Monday, November 23, 2009

Bullying Project. by Nathan Wyburn

Inspirational Poster

Boy burned by buillies

(MySpace Photo)
Photo: Michael Brewer. 

MIAMI (CBS/AP) Michael Brewer, the 15-year-old teen who police say was set ablaze by five other boys, screamed in agony as a breathless 911 caller pleaded for help because "a little boy just caught on fire," according to a recording released Friday. 

WFOR-TV: 911 Call (WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT) (WAV) 

In the most dramatic of four emergency calls released by the Broward County Sheriff's Office, the relentless, guttural cries of the burning teen often drown out the woman who is dialing dispatchers. 

"A little boy just caught on fire!" the unidentified woman says, barely able to catch her breath to give her address. 

Prompted by the dispatcher during the eight-minute call, the woman asks the boy, "How did this happen?" He cries: "I don't know! I don't know!" Paramedics later ask him who is responsible for his burns, but he again says he doesn't know. 

In a second call made by another woman, the dispatcher asks: "They put gas on him and they lit him on fire?" She replies: "Uh-huh." 

In all, authorities recorded calls totaling 28 minutes — some rather calm, detached reporting of the facts, while the boy's anguish is evident in others. 

(CBS)
Photo: Fifteen year-old Michael Brewer is suffering from burns on three-quarters of his body. 

Five teens are charged with aggravated battery in Brewer's burning Monday at a Deerfield Beach apartment complex, which authorities said was prompted by a dispute over a video game that escalated when someone tried to steal a bicycle that belonged to the boy's father. 

The teen accused of flicking the lighter after Brewer was doused with rubbing alcohol also faces an attempted second-degree murder charge. All of the teens face the possibility of having their cases moved to adult court. 

Brewer's doctor said he is doing as well as can be expected, but faces years of skin grafts, therapy and surgery, and that potentially fatal organ failure and infections are common in cases so severe. 

"No BULLY" policy at Philadelphia Schools

"No Bully" Policy at Philadelphia Schools

By Patricia Hawke Philadelphia Schools has a “just say no” policy, when it comes to school bullies and other related negative student behavior.

Approximately, two thirds of all deaths among children and adolescents in the United States are the result of injury-related causes. These include motor

vehicle crashes, unintentional injuries, homicide and suicide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 126 students committed

a school-associated homicide or suicide between 1994 and 1999. Of these students, 28 committed suicide, of which eight intentionally injured others

immediately before killing themselves. None of these students were involved in gangs. The suicides, now referred to as “bullycide”, were attributed to

school-associated violence, including bullying and other such social stressors. Though the 126 students may seem small for a national statistic, this is only

the tip of the iceberg. It does not address the number of students who develop substance abuse and psychological problems due to being bullied and

harassed at school — some for many years from elementary through high school by the same individual(s). “Pediatrics”, Journal of the American

Academy of Pediatrics, reported in its May 5, 2004, issue that the rise of obesity and overweight in school-aged children is associated with “many negative

social and psychological ramifications.” Peer aggression is at the top of the list. To work toward eliminating this rising national problem in their schools,

Philadelphia schools developed a policy that prohibits anyone from bullying or seriously threatening any member of the school community during school

hours and coming to and from school. This includes: • Repeated threats; • Threats of bodily injury; • Physical or psychological

intimidation; • Extortion of any type; • Fighting or other acts/threats of violence; • Repeatedly posting information about another

individual without his/her consent on the Internet, bulletin boards, school walls, individual’s personal belongings, or any other location — whether it is during

school hours or not; and • Harassment for any reason, but especially due to race, gender, disability, language or physical characteristic. Besides

school personnel, Philadelphia schools have enlisted the help of the students and their parents. They have set up a Bully Hotline that is staffed 24

hours a day for students or parents to report school-related abuse. The hotline serves over 175 languages through a telephonic interpretation

service. Philadelphia schools promise to act on a reported problem within 24 hours of receiving the hotline complaint. For some issues, callers may receive

a follow-up telephone call to ensure the situations were satisfactorily resolved. Philadelphia schools created flyers in nine different languages that describe

the school policy against these negative behaviors, the Bully Hotline, and instructions for non-English language individuals to access the hotline. The eight

non-English languages are the most frequently encountered in Philadelphia schools and represent over 85 percent of their “English as a Second

Language” students. The flyers were sent to the parents of students enrolled in their schools. Additionally, they asked parents and community groups to

further distribute the flyers throughout the city. Philadelphia schools are truly concerned about the safety and well-being of its students. They believe that

all students have a right not to be bullied or harassed. With their “no bully” policy and the hotline, they are well on their way to prevent, address and

eliminate intimidation and harassment of any student for any reason.

