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By Kathleen J. Tate, Ph.D.
Professor and Program Director of Teaching, School of Education, American Public University

Unfortunately, schools are prime places for bullying. School classrooms, halls, playgrounds, buses, and athletic fields, as well as virtual spaces like chat rooms and email, are all places where bullying can occur.

What is Bullying?

The federal government defines bullying as “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d., para. 1). The government states that in order for behavior to be considered bullying, it must be aggressive and include:

• An imbalance of power where kids use power such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity to control or harm others; and
• Repetition where the bullying behaviors either happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once (para. 2).

The U.S. Department of Health points out that bullying can be verbal (i.e. teasing, name calling, taunting, inappropriate sexual comments, threatening to cause harm), social or relational (i.e. spreading rumors about someone, leaving someone out on purpose, telling other children not to be friends with someone), or physical (i.e. hitting, spitting, pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things, making rude hand gestures); it can happen during or after school hours. Bullying Statistics (n.d.) adds that school bullying can also include homophobic bullying, bullying of students with disabilities, racial or cultural bullying, and religious bullying.

Bullying Prevalence

In addition to school-based and face-to-face bullying, online and virtual bullying is increasing. Bullying Statistics reports that bullying is on the rise among children, teens, and young adults and is probably due in part to cyber bullying. Recent reports show that “about 77 percent of students have admitted to being the victim of one type of bullying or another” (para. 3) and “according to the i-Safe American survey of students bullying statistics, about 58 percent of kids admit to never telling an adult when they’ve been the victim of a bullying attack” (para. 4).

Bullying Impact

Not only is bullying a widespread problem, but it can have long term effects on victims. Bullying Statistics cites several sources, including the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) report about bullying and reveals that long term issues include:

• Low self-esteem
• Difficulty in trusting others
• Lack of assertiveness
• Aggression;
• Difficulty controlling anger
• Isolation

Bullying can impact and hurt students in both the short term and long term. Many resources are available to empower teachers and school systems to take measures to protect students from bullying.

Traditional Approaches

Bullying Statistics points out various approaches to bullying including clear school policies about bullying, consequences, possible prosecution where state laws are in place for bullying, and community, family and staff training about bullying. Similarly, the American Psychological Association (APA) recommends that teachers be knowledgeable and observant, establish clear expectations and reminders about behaviors, teach students to set boundaries with technology (i.e. ignore threatening emails, set safeguards on social media sites), and report bullying.

Creative Approaches

Teachers can take more explicit, meaningful approaches to educating and preventing bullying through instruction and curriculum. Art, drama, comics, music, poetry, and literature are avenues through which teachers can help students learn to avoid bullying and treat others with dignity. These avenues can be connected to any curricular area, such as language arts or social studies.

Goldberg (2011), who advocates teaching about, with, and through the arts, explains that “the arts reveal many aspects of human nature and give students multiple outlets to express their innermost thoughts” (p. 6). Playing with words and language, forms of verbal and non-verbal expression, and movement more deeply engages learners into studies and exploring ideas.

So, how can teachers use the arts to address bullying? The chart below offers integrated ideas across the curriculum and grade levels.

References

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Bullying: How Parents, Teachers, and Kids can

Take Action to Prevent Bullying. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/bullying.aspx

Bullying Statistics. (n.d.). Bullying Statistics. Retrieved from

http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-statistics.html

Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.). Bullying Definition. Retrieved from

http://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/definition/index.html

Goldberg. M. (2011). Arts integration: Teaching subject matter through the arts in multicultural

settings. (4^th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Sousa, D. A., & Pilecki, T. (2013). From STEM to STEAM: Using brain-compatible strategies

to incorporate the arts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Resources

Common Core Standards Initiative. (2014). Read the Standards. Retrieved from

http://www.corestandards.org/read-the-standards/

Corey Thornton. (2012). The Don’t Bully Me Music Video Featuring Corey Thornton. Retrieved

from http://coreythornton.com/tag/cyber/page/4/

Rakeshaw, M. (2014). 13 Children’s Books Picture Books about Bullying. Retrieved from

http://humaneeducation.org/blog/2014/10/09/13-childrens-picture-books-bullying/

State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE). (n.d.). National Core Arts

Standards. Retrieved from http://nationalartsstandards.org/

About the Author

Dr. Kathleen Tate has over 17 years of experience as a special education teacher, researcher, and professor. She is a Professor and the Program Director of Teaching in the School of Education at American Public University. She received both a B.A. in Soviet & East European Studies with a minor in Economics and M.Ed. in Special Education from the University of Texas. She received a Ph.D. in Elementary Education from Florida State University. Dr. Tate has lifetime Texas teaching certificates in Elementary 1st-8th, PreK-12th Special Education, and 1st-8th Theatre Arts; and completed graduate coursework for Visual Impairment Certification PreK-12th. Dr. Tate taught children with varying disabilities in 4th and 5th grades in both resource and inclusive classrooms and 3rd and 5th grades in summer school. She has been a tenure track professor at Auburn University and University of West Georgia and has consulted for numerous online universities over the years.

Dr. Tate has served as a reviewer and lead co-editor for varied scholarly, peer reviewed journals. She also has authored 10 articles, which have been published in Youth Theatre Journal, Science and Children, Social Studies Research and Practice, and Teacher Education and Practice to name a few. Dr. Tate’s research interests include humane education, mixed methods research, underserved/underrepresented populations, arts-based and multimodal teaching and learning, and integrated/thematic instruction.

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