Now as a parent, I race my daughter to the bathroom in the morning and I feel around her pillow at night for the contraband cell phone.

Cell phones. The fact is, kids are wired. I’m not talking junk food and Red Bull. In their dramatic teen way, 85 percent of our secondary students have a cell phone and they insist they’d just die without it. It’s their social outlet and nearly half of the kids in our school hallways say they their cell phone is the key to their social life.

And teens love to text and spend about 90 minutes a day doing it, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation Study. They love it because it’s fast (42%), it’s stealthy (33%), and it’s fun (29%). (Harris Interactive, 2008) The problem is that over half of your students are doing it at school (65%). What’s worse is that a third of your class has used a cell phone at least once to cheat on a test (35%), yet they really don’t think it’s cheating (23%). (Common Sense Media, 2009)

Despite the trouble with cell phones, few recommend that students not have them. Teens report that they carry their phones everywhere with them not just to communicate, but for safety reasons (78%). They call someone for a ride (79%), call to help a friend who is in trouble (33%), and call for an emergency (18%). Cell phones are both a blessing and a curse. (Harris Interactive, 2008)

Social Networking. Social networking and cell phones are a closely tied. One-third of the nation’s secondary students have a smartphone that can browse the Web. When they’re on the ‘net, almost half of them are on a social networking site. (Harris Interactive, 2008)

When they’re on the computer, it’s likely they’re on a social media site, too. Ninety-two percent of kids socialize online and over half have made new friends online. Of those who have an online social life, just 1 in 4 are friending their parents. (Norton Online Living Report, 2009)

Despite friending their kids, parents have a tough time monitoring their children’s’ Internet use. Seven in 10 parents have Internet rules and their kids say they follow these rules 80 percent of the time. Most parents think it’s their responsibility to monitor their kids’ Internet use (90%) and 70 percent of them talk about online safety with their kids. But parents struggle with this (33%) because the Internet and other digital technologies weren’t around when they were kids.

We’ve all read the stories of cyberbullying and it is certainly a problem. About 30 percent of teens have reported being the victim of some kind of cyberbullying and about half have seen it online. Most of the cyberbullies knew their targets personally (84%), but just one in three victims knew who was bullying them. Over the course of a year, almost one in five secondary students were directly involved in cyberbullying. Of those kids, twelve percent were bullies, four percent were victims, and three percent were both. (Hinduja and Patchin, 2009)

Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, who run the Cyberbullying Research Center (http://www.cyberbullying.us), recently did a study and found that 1 out of 5 students reported contemplating suicide and about that many had actually attempted it. They write that their findings mesh with other suicide studies. When looking at bullying, they found both victims and aggressors were more likely to attempt suicide than their non-bullying peers. Victims of traditional bullying were 1.7 times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide and victims of cyberbullying were 1.9 times more likely to attempt it. Traditional bullies are 2.1 times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide and cyberbullies were 1.5 times more likely to attempt it. Although these numbers seem low and almost identical, the study authors write that any suicide attempt is one too many. (Hinduja and Patchin, 2010)

One principal’s response

In Ridgewood, N.J., middle school principal Anthony Orsini sent an e-mail to all of the students’ parents to encourage them to stop allowing their kids to be involved in social media. “It is time for every single member of the BF Community to take a stand!” Orsini wrote in the e-mail. “There is absolutely no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site.” (Brody and Coutros, 2010)

Orsini recommended that parents take action to make sure their children weren’t on social networking sites. Told parents to close out their kids’ social networking accounts, install Parental Control Software, and keep the computer in a place where parents can monitor online behavior. He said parents should monitor their teens’ text messages online and make sure that all wireless devices are left at a central docking station at bed time.

Orsini wrote that middle school students are not ready to cope with cyberbullying and its negative effects. It’s not enough, Orsini wrote, to teach a student to be responsible online. Social media is uncontrollable and unsafe.

“[…]it is not worth the risk to your child to allow them the independence at this age to manage these sites on their own, not because they are not good kids or responsible, but because you cannot control the poor actions of anonymous others,” Orsini wrote.

