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If you really wanted to track what was going on, I would say you would need a ratio of probably 1 adult to every 5 at the very least. The riot about a "bonding meal" is not that being together for the meal bonds people/family but that the kind of family that still sits down to a meal are the ones that have also been responsible parents in raising their children and keeping in touch with them. You will never stop bullying. It is also done by adults, parents, teachers, bosses, co-workers, etc. The better bet is to teach self-esteem and coping skills. The worst scenarios in bullying are not going to openly discussed.
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If you really wanted to track what was going on, I would say you would need a ratio of probably 1 adult to every 5 at the very least.
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I thought of using more helpers, but here's the problem: The only reason I can find helping the students in such a way for practically no immediate profit is because they are part of a super long term solution for myself, in terms of building out organizations all over the country that require a physical presence.
That is a very specific set of circumstances. If you don't fall into that super small set of people, then you couldn't justify the time investment. And from that super small set, you will also have people who are undesirable to complete the task. Some of these people might hate working with kids. Others might have hated going to school, so they might encourage students to not take their schoolwork seriously.
The other issue is that by having so many people trying to help the students, you now have a bloated bureaucracy that you also have to manage. Everyone will tend to inflict their own individual biases into their assessments. So now you have to hire another person to try and correct for all of these biases. While I would probably also be biased in some way, since I am the only person involved, the bias would all point in the same direction, such that it likely cancels itself out across the sample. With multiple people involved, the biases will point in all different directions in all different magnitudes, creating so much statistical noise in the data that the true signal will be indistinguishable from the noise.
I think that, through time, a small group of additional helpers could have some value. I could identify in my first year there, which teachers, coaches, and club moderators have any promise or value and ask them to help me in my task. For the ones who seem useless though, the school could employ someone to take on the role I serve in a more limited capacity. By that point, the school should have enough of a sample size to determine if the service I am providing has value or not and could more easily justify some additional small scale spending to fill in any deficiencies that might develop in my plan.
The riot about a "bonding meal" is not that being together for the meal bonds people/family but that the kind of family that still sits down to a meal are the ones that have also been responsible parents in raising their children and keeping in touch with them. You will never stop bullying. It is also done by adults, parents, teachers, bosses, co-workers, etc. The better bet is to teach self-esteem and coping skills. The worst scenarios in bullying are not going to openly discussed.
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Well that's all I meant in terms of the meals for the kids too. It was just an expansion on the idea of a sports team or club activity that goes out for dinner after a big game or something.
And I think in the opening post, I mainly described helping to cut down on the amount of bullying that goes undetected or is unknown to be occurring by the "lessers" as you term them, as well as helping the "lessers" survive better.
But you need an accurate read of the landscape if you hope to provide good advice. The type of advice you give if a girl's best friend makes fun of her is much different than if her enemy makes fun of her or if a higher social strata girl makes fun of her. And you have to know all of these classifications in advance or you won't be of much use to the girl if you have to ask 12 questions before even looking at her problem.
So that is part of the reason for the intensive data-collection methods.
If you really wanted to track what was going on, I would say you would need a ratio of probably 1 adult to every 5 at the very least. The riot about a "bonding meal" is not that being together for the meal bonds people/family but that the kind of family that still sits down to a meal are the ones that have also been responsible parents in raising their children and keeping in touch with them. You will never stop bullying. It is also done by adults, parents, teachers, bosses, co-workers, etc. The better bet is to teach self-esteem and coping skills. The worst scenarios in bullying are not going to openly discussed.
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Exactly.
Tracking bullying behavior really serves no purpose, and the "data" collected under dubious means and methods really wouldn't be of much value. None of that does anything to help guide adolescents toward developing the tools that would help ensure that bullying behavior does little/nothing to affect them, or provides them with coping strategies when dealing with people who engage in such behavior.
If someone actually wants to help kids, help them by guiding them to the understanding that it really doesn't MATTER if mean girls laugh at you, that if someone or some group is physically assaulting you, you have recourse and a safe place/people to which you can turn for recourse, and various coping skills. Dealing with cruel people and being targeted unfairly by others is a part of life that doesn't go away. Bullies are a part of life. A grownup who "transcends categorization" isn't going to eradicate the impulse to come out at the top of a perceived pecking order, by some. Better to teach people how to rise above and appropriately deal with such treatment than to waste time on an elaborate spy network collecting "data" on who's being picked on and why. Everyone knows who is being picked on and why anyway. And it really doesn't matter. What matters is not having it ruin your life.
