September 2011 | Volume 69 | Number 1

Promoting Respectful Schools

Have a Little Respect

Marge Scherer

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Bullying—And the Power of Peers

Philip C. Rodkin

This White House report investigates the essential role that peers play in promoting or preventing bullying. Bullies use bullying to attain success and recognition; their success in doing so depends on the characteristics of the bully, the relationship that exists between bullies and those whom they target for harassment, and the reactions of classmates who witness bullying. The author describes the two social worlds of bullying: Marginalized bullies may resort to bullying from an inability to control their impulsive actions or from a desire to gain status, whereas connected bullies may use their popularity to dominate low-status peers. Bullies and victims often have a previously existing relationship that presages bullying before it happens, which, if known, would alert knowledgeable adults about possible trouble spots. Educators who exclusively target peripheral, antisocial cliques as the engine of school violence problems may leave intact other groups that are more responsible for mainstream peer support of bullying. A strong step educators could take would be to periodically ask students about bullying and their social relationships.

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What Students Say About Bullying

Stan Davis and Charisse Nixon

Educators striving to create safe, respectful, bully-free school climates have many programs and approaches to choose from—but it's difficult to know which will work best. The experiences of students who have been bullied can help educators decide what works and what doesn't. The authors conducted a large-scale survey of students, and asked 3,000 who had been bullied frequently what strategies they had tried to stop the bullying and what actions—by themselves, adults in the school, and their peers—had helped most. The results indicate that seeking help from adults and peers works better than trying to handle the situation alone. The authors explain what the survey findings tell school administrators and teachers about the best way to advise and support students who are bullied.

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Stepping Back from Zero Tolerance

Judith Browne-Dianis

Schools' use of zero tolerance policies has been increasing since the 1980s as part of a societal movement to crack down on drug abuse and violence among youth. But far from making schools safer, this harsh, inflexible approach to discipline has been eroding the culture of schools and creating devastating consequences for children, writes Browne-Dianis. In this article, she presents statistics about the increase in school suspensions and student arrests and describes individual cases that demonstrate the senselessness of harsh discipline practices. She also describes school districts that have revised their discipline codes, developing alternatives to zero tolerance in the form of positive support and interventions.

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What's So Hard About Win-Win?

Jane Bluestein

The win-win approach to solving conflicts, which has become popular in the business world, should be a natural for the school environment. Win-win thinking can foster a cooperative school climate by meeting educators' and students' needs for dignity, belonging, and respect. Yet win-win thinking faces a number of obstacles in schools, writes Bluestein—including teachers' fear of relinquishing control over classroom discipline, the misconception that providing academic safety means babying students, and schools' tendency to focus on the negative. Bluestein describes simple and unobtrusive shifts that teachers can implement in their classrooms to create a more positive climate in which power struggles are replaced by cooperation and mutual respect.

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Confronting Racial and Religious Tensions

Stephen Wessler

When a community's demographics change quickly in terms of racial, religious, or ethnic makeup, Wessler notes, tension surfaces. Schools are the likeliest place for these kinds of tensions to openly come to a head. Schools can't always avoid conflicts among students who feel mutual prejudice and suspicion. But schools can address simmering tensions in a way that lessens the chance of violence and shows students how to get to understanding and respect. Wessler, executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence, describes how schools he's worked with used "controversial dialogues" among selected students to help break through biases and tensions and heal even highly toxic school climates. From New England to Northern Ireland, he has found that, paradoxically, bringing the kids most likely to start fights together into dialogue is a potent strategy. When schools cultivate students' leadership on issues of respect, those students will step up in a crisis and become a resource for peacemaking by influencing their peers. Wessler shares suggestions for how teachers and administrators can get students talking, provide space for students to express feelings, and foster student leadership.

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Respect—Where Do We Start?

Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin

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Building Safer, Saner Schools

Laura Mirsky

Restorative practices are an effective alternative to exclusionary and punitive discipline. In this approach, students confront their unacceptable behavior and assume responsibility for it in processes that are supportive rather than demeaning. Restorative processes range from formal practices, which require training, preparation and time, to informal ones, which are simple and practical enough to become second nature. Three practices that can have a positive and dramatic effect in schools are restorative conferences, which are typically used for more serious issues; affective statements, which humanize the teacher and let the student know how his or her behavior has affected that teacher; and circles, which educators can use to build community, respond to conflict, or even teach content. According to the International Institute for Restorative Practices, schools implementing restorative practices are seeing dramatic reductions in misbehavior, violence, suspensions, and expulsions as well as improvements in student learning.

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Putting a Face to Faith

Charles C. Haynes

U.S. schools are becoming increasingly religiously diverse, but students rarely learn about different religious beliefs and how those beliefs—or nonbelief—might shape people's responses to important issues. Face to Faith is a free program that uses videoconferencing to connect students with peers from around the world to discuss issues related to faith. Students first learn how to conduct a respectful dialogue. Then they participate with students from partner schools in lesson modules related to such issues as poverty and the environment. Online discussion forums and social action projects build on what students learn during the videoconferences. Students report that the program has helped them see that despite differences, they have a lot in common with people from other faiths and cultures.

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Breaking Silences

Robert A. McGarry

When a gay male student began distributing letters at his high school alerting students and teachers to the antigay language in the school and teachers' lack of intervention, the letter was quickly confiscated. McGarry, an administrator in the central office, learned of the incident and of other incidents in which LGBT students and teachers were taunted and decided to act. With the intention of doing a study with teachers about homophobic speech, he started a series of conversations with faculty in the high school. These conversations, in which teachers reflected on their experiences, turned into a professional development experience that helped teachers understand how to stop ignoring hateful speech and to use such speech as a learning opportunity.

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Learning from New Americans

Bill Preble and Carlton Fitzgerald

To help aspiring teachers better understand their English language learners, New England College invited a group of recently arrived students into a classroom of preservice teachers to share their insights about how teachers can best support them. The future teachers appreciated the students' suggestions about pairing them with a peer, checking in often to address any frustration they may be feeling, and giving them feedback on their English usage so they can improve their language skills. The new American students also went into every social studies class in their high school to raise awareness about cultural diversity, overcome stereotypes, and build empathy. The school supported the students by inviting them into classroom to share their stories, holding small-group lunches for new American students and their mainstream peers, implementing a peer-mentoring program, and tapping students' expertise.

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Looking Out, Looking In

Debbie Pushor

When educators seek ways to connect with families and communities, they typically begin by looking outward. They attend to the barriers, challenges, and conditions that exist out there—families living in poverty, differing levels of parental education, and discrepant access to resources. Pushor proposes that educators begin instead by looking inward, examining how their own beliefs and assumptions shape their practices in reaching out to families and communities. This approach is based on the belief that parents and caregivers have deep and rich knowledge of their children that can make them invaluable partners. Meaningful family engagement, writes Pushor, isn't about getting more parents to come to parent-teacher conferences. It's about giving parents a voice and a place in the core work of schooling—teaching and learning.

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Discussions That Drive Democracy

Diana Hess

Adults in the United States have been migrating to ideologically homogenous communities, a phenomenon that researchers have called "the big sort." Thus, the need for young Americans to engage in civil discussion of controversial issues has never been greater. Public schools are an ideal place to undo the big sort because controversial issues fit naturally into school subjects like social studies and because schools often feature more religious, social, and ideological diversity than other settings. Hess describes what she's learned about how teachers can skillfully arrange for respectful discussions in average classrooms through 10 years of observing U.S. social studies teachers who do so. Key practices that foster great discussion include ensuring that most students work with one another early in the school year; preparing students about the relevant issues before any debate; explicitly teaching skills for respectful interchange; establishing rules; and modeling respectful demeanor.

