My Twitter list is comprised of resources related to bullying and harassment. In addition, I have provided links to information regarding having positive social relationships and a positive school climate. Having a positive school climate is important so that students who encounter bullying have a safe place or adult who will be his/her advocate.
As an administrator, I work closely with our counselors to resolve bullying and harassment issues. These issues could range from cyberbullying outside of school to physical bullying during school. As I am working with students, teachers, and parents, I am always looking for appropriate resources to use whether for the bully, the bystander, or the victim. As I was evaluating the resources on the list, I looked for resources that I could actually use or resources that I would recommend to parents. Usually parents of students who are bullied ask me what they can do so I like to have a list of things to help them. We also have an advisory program at my school where we address bullying so I added resources that I thought the teachers could actually use for their advisory period. Finally, I looked for resources that also would benefit the students. As I was conducting the search for bullying resources on Twitter, I realized that not everything that pulled up during the search would be useful for schools, but that there are great resources that I did not know about until I conducted my search.
For instance, I really liked the site Bulliesout@bulliesout which provides online mentors for children who are bullied. This is powerful for children to have an anonymous person to talk to. Some children don’t want to admit they are being bullied to their parents so this gives them someone else to talk to. Another good account for students is Annie Fox, M.Ed.@Annie_Fox in which Dr. Fox provides positive information for parents and teens needing help with problems. In addition, this linked to her blog where she discusses friendships.
Regarding having a positive school climate, I liked the CommunityMatters@safeschoolambas account which linked up to a website that had a climate survey that I thought a school like ours could use immediately. A good site for teachers was the James Burns site that linked to the Bully-Proof Classroom. The site offered lesson plans for teachers. The Stop Bullying Now!@StopBullyingNow account also provided great resources such as the following YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=h1gJY4vNQs8
which discusses what children are doing to combat bullying.
At this point, I believe that each one of the resources on my Twitter list could be used by students, teachers, and parents to deal with bullying and harassment issues. And in the future I will be providing more information to help children connect safely to the Internet, combat bullying, and provide lesson plan resources on bullying education.
Barbara Coloroso is an author and speaker who has written books, including THE BULLY, THE BULLIED, AND THE BYSTANDER. This book is an excellent resource along with her website, www.kidsareworthit.com which contains handouts, video clips, and more resources for all types of bullying situations for parents and educators.
ReplyDeleteI plan on sharing the book mentioned by Barbara with my counselor. Sounds like a great read! I will also be sharing her website. Cindy, I love the idea of sharing a list of resources for parents of the bullied. Hopefully, they then feel supported and heard. This may also help to alleviate the "that school does nothing to stop bullying" comments I know I have heard in reference to my school.
ReplyDeleteThe You Tube video you link to reminds of a speaker we had at our school a few weeks back. He reminded the students that we (the adults) didn't create the bullying problem, and we won't be able to fix it for them. It will only be resolved when they stand up together and fix the problem themselves, which is exactly what the students in your video link were doing. I love it! I'm also excited about your list. I have a school blog that I share information with parents on, and I am planning to send them to some of the resources you have mentioned. I also have a school Twitter account, so I could retweet some good tweets from some of these sources.
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