Chosen for the title of this post is a quote from Rachel Simmons awesome book, Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. I am brushing up on my bullying reading as I've heard whispers that there is some heavy duty bullying going on in my Block II school, especially in the J/I grades. I am shocked by this, as I've not seen any evidence at all of this occurring. "Seen" is the problem, I suppose, when so much bullying is not visible to the naked eye.
My associate teacher recently had a rather profound discussion with our Grade 6 class on bullying.
The discussion went something like this:
Teacher: What would you do if you saw someone getting beat up on the way home from school?
Student 1: Even if I knew them, I’d keep walking.
Student 2: Yeah, I’d feel bad, but you need to put yourself first.
Teacher: Hmmm... okay, what about if you were with someone else? Or if you weren’t outnumbered by the bully?
Student 1: Still, they’re a bully, they’ll come after me for getting involved.
Student 2: Yeah, for sticking my nose in somebody’s business.
Student 3: Even if we had more than one person, bullies don’t always act on their own.
Teacher: So are we talking about a gang then?
Student 2: Not a gang, like with guns and, like, symbols and a code, just more of a group that all are tough and mean. They stick together. They are powerful.
Teacher: What about reporting what you saw to an adult?
Student 3: Not if the bully saw us seeing what was happening. We’d be screwed. They’d know it was us that ratted.
Teacher: What if you were the person being bullied and no one stopped to help you?
Student 2: It happens. You need to avoid bullies and try to get along with everyone.
Teacher: So the person being bullied doesn’t get along with the bully, is it the person being bullied’s fault?
Student 1: Yeah. Sometimes it is.
I was left very shaken by this conversation. It disturbed me. With all this anti-bullying education going on in light of the recent suicides and violence that have been in the media related to the effects of bullying on its victims - are our efforts making a difference? What character building did they miss? What about Tribes? Were they absent for every single lesson of Grade One Social Studies, Rights, Roles and Responsibilities? I am glad that they begin to teach this in grade one. Perhaps it should be repeated every year! I'm being quite serious - this unit has tons of potential to lay the foundation for student's ability to make change and take action:
...students are introduced to various topics that will help them develop an understanding of connections between the past and the present ... and of the rights and responsibilities of citizens. Students will begin their studies with familiar things, such as rules and responsibilities at home and at school ... in studying these topics, they will examine some significant developments that occurred throughout the ages...and will investigate their influence on the development of Canada and on life in the present day. (Ontario Social Studies Curriculum, page 20)
Specifically, now, the Grade 1 unit, Relationships, Rules and Responsibilities:
Students identify the relationships, rules, and responsibilities in their home, school, and community in order to understand the basis of citizenship. They draw conclusions about why rules and responsibilities are important in the relationships of their daily lives. Students also explain how and why relationships, rules, and responsibilities may change over time, and in different places. (page 21, Ontario Social Studies Curriculum).
There are a few specific expectations that work here, but one in particular is best: identify an area of concern (e.g., littering, sharing, conflicts - I would add “bullying” here), and suggest changes in rules or responsibilities to provide possible solutions (under the Application heading, page 22).
The goal, I would argue, of this unit, is to make our students aware that they are citizens, that there are rules, that they have relationships with fellow citizens, and that with those relationships come responsibility. Broadly speaking, it is a very empowering unit, and is formative in helping them to realize that they have the ability to positively impact both their environment and those who share that environment with them. I would hope that, however important, taking the dog out for a pee, putting your dishes in the sink, saying thank-you and showing up to school on time, aren’t the only responsibilities we’re teaching our students in Grade 1. Yes, I know they are only 5 or 6 years old, but teaching them solidarity, love, support, the responsibility to stand up and do something, is paramount to changing the aforementioned attitudes of the Grade 6 students (the students who were, once, historically, grade one students.)
David Hutchison, author of our Faculty of Ed Social Studies text, Elementary Social Studies, discusses cause and consequence and brings up the idea of human agency and the ability to contribute to change. The text mentions that students often feel “divorced” from the causes of change as they are not immediately clear or directly tied to their own experiences. The text goes on to describe the concept of the “everyday” or “ordinary citizen”. So often in history we hear about the famous, notable, rich agents of change and fail to pay notice to regular “joes” who lived their lives in that time period, and may have been unsung heroes or quiet agents of change in their own way. Balancing the study of the common man with those notable figures in history, may be one way to show that everyone has the power to change or to contribute to change. The feeling of powerlessness is pervasive, when it is modeled at home and school. We must advocate for change, in this case, a zero-tolerance policy, put in place by leadership figures, on bullying. Also, empowering students, through the use of rich resources such as the book, One, by Kathryn Otoshi. Where the central message is: all it takes is one.
In the text, Satu Reto is quoted as saying, “If you spend most of your historical study learning about famous missionaries, explorers, kings and queens, politicians, financiers, writers and inventors, you pick up the message that the life of the average peon is unimportant. If, in addition, you are from a humble background yourself, you pick up the additional message that you and your folks are not that memorable either.” I would structure this entire unit to empower students to be agents of change. It might be a little off-kilter, but we could still hit all the other expectations in the unit by bringing it back to this central message or theme. The students will go on to study everyday individuals who contributed to great change, Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Terry Fox, etc. it is important to understand that they are everyday individuals who can make change or bring awareness to an issue with the goal of making change, as well.
In terms of specific teaching strategies, the idea of Me to We, or explaining different philosophies of volunteerism, service to others and social involvement, would also be quite central to this study, for we are all connected and capable of doing our part to help others. I would argue that one of our central responsibilities as a citizen (of our home, school, community, city, province, country and as a global citizen) is to do good, to contribute, and to change things for the better. Through this unit we can study our own place in society and use it as a basis, through the grades and the rest of the social studies curriculum to become an active change agent, and hopefully, by grade 6, do something.
Image via Flickr - Jasleen Kaur
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