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Life Lessons from the Philosophers

Scott Seider and Sarah Novick

A Boston school for grades 6–12 is making a deliberate effort to help students develop ethical minds. Each year, all students take an ethical philosophy class in which they discuss the school's core values and how these values are addressed in the writings of such philosophers as Aristotle and Rousseau. Through these classes, students develop a common vocabulary about respect that is used schoolwide, whether during regular whole-school gatherings or in one-on-one conferences with administrators. Teachers and students believe that this attention to respect and other core values has played a pivotal role in students' academic success.

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Letters to My Younger Self

Emilie Shafto

Now a senior at Drew University, Shafto recalls her painful struggles with timed mathematics tests during 2nd grade, the year she was diagnosed with a learning disability. Volunteering in a 2nd grade classroom brought back memories of her battered self-esteem and her discouragement. Shafto imagines what she would tell her younger self if she could and offers five letters to little Emilie. She tells her that she will not only soon leave behind timed math tests and discover her talents as a writer and advanced reader, but she will also come to see that her learning difference (not "disability"!) brings with it gifts like persistence and the savoring of hard-won success.

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The Threat of Accountabalism

Phillip C. Schlechty

Public education in the United States is slowly being overwhelmed by what business consultant David Weinberger calls accountabalism. In this view, we can measure important results of education exactly—and thus our reliance on standardized test scores as a primary measure in holding schools and teachers accountable. More and more teachers are succumbing to the pressure to focus on the test, and more and more students now engage in mindless test prep. Public schools are no longer accountable to the public; rather, they're accountable to government officials. Rather than putting government officials between the public and the schools, we should find better ways to make local schools accountable to the public and to ensure that the standards the local community upholds are of value to students and society.

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Bullying Is Common—And Subtle

Bryan Goodwin

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The Perils and Promises of Discovery Learning

Robert J. Marzano

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Too Plugged In

Thomas R. Hoerr

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Respecting Students

Carol Ann Tomlinson

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Double Take

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A Time When You Turned Disrespect into Respect

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ASCD Community in Action

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Creating a Climate of Respect

Jonathan Cohen, Richard Cardillo and Terry Pickeral

School climate reform begins by measuring—and, thus, publicly recognizing—how respectful a school's climate is and then using this information to create safer and more supportive, engaging, challenging, and joyful schools. When we measure school climate in valid ways, we recognize and value all aspects of the learning process—not just the intellectual aspect, but the social, emotional, and civic aspects as well. School climate reform has four major goals: to foster democratically informed school communities, support students and teachers, ensure safe schools, and promote student engagement.

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Blue Tickets and Big Smiles

Aaron S. Hunt

An administrator at Westover Park Junior High School describes how his rural middle school put in place a program of Positive Behavior Support, largely in response to a school survey that revealed both faculty and staff considered the school's climate "toxic and clinical." By implementing Positive Behavior Support, the school moved from a disciplinary approach involving out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and even placements to alternative schools to a schoolwide code of behavior that all students and adults agreed to uphold. Hunt delineates the specifics of this "Warrior Code" and how teachers and counselors teach it to the school community. He presents results showing the switch to a more respectful school climate and saner discipline policies that followed adopting the code.

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Minding Manners, Having Heart

Rhonda Barton and Bracken Reed

From hiring a social skills tutor to giving students practice in complimenting peers to providing clean clothes for impoverished students, the two elementary schools described here have undertaken creative practices to focus on students' social and emotional lives. Both schools serve students in challenging environments. Russian Jack Elementary is a high-poverty school in Anchorage, Alaska. Manitou Park Elementary, in a rough section of Tacoma, Washington, was plagued by gangs, serious fighting, and traumatic home lives that followed children into the classroom. Both schools took seriously the research indicating that social-emotional factors are among those that influence student learning most, and that students with good social skills and emotional awareness achieve more. Both took advantage of approaches and curriculums that have been created to help schools focus on students' social and emotional needs, including the Connected and Respected Curriculum and the Compassionate Schools framework.

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EL Study Guide

Teresa K. Preston

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