Teachers Should Do More Than Just Teach

Teachers play an important role in nurturing a student’s sense of dignity and self worth.  They have the power to do a lot more in a child’s life than just teaching.  Teachers have the ability to foster motivation and self esteem in children and self worth by simply just being a friend.  Teachers must remember that children bully and they have the power to stop it.  Teachers should be in the lives of the children and not just there to teach.  Teachers have the power to teach students how to see the greatness in learning from their mistakes. 

Teachers should keep an eye out for bullying such as prolonged name calling, hitting, kicking, or any other type of physical abuse around times where their class is in limited supervision like the lunchroom, playground, and the gym.  They should ask other teachers who have interactions with their students to keep an eye out for certain behavior that they may feel is important to follow up on. 

Teachers should hand out a questionnaire for the students to anonymously fill out pertaining to bullying.  The questionnaire should ask if they have ever bullied someone or have been bullied in the past or present.  They should take the time to educate the class about such things and they should give the students the names of trusted adults in the school they can talk to in private if they ever need to, such as the school counselor.  If they know who does the bullying in the classroom, teachers should approach and discuss the problem with the child in private and not in public view because the bully wants the attention of playing the bad role and the less attention they get on the subject, hopefully the less bullying the child would eliminate.  Also, they can find an adult that the student who bullies trusts, such as a gym coach, or their athlete coach, for instance, and ask if the adult would have a heart to heart talk about the student’s negative behavior in private.  It would mean more coming from someone they look up to. 

If teachers find groups of students ostracizing a new student or any student, then the whole group should be held accountable.

Teachers can also encourage good behavior in students who bully with a rewards chart.  If the student receives a good report of behavior in a certain amount of days, the student can redeem a prize or privilege. 

I believe a great amount of bullying will decrease if these measures were taken to improve the negative behavior of students who bully.  Teachers can unexpectedly drop by on a student during lunch or playground activities and observe the bully student and quickly take actions appropriately.

Bystanders, who observe bullying and do not report, should also be held accountable.  Even though bystanders who observe the bullying remain neutral, in reality, they encourage the student who bullies simply because the bully got his or her attention.

To decrease the level of victims being bullied, increase the level of adult surveillance in hallways and other secluded school ground areas.  It helps if the hallways, lunchroom, and playground monitors learn names of students.  Keeping the older and younger children separated on playgrounds to eliminate the younger students from being victimized of bullying.  Bullies will find fewer opportunities to pick on potential victims if small group activities were moved to hallways or other related areas that usually take place of bullying. 

These are all very simple steps teachers should take to eliminate bullying on school grounds and in the classrooms.  Teachers really can do more.  Teaching proper ways to treat people at early ages and enforcing strict rules about negative behaviors are very important in elementary schools.