Comments on: Surprise support in fight against Alameda Schools recall?

By: MR

MR — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:20:24 +0000

Bullying is something parents of bullies would conveniently ignore as just “a boy thing” (or “just a growing up issue”).
I remember being directly involved with a bullying situation on Grand street. I could not prevent it, but confronted the situation after witnessing it and told the bully to retrieve the victim’s pack from atop a bush after he had thrown it up there.
I think that Alameda adults should be aware of these acts and stop them. Our reaction to bullying is indicative of how much our values mean to our adult selves.
Sadly, these values don’t exist for some of us in Alameda.

By: Elmer Strasser

Elmer Strasser — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:17:31 +0000

By: Jan Greene

Jan Greene — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:45:05 +0000

Excuse the long post, but I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, as some commenters on Lesson 9 argue that schools should stay out of the emotional and social lives of our children, that they can handle it fine on their own. But we know better now, and there’s research to prove it. A few snippets from the news lately:
–The American Academy of Pediatrics just adopted a new policy for physicians urging them to ask their young patients about bullying and treat it as a health problem.
–Dr. Perri Klass, a pediatrician writing in the New York Times wrote this in a June column (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/health/09klas.html):
We’ve gotten past the “kids will be kids” notion that bullying is a normal part of childhood or the prelude to a successful life strategy. Research has described long-term risks — not just to victims, who may be more likely than their peers to experience depression and suicidal thoughts, but to the bullies themselves, who are less likely to finish school or hold down a job.
By definition, bullying involves repetition; a child is repeatedly the target of taunts or physical attacks — or, in the case of so-called indirect bullying (more common among girls), rumors and social exclusion. For a successful anti-bullying program, the school needs to survey the children and find out the details — where it happens, when it happens.

–Researchers reviewed 317 studies involving more than 300,000 children in elementary and middle school. They found that preventive programs focused on the social and emotional lives of children (such as AUSD’s broad-based Caring School Community, which goes far beyond Lesson 9): improved students’ attitudes about themselves and others, improved their behavior and academic performance and reduced emotional distress. And get this: the programs improved students’ achievement test scores by 11 to 17 percentile points. http://www.casel.org/downloads/PackardES.pdf

Let’s look at the big picture here — this is about more than one lesson, it’s about making a safe learning environment for everybody.