|
For a
Word Document Click Here
Preventing,
Eliminating and Erasing Rejection in Our Schools
Paper presented at the 2003
conference of the American Educational Research
Association.
Authors: Lisa Pescara-Kovach,
David R. Kovach, Dena Baker-Becker, Vicki Dagostino,
The University of Toledo
The PEERS (Preventing,
Eliminating and Erasing Rejection in our Schools)
Violence Prevention program is designed to lower the
incidence of targeted violence in the schools
(violence in which an attacker selects a
particular target prior to a violent attack).
We piloted the PEERS initiative
in the fourth and fifth grades at Starr Elementary
School in Oregon, Ohio. Children in grades four and
five are at a cognitively mature age in terms of
their ability to understand the level of information
provided in the PEERS Violence Prevention Program,
they are at a stage of development in which peers
are becoming increasingly important to their
healthy development, and because (as the
statistics above show) so much victimization and
violence is occurring in our grade schools.
PEERS is different from the
majority of programs directed at school violence
today because it aims to provide guidelines as to
how to prevent violent incidents in a proactive
rather than a reactive manner. Research by Kaufman,
et al, (2000) suggest that such alarming statistics
call for the need to create safer environments in
our schools. They suggest training the school staff
in all aspects of violence prevention, and
implementing school-wide education and training on
how to avoid and prevent violence. Further, schools
are encouraged to create a climate of tolerance
which can be accomplished by providing appropriate
educational services to all students on the topic of
violence, and actively involving students in the
decision making regarding school policies and
programs.
As such, the overarching goal of
the PEERS Violence Prevention Program is to teach
students the value and necessity of treating peers
equally—both as a humane behavior and one that will
protect them from harm.
In keeping with this overarching
goal, the three primary goals of the PEERS program
were:
1.
Educating teachers on the
personality traits of individuals who are
potentially violent;
2.
Educating students, and
their teachers, on the critical nature of peer
acceptance—in lieu of rejection and teasing; and,
3.
Having students take the
initiative in treating peers equally.
To accomplish GOAL #1: A
threat-assessment model was discussed with the
teachers to identify potentially violent behavior.
To accomplish GOAL #2: We
provided students and teachers with research on
damaging peer rejection; we illustrated to students
and teachers acceptable methods of peer acceptance,
and also provided them with hands-on relationship
learning.
To accomplish GOAL #3: The
threat assessment model was integrated through peer
input, that is, we had students and teachers develop
their own Standards of Acceptable Behavior
and put them on posters which were then displayed
throughout the school, and finally a reward system
was set up wherein teachers rewarded acceptable
behavior by praising students who informed their
teachers or staff members that another student was
being bullied. No longer were students told to
“ignore it” or “stop tattling”.
The second goal
of PEERS is to educate students and teachers on the
critical nature of peer acceptance in lieu of
rejection and teasing. A common thread running
through the violent school shootings is that the
perpetrators have all faced previous rejection by
peers. Kip Kinkel of Paducah, KY, Eric Harris and
Dylan Klebold of Littleton, CO, and Charles Andrew
Williams of Santee, CA, all made prior references
and comments to others regarding the fact that they
had grown weary of overt rejection by their peers.
Based on a review if 37 school
shootings (dating as far back as 1974), the Secret
Service and the Department of Education (Kaufman et
al., 2000) released “An Interim Report on the
Prevention of Violence in Schools,” in which their
findings confirmed evidence about targeted violence
at school. They found that:
§
It is rare that incidents of targeted violence are
impulsive. In fact, the incidents are typically the
end result of an explicable process of thoughts and
behavior.
§
The perpetrator, prior to most incidents, told
another individual about his idea and/or plan of
attack.
§
There is no single profile of a school shooter.
§
The majority of perpetrators had experience with,
and access to, guns.
§
The majority of shooting incidents were not
rectified with the help of law enforcement agencies.
§
Other students were involved in the conspiracy, in a
number of cases.
§
In a vast number of cases, the perpetrators’ having
been bullied played a pivotal role in the attack.
Clearly, students
must be educated as to the damage of overt rejection
by peers. If future threats are to be eliminated,
the catalyst must be removed. To illustrate how
peer rejection often leads to violence, we provided
students with research findings about children who
are rejected (i.e., teased and bullied) by their
peers. We also made students aware that rejected
children face the greatest risk of displaying
deviant, antisocial behavior, and that these people
rarely rise to popularity.
The final goal was to have
students address the manner in which they
will begin to treat peers equally. This was
designed as a means to integrate the threat
assessment model (A recently published list (2000)
by the Federal Bureau of Investigation outlining
personality traits and behaviors, and family and
school dynamics that often predict who may be prone
to violent outbursts). Initially, we presented this
threat-assessment model (overhead) in a talk and on
handouts to teachers regarding the PEERS program.
