Empowering Students to Curb Bullying
Standing up to bullying can be frightening, but students can use these low-risk strategies to support peers who are bullied.
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Bullying among school-age children is on the decline. This is a promising trend; however, 28 percent of all young people in the U.S. experience online bullying, and almost one in four experience bullying in person.
Bullying often takes place where there are no adults around, in transitional spaces like hallways and stairwells. It also occurs during recess, in the cafeteria, on the way home from school, or online when a child is alone in their room. Despite these conditions, less than 40 percent of young targets of bullying notify an adult—a percentage that decreases as kids get older.
Obviously, schools and school staff need to do their part to prevent and address bullying, including establishing policies that reflect district/state guidelines, assessing bullying at their school, monitoring hot spots, encouraging reporting, and educating the school community.
But another approach is to empower students to prevent and interrupt bullying by teaching them how to act as allies.
What It Means to Be an Ally
When we think of the word ally, we often picture someone who directly challenges the person doing the bullying. But most young people find confrontation difficult because it takes a lot of self-confidence and assertiveness. Many kids—like many adults—are not going to speak out against aggressors.
Young people need to learn specific actions they feel they can realistically take when faced with bullying. These are effective and less risky than confrontation, and can be used by those students who want to do something but feel unsure in the moment.
Teaching Strategies
Educators can teach these strategies in a few ways:
The Anti-Defamation League has some helpful real-life examples in a 20-minute online course for educators.
In 100 years, we may not be remembered by the subject matter we taught, but those generations of young people will remember whether they felt like they belonged, whether they felt safe and included, and whether all aspects of their identity could be shown in school and elsewhere. We can stop bullying once and for all by creating a compassionate cadre of allies among our students.