My opinion

Our students are digital natives, a term that means they depend on electronic devices for almost all parts of their lives. They’ve never known a world where the Internet didn’t exist. Their cell phones are always at an arm’s reach and they spend a good portion of their day online. To take away their technology is to isolate them from their friends.

And let’s face it: they can just go to a friend’s house to login. In fact, over 1 in 5 students do just that. (Norton Online Living Report, 2009)

Parents and students expect our schools to prepare kids for the 21st century. Like it or not, online social networking isn’t going away. We can either embrace it or have it run amok, unsupervised and unchecked behind our backs.

Instead of powering down, we need to empower our students. We need to have the conversation about what they should do if they witness or are the victim of online aggression. Encourage students to print out the Web page as evidence and tell an adult. Keep inviting them to tell an adult and assure them that they won’t be lose their digital access if they do. Hinduja and Patchin found that 60 percent of cyberbullying victims do not tell an adult because they’re worried they’ll lose their online access.

The just turn it off philosophy doesn’t equip students to deal with the very real consequences of their digital world. Instead of turning off the technology, we should create a contract with students and outline our expectations on the front end. We need to be having the conversation every time we take our classes into the computer lab: don’t reveal private information online; you can be legally held accountable for nasty images and text you post online; if you ever have trouble online, tell an adult you trust.

Schools have a responsibility to prepare students for the world beyond our double doors. If you’d like to teach an entire cyberbullying unit, you need some scenarios for a discussion, or you want some examples of parent letters, I recommend checking out the free, extensive curriculum that Seattle Public Schools has developed. You can view it here: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/prevention/cbms.html.

Not only do we need to educate our students about social networking and online safety, but we need to educate parents as well. Instead of just having them review and sign the Acceptable Use policy, dedicate part of the school’s open house night or parent-teacher conferences to online safety. We need them to partner with us to make their kids safe at school and at home.

Taking away the kids’ devices isn’t going to remove the problem; the problem will just go underground. I would rather have open, honest discussions about technology use than to have students find ways to circumvent adults. I would rather figure out ways to employ responsible social networking in the classroom as an engagement tool as well as a model for how the technology can be used. It’s difficult and time consuming to teach the kids about responsible social networking. However, I don’t think pulling the plug teaches anything at all.

What do you think? Is social networking interfering with your ability to teach? Are the kids so focused on texting that they can’t focus on their textbooks? Should we tell the kids to close their Facebook accounts or should we use it in the classroom?

References:
Brody, L. and Coutros, E. “Ridgewood principal to parents: Get your kids off Facebook.” NorthJersey.com, April 29, 2010 http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/042910_Ridgewood_principal_to_parents_Get_your_kids_off_Facebook.html, accessed 5-13-10.

Generation M²: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds. (2010) A Kaiser Family Foundation Study, January 2010. http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

A Generation Unplugged (Research Report). Harris Interactive, September 12, 2008 http://files.ctia.org/pdf/HI_TeenMobileStudy_ResearchReport.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

Hinduja, S. and Patchin, J. (2009) Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.

Hinduja, S. and Patchin, J. (2009) “Cyberbullying Research Summary: Cyberbullying and Suicide.” Cyberbullying Research Center. http://cyberbullying.us/cyberbullying_and_suicide_research_fact_sheet.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

Hi-Tech Cheating: Cell Phones and Cheating in School. A National Poll. (2009) Beneson Strategy Group and Common Sense Media, June 18, 2009. http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/Hi-Tech%20Cheating%20-%20Summary%20NO%20EMBARGO%20TAGS.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

Norton Online Living Report. (2009) Symantec Corporation. http://www.nortononlineliving.com/documents/NOLR_Report_09.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

But when the final bell rings, the students exit the double doors and return to the world where they spend two-thirds of their time. If the students are urban Black males, chances are that they won’t graduate from high school (Livingston & Nahimana, 2006). There’s also a good chance that many of them have had a disciplinary referral this year (1 in 4), take remedial reading lessons, are enrolled in special education, have been expelled, score low on standardized tests, and have never seen the inside of a Gifted and Talented classroom (Whiting, 2006).

Although 72 percent of Black males graduate from high school, just 45 percent of Black males in urban schools do. Instead of learning the curriculum, these urban Black males learn the lessons educators didn’t intend to teach: they can’t achieve and school is not for them (Whiting, 2006).