About the Author

Patricia Hawke is a staff writer for http://www.schoolsk-12.com, providing free, in-depth reports on all U.S. public and private K-12 schools. Stacy has a

nose for research and writes stimulating news and views on school issues. For more on Philadelphia schools visit

http://www.schoolsk-12.com/Pennsylvania/Philadelphia/index.html. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patricia_Hawke

Source: http://www.edarticle.com

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Help Stop Childhood Bullying

School "gave autistic bullied boy stop sign"

A Queensland high school is under fire after a mother claimed staff gave her eight-year-old autistic son a "stop" sign to ward off bullies.

The boy was given the sign after he complained to Ipswich West State School staff that bullies had pushed him down a staircase and dangled him over a second-storey veranda, the Queensland Timesreports.

His mother told the newspaper the sign only encouraged bullies to further torment him.

"My son is terrified of going to school and no-one is helping him," she said.

"The situation is atrocious and I think that giving my son a card to wave at these bullies is completely inappropriate.

"It made my son feel terrible. He told me he didn’t go back to school because he had been told carry this sign about."

The sign was reportedly on a red card and measured approximately 10cms by 15cms.

The mother, who did not want to be identified, said she felt like she had "no protection or support from the staff".

She said she had previously bought stress balls to help him cope with his suffering, but they were stolen by bullies the next day.

Independent childhood behaviour specialist Dr Margie Carter said the use of the "stop" sign would make the child even more vulnerable.

"The mother has done the right thing is speaking out ... she needs to be extra loud in this situation so the child doesn’t become invisible," she said.

An Education Queensland spokesman told the newspaper the "stop" sign was one of many methods used to help children cope with bullying.

"Ipswich West State School implements a range of programs, including one that uses alternative communication methods, to help children — in particular to support students with a disability.”

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Being Safe from a Bully

I do not know what to make of this video but it just seemed very odd.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Bullying Images.


How can teachers stop bullying.

What can educators do about bullying by school staff?

Dr. Allen McEvoy's article Teachers who bully students will help clarify the issues.

Linda Starr has written an essential article for educators titled: "Are You a Bully?"

And Dr. Dan Olweus spoke about this topic at the National Bullying Prevention conference in Atlanta GA (October 2005). His research has found that when we ask students if they have been bullied by a teacher, half the reports we get seem genuine. His criteria for screening out spurious reports were:

  • clearly unrealistic descriptions of the teacher behavior: "My teacher crushed my skull." "My teacher hung me up by the ears."
  • reported by only one student in a class but not corroborated by any other students in that class.
  • very brief and unrepeated events of low intensity.

Dr. Olweus defined teacher bullying in this research as: "teachers using degrading negative comments openly about a student or students."

After screening responses, his research (done in the mid- 1990s) found that 11-12% of students reported bullying by peers, while 1.5-2% reported bullying by teachers, with the numbers reporting teacher bullying increasing as students got older. Interestingly, he did not find a correlation between any one young person being bullied by a teacher and that same young person being bullied by a peer- so his research suggests that teacher bullying does not set up students to then be bullied by their peers. This might not be the case, I believe, if the teacher explicitly invited peers to bully the target or talked critically about the target to the class rather than insulting the target directly.

Dr. Olweus found that half of students reporting teacher bullying said the teacher bullied all the students in the class, while half said that the teacher singled out one or a few students. He hypothesized that- barring extreme behavior- the latter type of bullying might be even more damaging, because in a class where the teacher bullies all the students they may be more able to console themselves by concluding that they have a crazy or mean teacher. A sole target may be more likely to believe that there is something wrong with him or her.


Here are some interventions I would suggest schools use to reduce teacher bullying:

- Work together as a staff to create a code of conduct for staff. Which methods of discipline, building motivation, and feedback are acceptable? Which cross the line into bullying? Which behavior toward colleagues is out of line? When staff discuss and agree on these standards, adult bullies are less likely to believe that their practices are supported by their peers. This code of conduct can become part of teacher evaluation instruments as well.

