Some of the most common forms of bullying involve physical intimidation, verbal insults, mental abuse, racial, and sexual slurs.  Students who want and need friends often bully innocent students for the attention that comes with being feared. 

Any attention is good attention in their minds. The bully needs to have other students see them bullying. Bullies have not been taught how to socialize using functional interpersonal behaviors. They are no accident. They learn dysfunctional behavior patterns in dysfunctional homes or no homes at all. Tragically, the crime of the bully is not just in the episode. The crime extends to the time and energy stolen from the victim through the constant worry, the knotted stomach and the awful humiliation of not knowing what to do. My lunchtime Conflict-Violence Prevention Sessions with volunteer 8th grade students has convinced me that bullying can be controlled and minimized if mature students are put in a leadership role and given serious opportunities to improve student life.

Conflict and Violence Prevention Group

I saw a motivational video on Edutopia.  The presenter was Michael Pritchard.  In the video clip, Mr. Pritchard talks with students about bullying and asks students who have been bullies to talk about why they do it.  He also asked students who had been bullied to talk about what it felt like to be bullied.  I was moved by the presentation and decided to form a conflict resolution/violence prevention group. The group initially included six volunteer 8th grade girls. We met during the school lunch period 5 days a week.  I told them that we would discuss witnessed episodes of bullying and conflict. They had the personal and social maturity to understand how bullying was negatively effecting them, their classmates and school climate.  Several had been bullied and they too had done some of the bullying.  My plan was for the students in the lunch group to discuss the best ways to identify bullying and help victims.  These girls quickly became school anti-bully leaders.  Some boys now take part in the group.  Their participation is very important to the process.   Both the girls and boys in this “bully prevention lunch group” wanted to stop the conflicts and, as it turned out, share their feelings. A description of the program is at Conflict-Violence Prevention.

How the Conflict-Violence Prevention Sessions Were Structured

Students come to my classroom with their lunches.  The lunch session has three phases: 

1. Sharing;
2. Strategies for Positive Change; and
3. Stories and Examples of Conflict Resolution. 

In the “Sharing Phase,” I mostly listen and moderate. The students talk. We also eat our lunch!  They usually start by recounting a story of bullying in the school.  In the “Strategies Phase,” we discuss interventions that might work.  For example, approaching victims and telling that they are not alone and that there are good people in school who will help them.  In the “Stories and Examples of Resolution Phase,” we discuss successful interventions. These sessions are very special. Everyone listens. They take turns talking.  There are no management problems. The students are talking about the daily school lives of their friends.  I hear stories that I would probably not hear under any other circumstances.  They offer solutions.  I try to shape their patterns of conflict resolution. I see the relief in their eyes as they share and learn how to solve immediate problems and make a difference in their school.

Video Recording and School-Wide Distribution of One Session

William Steelnack, the Video Production Director of our school, suggested taping a “Round Table Discussion” with the six original volunteer eighth grade girls.  In the taped discussion, we asked these student’s questions like;  “What types of conflict/bullying have you seen at school?”  “What types of bullying have girls engaged in?”  “What types of bullying have boys engaged in?”  “What starts conflict?”  How best can students solve these differences peacefully?”  Individual and group responses to these questions displayed a level of honesty that made the subsequent video production riveting.

This “Round Table Discussion” was broadcast over our school’s TV channel, “WPGM”, to every classroom during a Friday end-of-day homeroom session. Every student in the school saw peers talking about a serious topic and trying to make things better. The shockwave it sent through the school can be felt months later.  More students have joined the group since the airing of the discussion and more continue to look for positive ways to solve differences through functional conflict resolution. On a weekly basis student members report stories of how they have intervened in conflicts and found positive solutions. Very often they report that 6th and 7th grade students recognize them from the recorded “Round Table” discussion. These younger students often ask for their help or advice in solving a conflict.

The student members of the “lunch group” are now teaming up with counselors and myself to help students of all grades in the school to peer mediate bullying and conflict.  Students may be uncomfortable talking with teachers about being bullied.  They may have trouble talking about this at home. But, they seem to be very comfortable talking with older peers.  Students see bullying in the hallways, locker rooms, cafeteria and school buses, places teachers will never see.  The initiative of the Conflict Violence Prevention Group reinforces that middle school students can be true leaders and positive behavior is contagious if you give it a positive voice and a positive place in school to be discussed.

Sean Brooks is a Health Education teacher at Punta Gorda Middle School in Punta Gorda, Florida. He advises the Conflict/Violence Prevention Focus Group for participating PGMS students and coaches intramural sports. He is an Associate with Partners In Learning.

Dr. Douglas Brooks  is a Professor in the School of Education, Health and Society at Miami University. He teaches graduate and online courses in grant writing and consults with school districts to build grant writing capacity.

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