However, the authors of “Problem Child or Problem Context: An Ecological Approach to Young Black Males” have identified two important factors to help Black males achieve. Livingston and Nahimana wrote that educators must understand the structural, social, and psychological challenges that Black males face and they must also identify the expectations that teachers in their school have for young Black males.

Livingston and Nahimana advocate for a multi-pronged approach, or an ecological approach to improving Black males’ academic success. Instead of just focusing on how the school personnel can support these students, they look to all of the influences on the students’ lives and how the family, community, church, or clubs can encourage their success.

For the most part, urban Black male students live in poverty. Their houses are run down, their families are unstable, and their neighborhoods are unsafe. One in three Black men between the ages of 20 and 29 are in prison, so they’re unable to support their families. Black men are twice as likely as White men to be unemployed. In some urban cities, Black male unemployment is between 35 and 55 percent. (Livingston and Nahimana, 2006)

These Black males are discouraged. They feel unsuccessful because they can’t find work and can’t support their families. The men leave their families because they can’t provide for them. The poverty, unemployment, lack of education, unstable families, and unsafe streets feed the cycle of hopelessness that swirls around our urban Black male students.

The situation’s bad, but we have options, the authors write. Most of their suggestions involve introducing positive Black male role models into the students’ lives. These are probably folks they don’t see in their neighborhoods, so it’s good for them to understand that they have options and that an educated Black man can look like them.

Some of the authors’ tips are:

• Encourage Black male professionals to serve as mentors for the students
• Recruit more Black male teachers to serve as role models in the school
• Offer teachers professional development so they understand their students’ backgrounds and barriers to education
• Collaborate with community organizations to create opportunities for students (like job shadowing)

They write that schools need to take a holistic approach to helping urban Black males achieve academic success. We can’t just look within our schools for the answers; we must invite the community to participate as well.

“[…] educators must account for and be mindful of the cultural, social structural, and psychological realities that impact Black male development,” they write. “Our understanding and perceptions of them shape what we teach them and what they believe they can become.”

References:

Livingston, J. and Nahimana, C. (2006.) Problem Child or Problem Context: An Ecological Approach to Young Black Males. Reclaiming Children and Youth. 14:4, 209-214.

Whiting, G. (2006.) From At Risk to At Promise: Developing Scholar Identities Among Black Males. The Journal of Secondary Education. 17:4, 222-229.

According to the Norton Online Living Report 2009, parents believe their children spend 21 hours online. The reality is that students in twelve countries reported spending 39 hours online. Don’t tell me these kids don’t have time to finish their assignments or clean their rooms.

Multitasking. Researchers for the Kaiser Family Foundation’s report, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, found that our students aren’t just watching YouTube or downloading from iTunes. When they’re on the ’Net, they’re likely to be IM-ing, texting, watching TV, or listening to their music players.

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s researchers found that rates of teen media use (TV, cell phones, computers, video games, audio, print, and movies) are up an hour and 17 minutes over teen media usage five years ago. A teen’s cell phone, smart phone, or gaming device is never out of arm’s reach.

“[…] cell phones and iPods have become true multi-media devices,” the study’s authors wrote. “In fact, young people now spend more time listening to music, playing games, and watching TV on their cell phones (a total of :49 daily) than they spend talking on them (:33).”

The authors of the Norton Online Living Report found that, “[…] six in 10 adults worldwide say kids spend ‘too much’ time online, and what’s more 45% of kids agree.”

Students as digital trailblazers. In another study from the Speak Up National Research Project, researchers disagree with parents and kids: students aren’t spending too much time online; students are the early adopters and adapters of new technology. Our students are not wasting time, they’re innovating. The authors write that our students are the “digital advance team,” the people who will lead educators and other adults into the technology age.

“The findings illustrate how K-12 students are leading the way in re-thinking education delivery and career exploration,” the study’s authors wrote. “These insights can be used to inform our nation’s education leaders in communities all across the United States, as they plan on how to use the stimulus funds for education effectively.”

The researchers believe that our students are ready and able to show adults how to use technology in innovative and educational ways; it’s our responsibility to take notes and make the kids’ 21st century technology ideas happen.