- Make sure administrators know about incidents and patterns of teacher bullying. As with sexual harassment, there should be clear definitions of unacceptable behaviors, ways to report, and protection from reprisals for good faith reporting. A code of silence will not serve our students any better than the code of silence that used to surround sexual harassment, It may be important for staff to report teacher bullying as a group to reduce vulnerability to reprisals by the adult who bullies.

- Work out ways all staff can let each other know when they see anyone have a momentary lapse into angry or otherwise hurtful behavior toward students. Sometimes these ways will be based on a code phrase or other signal.

- Survey staff and students periodically about school climate. Include questions about whether staff are treating students respectfully. Look also for bullying from administrator to staff (and vice versa), school board and community toward staff (and vice versa), and staff toward each other.

Kid bullied dies at 13

Monday, October 12, 2009

Wow and WOW!

This is a video of a kid whos mother got rid of his World Of Warcraft account.
This is an extreme example of what happens when someone gets so addictive to a video game.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Cartoon of Bullying


I found this cartoon with many more of how school bullying is found in cartoons. 

Bullied Artist Drawns On Experience, Has Last Laugh


            

A young artist who was badly bullied at school has drawn on his experiences to create artwork selling at more than 1,000 a painting alongside such icons as Andy Warhol and Banksy.

Steve Farmer, 22, of Shepton Mallet, Somerset, regularly suffered cuts, bruises and black eyes and once even had his wrist broken by bullies jealous of his talent.

Steve's self-confidence plummeted and he was put into the bottom group for all subjects – including art – before his parents finally moved him to another school.

But he has turned his brushes with the bullies into a successful career with fans paying more than 1,000 a time for the striking paintings.

He said today: "I hope my success will be some inspiration to all the kids who get bullied at school.

"It's important to stick to what you are good at and never give up. I felt a lot of anger towards the people who bullied me at school and I think that comes out in my work."

 

Confidence started to build

Steve was tormented on a daily basis when he was a pupil at the Blue School in Wells, Somerset.

He said: "It was a nightmare for me. Pretty much every day I came home from school with cuts and bruises and I often had black eyes.

"I think they picked on me because I was quiet and timid and I really liked drawing. The bullying got worse until one day some boys attacked me and my wrist was broken.

"That was when my parents decided to move me to another school. After that, my confidence started to build up and I went to art college, and from there things have gone from strength to strength."

Steve's mum Mel said: "At first we thought Steve might be exaggerating, like some kids do, but it got beyond a joke.

"We had a call saying he had sprained his wrist in class. They took him to the local cottage hospital but then we were asked to come and pick him up and take him to the Royal United Hospital in Bath.

"Doctors there realised it was broken and he had to have it re-set a week later. He said it happened when he had been pushed off a stool in class.

"His self-confidence was at rock bottom but he has always stuck at his art and we are all so proud of him."

 

Raw energy

Steve emerged from Northern Radstock College with a degree in fine art and began producing wild paintings that attracted the eye of Bath gallery owner Richard Mauger.

He invited Steve to submit some of his work in an exhibition alongside Warhol and Banksy at the Mauger Gallery in Bath earlier this year.

His paintings were a hit and he has since sold 10 works at £1,000 a pop, with fans from as far away as the US snapping up his work.

Mr Mauger said: "Steve's art has a raw energy that stems from a deep, fiery passion for painting and an even deeper passion for communicating with the world at large.

"When he showed his work to us at the Bath gallery earlier this year, we immediately felt he had something worth exploring. He is an exciting artist to follow."

 

Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Fine Art of Bullying.

The Fine Art Of Bullying 

By Kaycee Nilson 
Sept. 13, 2005 

We normally associate "bullies" as big kids in elementary schools shaking down the litter and weaker kids for their lunch money. But my dears, bullies can happen, even in adult hood. Only adult bullies do not shake us down for our lunch money, they shake us mentally for other things. 

It might be for other reasons. Reasons like ex-spouses not paying child-support because they claim they cannot get a better job because they have a huge amount of child support hanging over their heads. Well, if they would have paid the child support in the first place, the amount of back child support wouldn’t have gotten out of control, now would it? But then the bully will try to get the ex-spouse that has the children to go to the court system and say that they don’t want the back child support so that the bully can get a better job so that they "can start sending money regularly." I’m sorry Mr. Bully, but if you want me to do this, you better send SOME money via Western Union so I know that you are a man of your word and won’t keep your stupid behavior of not paying your children what they have coming to them up. 

