C.A.R.E.IOU: Anti-Bullying Unit

Bullying is a serious problems in schools requiring changes in school climate. This unit provides a proactive approach that helps students connect with and identify their roles in bullying incidents as the one bullied, the one bullying, joiners, or friends of the victim who either speak up or say nothing. Statistics are created by a survey identifying these characteristics anonymously to quantify students' actions in bullying incidents, which could expand to action research comparing students studying the unit with another class that participates in the introductory survey. A video telling the story of a middle-school student's life as a victim of bullying at school provides students in the treatment class with a tragic example of bullying and allows them to look at the sequence of events that led to the bullied child committing suicide to think about where things could have changed if someone had intervened. The unit ends with students agreeing to respect and value others and changing the climate in their classroom. This unit could also be taught at all grade levels in a school district with adjustments made for lower grades and students with special needs to foster change in an entire community's school climate.