Online use and academic success. The problem is that when kids are online, they’re not likely to be doing school work. The Generation M2 report’s researchers found that students from all races and from all family education backgrounds spent an average of just 16 minutes online working on classroom assignments. Most of the time (25%), they hang out on social network sites, play online games (19%), watch YouTube or other videos (16%), and IM one another (13%).

The good news from these studies is that all of this online time and short hand text message language isn’t rotting students’ brains as much as we might think. The Generation M2 report’s researchers did find that 8- to 18-year-olds are spending five fewer minutes reading hard copies of books, magazines, and newspapers for pleasure than they did in six years ago. However, they’ve made up about two minutes of that deficit with online magazine or newspaper reading.

They also found that the same number of students who read for pleasure six years ago is about the same number who do so today. It’s also an activity that prohibits a lot of multitasking. Students might glance at the TV or play music in the background, but for the most part, when they read print, they are focused on their reading.

The Generation M2 report’s researchers also found that the time students spend online doesn’t affect their reading time. Heavy screen media users (16 or more hours a day) and light screen media users (less than two hours a day) read about the same amount of time: about 41 minutes a day. Even kids who watch TV all night long read about as much as those who don’t tune in much at all.

Students who have a TV in their bedrooms or live in homes where the TV is always on read less than other students, by about 10 minutes. Ten minutes might not seem much, but it’s a significant number that correlates to classroom achievement.

“Contrary to what is found for other media,” the Generation M2 report’s researchers wrote, “young people who are heavy readers (those who spend an hour or more per day with print media) are substantially more likely to say they earn high grades than those who are light readers (those who report no print reading on a typical day): 72% of heavy readers report high grades, compared to 60% of those in the light-reading group.”

Media use and well being. Not only do the heavy media users earn lower grades, but they’re not as happy as the kids who are offline. Of the light media users (fewer than three hours per day), 22% reported that they have a “high level of personal contentment,” the Generation M2 researchers found. On the opposite side, 20% of the heavy media users (more than 16 hours per day) reported that they had a “low level of personal contentment.”

Twenty-one percent of 8- to 18-year-olds are heavy media users. The problem is that we need to teach these kids to channel their media use. According to the Norton Online Living Report’s authors, parents know that they’re responsible for their children’s media use, but just 7 in 10 kids have rules. Thirty-three percent of the parents in the survey said that it’s hard to make media rules because so much new technology wasn’t around when they were kids.

The Norton Online Living Report researchers found that one in five students admitted they did something online that their parents wouldn’t approve. One-in-five students reported that their parents caught them, too.

“Supervision is inherently difficult when it comes to the online world,” the study’s authors wrote. “Not only is the Web’s content available to anyone with a search engine, it’s easy for kids to bypass parents altogether by logging on from outside the household.”

Educators have the tough job of balancing the curriculum with the students’ digital obsession, of incorporating 21st century skills with 21st century safety, and encouraging academic success in a world of media excess. I think we’re up to the challenge, but our role will be more to guide the digital natives with their technology use while they lead the way.

References:

“Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year Olds.” (2010) Kaiser Family Foundation. http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf Accessed January 26, 2010

“Norton Online Living Report.” (2009) Symantec Corporation. http://www.nortononlineliving.com/documents/NOLR_Report_09.pdf Accessed January 21, 2010.

“Selected National Findings: Speak Up 2008 for Students, Teachers, Parents and Administrators.” (2009.) Project Tomorrow. http://www.tomorrow.org Accessed December 8, 2009.

Ever since beginning my research on social aggression, teachers often have asked me what they should do to help students cope with the ill effects of social aggression. I often have been at a loss for words when faced with this question, given that little research has been conducted in order to verify effective strategies that teachers can use inside or outside of their classrooms. As a result, my most recent research has involved designing and testing a method that includes three activities intended to help girls both talk about and cope with their emotions surrounding social aggression (Willer, 2009). The three activities are based in the fields of narrative psychology and therapy and involve helping girls cope through storytelling, art, and metaphor.¹

The first step in helping girls cope is to encourage them to tell their stories of social aggression. Pennebaker’s (1997) research suggests that communicating about stressful events is an effective sense-making process that helps reduce emotional and intrusive thoughts, and therefore, negative emotional outcomes. In other words, when girls experience social aggression, they are apt to ruminate about what has occurred, why it happened, and the impact it will have on their relationships. Such continuous and intrusive thinking can contribute to negative health outcomes. Giving language to their thoughts and feelings through storytelling, however, is an effective means of engaging in catharsis, gaining insight into what happened, and feeling a sense of control over what has occurred. Thus, the first activity in the coping method involves teachers allowing students to tell their stories of social aggression.

