BULLYING: Our focus is on how to build friendly and safe school communities rather than addressing the problems of individual bullies and those that are bullied. Wellbeing Australia takes the view that bullying will only be properly addressed when whole school / whole class policy and practice support students (and others in the community) supporting each other. See the NCAB conference and the APA report both on the Home Page which both support this view. The following brief article shows some approaches that really do work.

Teachers' strategies for promoting student wellbeing and preventing bullying in Steiner Schools

Teachers in Rudolf Steiner schools believe in teaching through relationships. They believe that you only learn from people you like and respect and that to be able to teach effectively you have to be able to recognise the strengths of your students. By doing this you model respectful relationships and prevent bullying.

They begin the day or the lesson by shaking the hand of each child as they enter the classroom. By greeting each child individually you have a chance to have a quiet word with those who need it and see which children are a bit fragile and need extra care to prevent blow ups. Then at the end of the session, before letting the children go out into the playground you do some group activity like saying a poem. This is believed to have an effect on preventing playground bullying.

Steiner teachers use poetry in much the same way as it was used in the past. They find that by saying a poem together, children learn to work together because they have to accommodate to the speed at which others are speaking the verse. Poems are also useful to show children how clever they are because they are much better than adults at rote learning. Poems are always taught orally (to teach concentration and validate poor readers), a line, then a couplet, then a verse at a time. This shows the children everyone can learn and prevents children being labelled as stupid and so targetted by bullies.

Each week Steiner teachers meet after school and discuss a class of children. The rule is that everyone who teaches the children or who has supervised them in the playground contributes ideas about what works with each child. There is no negativity, the focus of the meeting is to teach the children better. Steiner teachers have the same class for many years so they understand that it is their responsibility to reach each child and to keep harmony in the class by showing the children that all are valuable.

They understand that they have to find a way to like each child and so they are encouraged to meditate on their class each night and think of each child as the person they have the potential to become. When they dislike a child they recognise that it is their problem not the child's. They have to ask themselves why they find errors in social behaviour so offensive when they know it is just immature performance of a skill. Children who are liked by a teacher are rarely bullied unless the teacher shows favouritism. Teachers have a great deal of power to prevent bullying by showing they believe that everyone in their class is a worthy person.

Alison Soutter

ANTI-BULLYING WEBSITES:

One of the most active organisations in Australia is the National Campaign Against Bullying (NCAB) Their annual conference in Melbourne early November 2007 is on Promoting Positive Relationships for Safer School Communities

Bullying No Way is the site developed by educators for schools. It emphasises the importance of relational values such as respect, equality and care. It ha many great resources

This site on Friendly Schools and Families links to the Federal Safe Schools Framework. Professor Donna Cross has been instrumental in getting this program up and running.

You might be interested in what happened around Australia in Safe Schools Week 2006

Read this short account of what Braybrook School in Victoria is doing to develop friendly connections between everyone in school

This is what UNICEF say should be included in the framework for a Child Friendly School

The UK DfES has a useful page on their site called Don't Suffer in Silence which has information about cyber-bullying and some video resources.

The Safe Schools Coalition is an American site which deals primarily with homophobic bullying

http://www.teach-nology.com/ideas/bullying/This site has comments from teachers in the US about what has worked for them

Useful Articles

Safe Schools are Effective Schools. If you need to persuade people about the importance of addressing bullying issues download this PDF!

A meta-evaluation of anti-bullying strategies by Ken Rigby shows that the earlier you intervene the better. Download this report from the OECD here

Read about how Steiner Schools address bullying in the article on the STORIES section

RESILIENCE: The focus is primarily on children, education and developing resilient communities rather than clinical practice.

RESILIENCY WEBSITES:

Many of these websites give further links to articles, books and resources. They are not in any particular order.

http://www.embracethefuture.org.au This website has been developed as part of the Resilient Schools Program (Mental Health Foundation of Australia)

www.bounceback.com.au the website for the well regarded classroom resiliency program

http://www.responseability.org - click on education: primarily for pre-service teachers

http://www.resiliency.com/htm/research.htm

http://www3.cde.ca.gov/video/learningsupport/bonniebenard.asx - this page gets you to an on-line video of Bonnie Benard’s excellent powerpoint presentation on resilience

http://projectresilience.com/index.htm Good articles on promoting resilience in the classroom

http://resilnet.uiuc.edu/library.html useful articles by Edith Grotberg and others

http://www.raisingresilientkids.com - links to books for families

http://resilnet.uiuc.edu

http://www.resiliencyinc.com US education reform program

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/resilience/MH00078 : this site includes a quick evaluation of your own resilience and tips to strengthen this.

http://wilderdom.com/psychology/resilience/PsychologicalResilience.html

http://ohioline.osu.edu/b875/index.html : This is a bulletin on fostering resilience in children

http://www.wested.org/pub/docs/hks_resilience.html

http://www.cce.umn.edu/nrrc/resource/index.html : this is the US National Resilience Resource Center at Minnesota

http://www.qualityhealth.com - if you search ‘resilience’ here you will get a number of potentially useful quizzes about how you ‘bounce back’

http://www.melissainstitute.org/handouts.html You can download presentations from the 2005 conference Ways to Bolster Resilience in Victimised Children, Adults and those who help them.

http://www.curriculum.edu.au/eq/spring2006/article1.html - articles from EQ magazine on Wellbeing and Resilience.

