can say to students is treat

others the way that you want to be treated, or be a buddy not a bully.
Week 3

9. Implement ideas

Have students implement their ideas on combating bullying. Students can create anti-

bullying posters with slogans like be a buddy not a bully. Students should also be talking to

other students about what they can do to stop bullying.

10. Full school awareness

The posters will be school wide which will bring awareness to the entire school but it is also

important to have school wide direct instruction on bullying. To do this bring in a speaker

that will talk to the students about bullying.

11. Speaker

Have Cary Trivanovich come to speak to the students on how they should choose kindness

over bullying.

Week 4

12. Follow up

Have students review what they learned by doing one of the following projects:

Do a random act of kindness every day for a week

Write a paper on what it means to be a friend and why they shouldn't be a bully

Make posters about anti bullying to put up in their community

Collaboration

In order for this to go smoothly there are multiple people I will have to communicate

with. For starters I will need to talk to my mentor teacher to see what type and how much
bullying is going on. I will need to talk to the guidance counselor to see what they've taught or

are going to teach so you do not step on their toes. Then I will have to talk to the principal to

see if it is possible to hang up posters and have a school wide assembly. Lastly I will need to talk

to Cary Trivanovich to see if he will come talk at the school. I do not need much from these

constituents, I need them to help me organize everything and make sure that there is a time

that Mr. Trivanovich can come speak. Some people may try and resist this because they think

some of the grades are to young to be learning about bullying and its affects. They may just try

and contact the school to get them to stop or make it so the kindergarten class does not

participate.

Resources

Fuller elementary has a lot of resources that are available to use when it comes to

bullying. They have guidance counselors that deal with this type of thing a lot and can assist in

making the couple weeks go smoothly. There is a lot of books that are available to use as well

when we are talking about bullying and friendship. I will need anti bullying posters that will help

students differentiate between what bullying is and what it is not.

I hope that by implementing anti-bullying posters and the assembly students learn they

can make a difference when it comes to bullying they can make a difference. Change starts with

one student and if one student learns something they can pass that knowledge on and bullying

can greatly decrease because people are more aware of it. It will create an environment that is

safer and an all around better learning environment. Students will accept other students for

who they are and will be kind and friendly to each other. This will make students want to come

back to school because it is a happy environment.

Implementation

I implemented parts of my social action plan in our classroom. I started out by asking my

mentor teacher what type of bullying she has seen. During this step I learned that she has has a

lot of students who are physical with her and with other students. She does not see as much
emotional bullying as she does physical bullying. This led me to teach a lesson plan to the

students about bullying and what it means. After they learned about what bullying is (pushing,

laughing at someone, not including someone etc.) I talked about what it means to be a good

friend. The students did have some background knowledge on this because a guidance

counselor had come before to talk to students about how they can be a good friend. We read a

book as a class about bullying to solidify what we had talked about. The book talked about a girl

who was a bully and then how a girl was kind to her and the girl stopped being a bully. Once it

seemed like students understood this we made a poster as a class that had images and words

of bullying vs. friendship. By doing this, students have the opportunity to have a visual around

them in the classroom that they can refer to.

During the beginning steps of talking about bullying the students were really interested

in what we were talking about and were really engaged. They really liked talking about how to

build friendship instead of being a bully. They did not like the idea of bullying and it made them

sad to know that people were being bullied like that. Some of the students shared their

experiences with bullying which really added to the conversation.

The next steps would be to have students create their own posters to hang in the school

and to have a school wide assembly. I would also like to read more books about different

situations and to have more class discussions about what bullying means. Students could even

create flyers to hang around the community to get them involved as well because students are

not the only ones who are bullies.