Teachers should keep in mind that telling these stories may be difficult for their students. Young people may not be developmentally and cognitively advanced enough to productively process stressful experiences such as social aggression and the complex emotions that may result. Therefore, after allowing girls to tell their stories of social aggression, teachers can engage students in two metaphor drawing activities designed to help them productively process their experiences with social aggression. Using metaphor and art can aid in storytelling, especially for children, because they are “ways to visually communicate thoughts and feelings that are too painful to put into words” (Malchiodi, 2003, p. ix).

The first metaphor drawing activity involves encouraging students to externalize social aggression. Therapists use externalization as a sense-making method that focuses on seeing the problem as the problem rather than the person as the problem (White & Epston, 1990). Therefore, the goal of this activity is to have girls draw a metaphor that represents their feelings about their experiences with social aggression. For example, a participant in my study drew a duckling who lost her family to represent how her experience with gossip made her feel all alone. Another girl drew a person who was about to be hit by a car to represent the fear she felt when her peers were excluding her. After students draw metaphors such as these, teachers can encourage them to use their drawings to orally explain and further process their emotions.

The second metaphor drawing activity provides another means for helping girls communicate about and cope with their experiences with social aggression. The purpose of this activity is to help students productively reframe their experience with social aggression by drawing a redemption metaphor (McAdams, Diamond, de St. Aubin, and Mansfield, 1997). This technique is based on research that has found that people who are able to see the redeeming qualities or the bright side of a bad situation tend to be healthier than those individuals who tend to focus on the negative aspects. Therefore, teachers can have students draw a metaphor that represents something positive that came out of the negative experience with social aggression. For example, one participant in my study drew two peas in a pod to represent how she became closer with the girl who was socially aggressive as a result of having to work through their problems. Another girl drew an eagle to represent the freedom she felt when she broke off her friendship with the girl who spread lies about her. Again, teachers can have students use their drawing as a tool to orally communicate and process their feelings.

Social aggression can be debilitating, both socially and emotionally for girls. Through simple communication processes, including storytelling and drawing, however, teachers may be able to offer girls healing and hope.

Erin Willer is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Communication Studies at the University of Denver who has experience as a high school teacher. Her research has been published in the journal Communication Studies and is due to be published next year in Personal Relationships and the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Erin also has received Top Four Paper Awards from the Interpersonal Communication Division of the Western States Communication Association.

End note:
¹Although these activities can be effective ways of helping girls communicate about and cope with social aggression, it is important that teachers take precautions before deciding to implement them. Talking about social aggression the classroom can be risky for students. Any given classroom is comprised of both victims and perpetrators, and therefore, teachers need to be careful not to set students up for revictimization.

References

Crick, N. R., & Bigbee, M. A. (1998). Relational and overt forms of peer victimization: A multiinformant approach. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66, 337-347.

Crick, N. R., & Grotpeter, J. K. (1996). Children’s treatment by peers: Victims of relational and overt aggression. Developmental and Psychopathology, 8, 367-380.

Malchiodi, C. A. (2003). Handbook of art therapy. New York: The Guilford Press.

McAdams, D. P., Diamond, A., de St. Aubin, E., & Mansfield, E. (1997). Stories of commitment: The psychological construction of generative lives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 678-694.

Paquette, J. A., & Underwood, M. K. (1999). Gender differences in young adolescents’ experiences of peer victimization: Social and physical aggression. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 45, 242-266.

Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Opening up: The healing power of expressing emotions (rev. ed.). New York: Guilford.

White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre.

Willer, E. K. (2009). Experimentally testing a narrative sense-making metaphor intervention: Facilitating communicative coping about social aggression with adolescent girls. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln.