RESILIENCY BOOKS

Allen, T. Murray, M. & Simmon, K. (2005) How to Succeed with Developing Resilience Melbourne Curriculum Corporation

Babington, B. (2004) Bouncing Back: - How to overcome setbacks, become resilient and create a happier life; Sydney Finch Publishing

Benard. B. (1991) Fostering Resilience in Kids:Protective Factors in the Family, School, and Community. Portland, OR: Western Center for Drug-Free Schools and Communities.

Benard, B. (2004) Resiliency: What we have learned. San Francisco, West Ed.

Brooks, Jean E. “Strengthening resilience in children and youths : Maximizing opportunities through the schools.” Children & Schools 28.2 (2006): 69-76.

Brown, J., D’Emilio- Caston, M. & Benard, B. (2001) Resilience Education. CA Corwin Press

Deveson. A. (2003) Resilience. Crows Nest. Allen and Unwin

Fuller, A. (1998) From Surviving to Thriving: Promoting Mental Health in Young People Melbourne . Australian Council for Educational Research (Ch.8 especially on promoting resilience in high risk adolescents) This book also has a very comprehensive reference list.

Fuller, A. (2004) Creating Resilient Families Melbourne ACER

Henderson, N. & Milstein, M.M. (1996) Resiliency in Schools: Making it happen for students and educators. CA Corwin Press

Goldman. L (2005) Raising our Children to be Resilient NY Brunner Routledge

McGrath, H. & Noble, T. (2003) Bounce Back! A classroom resiliency program for schools, Teacher’s Handbook. Sydney. Pearson Education

Milstein, M.M & Henry, D. A. (2000) Spreading Resiliency: Making it happen for Schools and Communities CA Corwin Press

Prever, M, (2006) Mental Health in Schools: A guide to Pastoral and Curriculum Provision Paul Chapman Publishing

Siebert, Al, PhD. (2005) The Resiliency Advantage: Master Change, Thrive Under Pressure, and Bounce Back From Setbacks. Berrett-Koehler Publishers,

Sergiovanni, T. (1993). Building Community in Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Thompsen, K. (2002) Building Resilient Students Corwin Press

Wang, M.C. & Gordon, E.W. (eds) (1997) Educational Resiilience in American Inner-City Schools: Challenges and Prospects L.E. Publication NJ.

Waxman, H.C., Padron Y.N. and Gray. J. (Eds.). (2004) Educational Resiliency: Student, Teacher, and School Perspectives. Greenwich, CN: Information Age Publishing.

Werner, E. and Smith, R. (1982, 1989). Vulnerable but Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children and Youth. New York: Adams, Bannister, and Cox.

Withers. G. & Russell, J. (2001) Education for Resilience. Victoria. Australian Council for Educational Research

RESILIENCY ARTICLES

Bickart, T.B. and Wolin, S. "Practicing Resilience in the Elementary Classroom," Principal, Vol. 77 (2), 1997.

Bonnet, A. (2005) The learning of resilience. Educational Horizons 8(6), 22-23

Brooks. R. & Goldstein, S. (2005) Questions and answers about resilience. Educational Horizons 8(6) 20-21

Chadwick, S. (2004) Peer-led programs promoting resilience. Educare News, 148. 24-26

Desetta, A. and Wolin S., "Youth Communication: A model Program for Fostering Resilience Through the Act of Writing," Resiliency in Action, Winter, 1998.

Harvard Mental Health Letter (2006) Resilience Harvard Mental Health Letter, 23 (6) 5-6

Healy, B. (2002) Resiliency as a critical factor in resisting bullying University of Western Sydney SELF Research Centre

Howard, S. & Johnson, B. (2000) Young adolescents displaying resilient and non-resilient behaviour: Insight from a qualitative study – can schools make a difference? Australian Association for Research in Education – available at AARE website

Longaretti, L. (2001) Building Resilience. Principal Matters, 46. 10-13

Matthews, R. (2005) The resilient child. In-Psych Vol 27 Issue 2

Nemec, M. (2005) Emotional Literacy, resilience and a process for change in education: Making the links clear. Australian Association for Research in Education- available at AARE website

Pines, M. (1984). Resilient children: Why some disadvantaged children overcome their environments, and how we can help. Psychology Today, March.

Rutter, M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 57, 316-331.

Santa, A. (2006) How children develop resiliency. Independent Schools, 65 (3) 66-77

Waxman, Hersch C.; Gray, Jon P.; Padron, Yolanda N. (2003) Review of Research on Educational Resilience. Research Report. You can download this article from the Eric Website: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal The reference is ED479477

Werner, E.E. (1992). The children of Kauai: Resiliency and recovery in adolescence and adulthood. Journal of Adolescent Health, Jun, 13, 262-268. (major study)

Last updated: 27/9/07