Then there are the bullies that keep their spouses in line by controlling them through beatings and other methods of horror. People on the outside take a look at this relationship and wonder why the woman doesn’t walk. Being a victim of this in the past myself, I can tell you I didn’t walk because of pressure from my family to stay in the marriage and that the children belong in a two-parent house. Even if one of the parents is totally beating everyone in the house, you took your marriage vows seriously and you didn’t leave. I was wrong for leaving, a fact that is thrown up in my face during every phone call home. 

But I’m a better person now and my son is becoming a better person because we have someone that is a loving man. A man that isn’t beating us on a daily basis and isn’t the cause of the break-up of my marriage as some people believe. We are with a man that is encouraging us through positive enforcement to be better people and for that is truly God’s doing. 

The bully feels that they must push around others because there is something missing in their psyche. Perhaps they are being abused at home if they are a child. Or if they are an adult, perhaps they were raised in that environment and they don’t know any other way to live. They believe this is acceptable behavior. To make others hurt makes the bully feel better about themselves, because they too hurt on the inside. And we may never tap into the deep recesses of the brain of the bully to see what exactly makes them tick the way that psychiatrists have tapped into the brains of serial killers to profile them for the FBI. 

To get into the brain of a bully would be a most frightening trip, I’m sure. One would never know what one might find there, pain and scars of childhood might be in the deep recesses. Maybe just the inner desire for power and control over people. And of course the bully maybe just doing harm to others without even knowing that they are doing harm to others. And they are under the impression that they are doing the world a service by telling another person when they are wrong and what they can do to better themselves. A perfect example of this type of bully is Janice Dickerson, the lady that claims to be the "World’s First Super Model" and her antics can be seen on VH1’s "Surreal Life" on Sunday Nights along with "America’s Next Super Model." 

She seems to delight in not only saying rude things to others to their face and behind their backs. But she delights in the fact of trying to get her way on the "Surreal Life" by simply cursing the other celebrities on there and then using the excuse of "I’m a Super Model!" She is a model and a study in bullyism. 

Bullies come in all shapes and sizes. They come at you in person and in your emails in-box. They even come at you over your phone. No matter how long this chunk of rock we mer humans exist on, there will always be bullies to harangue us and try to make us feel like we are lower than a snake’s belly. 
Bully. What does the word make you think of? For some people, it's that girl at school who always makes fun of them. For others, it's the biggest guy in the neighborhood who's always trying to beat them up or take their things. Sometimes "bully" means a whole group of kids, ganging up on

someone else. No matter what situation or form it comes in, bullying can make you feel depressed, hurt, and alone. It can keep you from enjoying the activities and places that are part of your life.
Bullying happens everywhere, whether it's your town or Paris, France. It happens all the time, and it's happened since forever. Because it's so common, many adults think bullying is just a normal part of growing up. You've probably heard parents or teachers s

But why should something that can make a person so miserable have to be part of growing up? The answer is, it doesn't! Each and every one of us has the right to feel safe in our lives and good about ourselves. So IML put together this guide to give you all the basics of dealing with bullies.

Let's start by looking at the different kinds of bullying:

Physical bullying means:

  • Hitting, kicking, or pushing someone...or even just threatening to do it
  • Stealing, hiding or ruining someone's things
  • Making someone do things he or she don't want to do

Verbal bullying means:

  • Name-calling
  • Teasing
  • Insulting

Relationship bullying means:

  • Refusing to talk to someone
  • Spreading lies or rumors about someone
  • Making someone do things he or she doesn't want to do

What do all these things have in common? They're examples of ways one person can make another person feel hurt, afraid, or uncomfortable. When these are done to someone more than once, and usually over and over again for a long period of time, that's bullying.

The reason why one kid would want to bully another kid is this: when you make someone feel bad, you gain power over him or her. Power makes people feel like they're better than another person, and then that makes them feel really good about themselves. Power also makes you stand out from the crowd. It's a way to get attention from other kids, and even from adults.ay things like: "Don't let it get to you" or "You just have to be tougher."

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Standardized Testing


Ok I has been taking me awhile to decide what issue I want to discuss about. I have changed it three time but I have decide to look at an issue that has been an issue in the school system for years.  BULLYING!!!!

Here is a link of an organization that wants to stop bullying. Its pretty great!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Starting of new class.

Sean Reichert's blog for MAT seminar.
This blog will cover events and right that students are protect by IEPS.