But, at least, Sherlock was friendly. House is temperamental, opinionated, and sometimes cruel. I think the TV hospital staff hang out with him because it’s in their contracts.

Amanda teaches middle school science in South Carolina. She has a student in class who looks like a Jonas brother, but acts like Dr. House. Like House, he’s brilliant, but condescending. Unlike House, he’s in seventh grade.

Mini-House interrupts Amanda’s class at inopportune times to use her class as a platform for his ideas.

After many mini-House classroom disruptions, Amanda opened one of her desk drawers and gave mini-House a mini-notebook. She invited him to write his ideas, suggestions, and rants in the mini-notebook and return it to her at the end of the week. During her Sunday morning coffee, she reads the notebook and considers his ideas.

Amanda reports that mini-House has been writing so much in his notebook that he needs a bigger one. Other students have requested notebooks, too. Students have stopped blurting out in class and writing in their feedback notebooks instead.

Students aren’t just writing about class; they’re writing about themselves and what’s important to them. One girl wrote Amanda about what she did over the weekend. Another girl, a foster child, is writing about the transition to a new home. A few are thanking Amanda for helping them understand the law of conservation of mass.

“This is nothing I would have ever expected,” Amanda said. “But it has turned out to be useful and fun.”

Update: Amanda says that mini-House has become her favorite student and she no longer daydreams about mini-House and unfortunate dodgeball accidents. She and mini-House have bonded and she wouldn’t trade him for the world. Other teachers in Amanda’s building are trying the notebooks, too, and having great success with them.

• Three times as many ADHD teens fail a grade, have been suspended, or have been expelled from school as their peers.
• Teachers should have well established classroom procedures that become automatic for students, especially ADHD students.
• Teachers should use private, pre arranged nonverbal signals or signal words to gain an ADHD student’s attention.
• Parents should make time to help their ADHD children clean, sort, and dump contents of backpacks, notebooks, desks, and rooms.

Sandra Reif’s 496-page book The ADHD Book of Lists contains information about the disorder and practical suggestions for special education teachers, regular education teachers, and parents who need help with an ADHD child. It’s not a book to be read in chapters or cover-to-cover, but rather it’s designed to be a teacher or parent reference about ADHD.

Reif has compiled 97 lists that address ADHD diagnosis, behavior problems, support strategies, accommodations, organization, academic difficulties, collaborating with parents, and what to do during an IEP meeting. Each bulleted list has a brief introduction and the list itself. Some lists also refer readers to other sources and resources on the topic.

The information in the book is well organized, but the best part is that the book is formatted to encourage photocopying. The binding lies flat when the book is open, the pages are 8 x 11, and each page has a small copyright blurb. A teacher can find a list about medication side effects, photocopy it, and give it to a concerned parent. A special education teacher can reproduce the visual cue drawings in the appendix and hang up visual cues for get out your pencil and paper, stop that, listen, or write this in your planner. Better yet, the special education teacher can photocopy the IEP section for a new teacher who has never attended an IEP meeting or hand a copy of the dos and don’ts list to a veteran teacher who is convinced her ADHD student is just lazy and irresponsible.

Even though the book is designed to help teachers teach and support ADHD students, it’s also just a good teaching reference. Reif has included lists about improving reading comprehension, learning styles, and teaching math that outline good teaching practice for any student, not just the ADHD student. She includes tip sheets for parents, too, so teachers can photocopy the sheet and give the strategies to a parent whose child is struggling reading, writing, math, or organization.

I recommend this book as a great reference tool for special education teachers who have many ADHD students on their case load or a regular education teacher who has many ADHD students in his class. Both teachers could benefit from the quick lists and teaching tips in the book. Any teacher would love the photocopier-friendly layout and binding.

According to the Broward County Schools Website (www.browardcounty.com), the district was forming the policy before the state legislature voted on the new anti—bullying state law. Broward’s policy takes into account not only the traditional name-calling but also the bullying that occurs outside school walls. Any abusive behavior that affects students or adult employees is subject to the policy.

