Bullying awareness and prevention in the classroom.

There are many elements that an educator needs to consider when designing a classroom management plan; and all these components need to be addressed with the purpose of maintaining a safe and positive environment in the classroom. One of these main aspects is bullying; that directly threatens students’ physical and emotional safety and well being, and generates serious difficulties at the time of learning. It is extremely important that teachers address this topic and attempt to prevent it, in order to keep the students away from emotional insecurities related to this kind of abuse.

There are several possible interventions that can be implemented with the aim of making the students aware of the gravity of these kind of behaviors, but not all of them are equally effective. It is recognized though, that the most influential ones are focused on raising awareness of the problem and its possible consequences. If the school, and the teachers, make an extra effort on sensitizing the students with these kind of situations, and focus the intervention in the prevention, less bullying cases will occur. The following are some examples that schools and teachers can follow when directing activities focused on bullying prevention and awareness:

Presentations: Creating a presentation that details answers the questions of “What is bullying” , “How to identify bullying”, “What to do if bullying is detected”, or “How bullying can impact a person’s well being?” is essential to make the students aware of and able to identify bullying.

Guest Speakers: Having people invited to tell a story, testimony, or reflection about bullying can result very impactful for the students, and can make them aware of the severity of this problem. Some examples are police officers, athletes, artists, or other people that can be seen as role models from the students’ perspective.

Documentaries: Teachers can use movies and documentaries as another way to transmit the information related to the subject of bullying from the perspective of life situations and stories that can provoke reflections and thoughts among the students.

Role-play activities: Making the students participants of the learning and sensitizing process leads to situations in which they experience, from a fictitious and distanced way, a situation in which bullying is involved. This kind of activities make the students identify themselves with the victim of this abuse, and the feelings that it generates.

Writing personal reflections about bullying: Another option that can result very effective is giving the students the opportunity to reflect and express their thoughts about the topic of bullying. By carrying out these reflections, the students contemplate different perspectives and consequences that are linked to bullying.