This list is also available on a PEERS website which
is available for students, teachers, and parents
access, and will be published in a PEERS Violence
Prevention Handbook at the end of the program.
During this talk, we opened up the talk to permit
student input. During this dialogue, a record was
kept of students’ suggested solutions. Later, these
suggested solutions were translated into posters,
which the students titled Standards of Acceptable
Behaviors. These “Standards” posters were then
placed in key locations throughout the school;
locations such as the cafeteria, library and
gymnasium. The posters will serve as a constant
reminder for students on how to behave in a
non-rejecting, and tolerant manner toward others.
The Standards of Acceptable Behavior posters have
also been posted on the PEERS Website to allow
participating students parents and teachers access
to each other’s suggestions. These ancillary
materials further afford students and teachers the
ability to identify a potential threat and increase
acceptance behaviors in an effort to prevent
violence.
We believe that the
PEERS Violence Prevention Program exceeds violence
prevention programs currently in existence. The
current programs typically entail having law
enforcement agents provide students with scare
tactics or telling them what to do in the event
of a school shooting. The PEERS program will
be proactive and prevent violent outbreaks in
schools. Prevention through acceptance is the
key. As stated by Kindlon and Thompson (2000)
“…just as one boy’s careless taunts can inflict a
lasting wound on another boy, so can even a few boys
change the climate dramatically with their decision
to resist joining in the teasing or to stand up for
a boy under attack” (p. 76).
The PEERS Violence
Prevention Program will help to stop the teasing and
bullying that takes place in our schools. Granted,
bullying has taken place for decades, perhaps
centuries, and many view it as a “normal” aspect of
a child’s development. One may argue that biting is
normal to a developing toddler; however, biting is
not permitted in day care settings. A distinction
must be made that something normal is not always
something that must be tolerated (Pedigo, 2001).
Bullying and teasing, though once deemed normal, is
inexcusable in light of the fact that we are aware
of its potential to act as a catalyst to school
violence (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2000).
On March 5, 2001,
upon receiving the news of the Santee High School
shootings, National PTA President Ginny Markell pled
that “All members of our communities—parents,
educators, business leaders, concerned citizens—have
a role to play in addressing the needs of our
children. It is only through concerned community
efforts that such senseless acts of violence will
decline”.
If the goals and objectives of
the PEERS Violence Prevention Program are met, the
likelihood of a violent incident such as those in
Columbine and Santee High Schools would be
diminished. The message of preventing bullying and
teasing through acceptance is the main goal. When
met, the project’s objective will greatly strengthen
the quality of life and education for the
participating children, their teachers and parents.
As stated in a poster from the Center for the
Prevention of School Violence, “The Bloodshed is
Never Going to End Unless We all Start Applying
Direct Pressure.” The direct pressure must come
from teachers and students who are educated through
the PEERS Violence Prevention Program.
Evaluation
To assess the effectiveness of
the PEERS Violence Prevention Program, teachers were
provided with an open-ended questionnaire on the
topic of perpetrator traits. To date, three of the
projected four time periods for assessment have been
carried out: (1) Pre-PEERS Violence Prevention
Program, (2) immediately following the completion of
the initial PEERS oral presentation, and (3) the
mid-school year assessment. The last assessment is
scheduled to take place at the end of the school
year.
Participating teacher answers
questions designed to compare baseline to
post-program knowledge of perpetrator warning
signs. Participating students responded on a
5-point Likert scale - 1 (Always), 2 (Almost
Always), 3 (Sometimes), 4 (Almost Never), 5 (Never)
that was used to measure changes in students’
acceptance behaviors. That is, to examine if
students had learned how to accept peers’
differences and to eliminate rejecting behaviors.
The Likert assessment is intended
to measure the extent to which the PEERS Violence
Prevention Program has affected the incidence of
rejection in participating schools. We, of course,
predicted that such negative incidents would decline
following the knowledge gained through the PEERS
program. As with the open-ended perpetrator
questionnaire given to the teachers, the Likert
assessment was implemented at the previously
described three points in time, and remains to be
implemented at year-end.
Moreover, data has been collected
from each participating administration on number of
crimes reported. Specifically, each administration
was required to report incidents of rape/sexual
battery, robbery, physical attack/fighting with a
weapon, vandalism, theft/larceny, and physical
attack/fighting without a weapon - the crimes deemed
necessary for reporting are consistent with those
examined in the Indicators of School Crime and
Safety Report (Kaufman et al., 2000). It was
predicted that with the message of acceptance
conveyed in the program, violence would decline.
*The final 2002-2003 results will
be presented at the American Educational Research
Association conference in April 2004, San Diego,
CA. Year 2 of the PEERS program has begun with
implementation at both Starr Elementary School in
Oregon, Ohio and McKinley School in Toledo, Ohio.
|