Consultant Meline Kevorkian, Ed.D., professor at Nova Southeastern University and author of Preventing Bullying, explains the impact and pervasiveness of bullying on a video at the Broward County Schools site. She said that half of all students are bullied and one in ten is bullied on a regular basis. Victims of bullying experience loneliness, depression, and suicide.

Cyberbullying has become a problem, Kevorkian said. Cyberbullies use text messages, e-mails, and social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook to spread rumors or send hateful, cruel, or annoying messages or edited pictures. Cyberbullies sometimes create Websites that criticize their victims, too.

When a student, teacher, or parent realizes bullying is happening, they report it using the forms at the Broward County Schools Website and a process of investigation, intervention, and consequences occurs.

The program’s main focus is on prevention, said Shelly Heller, Co-chair of the district’s anti-bullying task force. Both abuser and victim will receive counseling and help to stop the cycle of abuse.

The school district will be tracking the bullying complaints by computer as well and look for patterns of abuse. These patterns will help administrators direct intervention strategies.

Broward County Schools are located around Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Florida’s middle Atlantic Coast. Broward County has 260 schools and a student population of 231,208 students, making it the sixth largest school district in the country.

No one wants this phone call, not you and Brad’s mom. The longer you wait, the worse the situation becomes, though, so don’t postpone parent contact.

Suzanne Tingley, author of Dealing with Difficult Parents, said it’s best to let parents know sooner rather than later that a student is having academic or behavioral problems. “If the student is in trouble, in any way, whether it’s disciplinary or whether it’s academic, you don’t have to wait until parent conferences to let the parents know,” Tingley said in a recent Inside the School online seminar. “If a student is struggling in math or reading, or getting along with people, a call home can help, or at least show parents that you are on top of the situation.”

Locate the parents’ contact information, find a quiet place, and make the call. If you’re calling the parent at work, be careful about the student’s privacy and don’t identify yourself beyond your name and the school’s name to the parent’s colleagues. Ask the working parent if this is a good time to call about a school-related issue. Overall, don’t worry about calling a parent at work; it’s better to call and forewarn the parent of a problem than to let the problem fester.

“At the secondary level, I can tell you from my years in administration, that no parent is as angry as the parent who hears that his or her child is failing a course needed for graduation and it’s too late to do anything about it,” Tingley said. “So I’m not saying that timely information will necessarily correct the problem, but I am saying that it will protect you from the charge that you didn’t tell anybody about it and so the child didn’t have anything that he or she could do about it.”

The purpose of the phone call is not to vent your frustrations, but to work together with the parent to help the student. It’s helpful to write down the specifics of the phone call in advance so you don’t become sidetracked.

“It’s hard to give information to parents that you know that they don’t want to hear,” Tingley said, “but it’s a lot worse if you wait. You never know how parents are going to react to negative information. You don’t know if you’re going see tears or anger, or there might even be threats, but nobody wants to hear that their child is at the bottom of the class, or that she’s a bully, or that she needs to show more respect for the teacher or for other students. But it’s part of the teacher’s job to give feedback, and to give it as honestly as you can.”

Many teachers believe that if they publicly praise a student that is doing very well, it will motivate others to be like that student.

In fact, often the opposite is true.

Most difficult, disruptive, or unmotivated students do not want to be more like the publicly praised student. Instead they say, “Whatever with him or her. He’s always being praised. I don’t care!”

The praised student is often ridiculed by his or her peers and wishes his success was kept private. Instead, privately praise individual students for different things. This way nobody has to worry about feeling embarrassed in front of their peers.

Stop writing names on the board!

Imagine walking into a faculty meeting 20 minutes late. Your principal sees you enter and instead of saying something to you, he writes your “name” on an overhead projector for all to see. Later in the day you go down to the faculty room to get your lunch and the overhead sheet is hanging on the refrigerator door.

You go to your principal’s office and ask him why the name is on the door. He says, “Because everyone needs to know that it is not ok to come to my faculty meetings late! But don’t worry, because if you are on time (or good) the rest of the day I will erase it tomorrow!”

You might be good the rest of the day, but you will also be miserable. Kids respond the same way. They might be good the rest of the day, but you really have not done any long term good.

Reprinted with permission from the Teacher Learning Center, www.TLC-SEMS.com