Beat Streak;
I understand the desire to eliminate bullying and take the toxicity out of peer relationships! However, to do so without having a solid background in social work or child/teen psychology is rife with good intentions and bad outcomes. It's a tough period in the growing up process and an adult, no matter how well intentioned, who makes things worse by shooting from the hips is not to be permitted.
Not true. Most bullies fully believe that what they are doing is right.
Laughing with them allows them to not have to worry about concealing their behavior. That's not the same thing.
It is true. What is not true is that bullies think they are doing right. They know it not is not acceptable and that is why they conceal their behavior.
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But you also have a great deal of experience and expertise in getting poor results. If the results were great, then that point would be valid. But with such poor results, doesn't that demonstrate that new ideas are needed?
Since you did not clarify whether you meant the collective or singular "you", I will address both.
In some places, bullying is effectively dealt with. You don't know that because you are not in the field. Nor are you an expert in the theory of the field. Nor have you done any research in the field.
If you were referring to me, specifically, how the heck would you know? I have dealt effectively with bullying. I can promise you that I did it without joining the bullies and without colored pencils.
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And even if I have alerted you as to what I am about, it doesn't matter.
My comments were moderated in the post where I said that, so I will state them again, but, hopefully, in a more agreeable manner.
Now that you have alerted me and others to this lunacy, if we get wind of you coming to school near us, we can alert the appropriate people to keep this out.
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I only have to convince a single district to adopt my plan. Not the entire US.
We all doubt this will happen, but the idea that it might possibly slip through and get in somewhere, scares us.
Regardless, why are you bugging us with this? No one here agrees with you. No one here is going to help you get a job. If you are so convinced that this is the answer to bullying, go sell it to a principal somewhere. Or better yet, the school board.
Beat Streak;
I understand the desire to eliminate bullying and take the toxicity out of peer relationships! However, to do so without having a solid background in social work or child/teen psychology is rife with good intentions and bad outcomes. It's a tough period in the growing up process and an adult, no matter how well intentioned, who makes things worse by shooting from the hips is not to be permitted.
lol, you don't understand though.
I think the current psychological theories are what is causing the toxicity in the 1st place!
Why then would I want to spend 5 years learning all the intricacies of said theory for?
It is true. What is not true is that bullies think they are doing right. They know it not is not acceptable and that is why they conceal their behavior.
But what they are doing is fine, in terms of a "can I do this?" standpoint.
It's not nice, but being mean isn't illegal for adults, so it shouldn't be against school policy for kids.
What I want to do is essentially convince them not to be so mean by having them look up to me and eventually having them adopt my behavior through a long sample size of interactions.
Having a teacher spend 2 minutes with a student is not nearly enough of a sample size.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Since you did not clarify whether you meant the collective or singular "you", I will address both.
In some places, bullying is effectively dealt with. You don't know that because you are not in the field. Nor are you an expert in the theory of the field. Nor have you done any research in the field.
If you were referring to me, specifically, how the heck would you know? I have dealt effectively with bullying. I can promise you that I did it without joining the bullies and without colored pencils.
It's never REALLY effectively dealt with. My camp thought they effectively dealt with bullying, even though that was clearly not the case. If a researcher talked to them about bullying, they would probably say they are great with dealing with it. One of my own co-workers told me that he thought they do a great job. It was almost too much for me to avoid busting out laughing at the irony of said comment.
I assume this type of incorrect reporting happens elsewhere though. If it wasn't an actual problem, it wouldn't be such a pervasive issue in the media because no one would watch something that isn't true.
As for the other you, I wouldn't, but you seem afraid to join the students' level and that makes me think there is lots of bullying that goes on undetected at your school. It's sort of like how my camp worked. They weren't lying when they said they did a good job because they really believe they did. But that wasn't true.
And why are you so bent up on the colored pencils comment? I just used that to provide an image of separating out different levels of information. It's no different than using a highlighter to help you study.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
My comments were moderated in the post where I said that, so I will state them again, but, hopefully, in a more agreeable manner.
Now that you have alerted me and others to this lunacy, if we get wind of you coming to school near us, we can alert the appropriate people to keep this out.
You can PM me your raw comments that were moderated.
I'd still love to hear them.
But in terms of normal discourse, I'd rather keep that in the open for everyone to see.
And how is alerting the appropriate people helping you at all? Isn't any decision made on its merits and not because Everdeen gives them a biased interpretation in advance?
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
We all doubt this will happen, but the idea that it might possibly slip through and get in somewhere, scares us.
What do you think the worst is that will happen?
Even if the idea got in and failed, we would be no worse off than we are currently.
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