Building a Bully-Free Environment

Standards Addressed:

CASEL Standard: Self-awareness in analyzing personal actions.

CASEL Standard: Self-management in regulating behavior.

CASEL Standard: Social awareness in empathizing with and taking the perspective of others.

Objectives:

Students will be able to identify different forms of bullying.

Students will demonstrate strategies to actively support others and create a bully-free environment.

Assessment:

Identification of different types of bullying

Demonstration of supportive behavior

Pair work and question answers

Participation in classroom discussions

‍Key Points:

Understand the different forms of bullying (physical, verbal, social, cyber).

Demonstrate ways to actively support others being bullied.

The importance and participation of all in creating a bully-free environment.

Preparation:

Hang four poster boards or large sheets of paper throughout the classroom with these titles: Verbal Bullying, Social Bullying, Physical Bullying, Cyberbullying. Adjust the definitions to personalize learning for students as needed. 

Introduce the lesson topic: Building A Bully-Free Environment for everyone. Instruct students to work in pairs to come up with a scenario example for each type of bullying. Allow students to write on the poster boards/sheets, use post-it notes, or write in notebooks.

Bring the class back together to read and discuss the bullying examples. Support a student-led discussion on how they would feel if they were bullied in these ways. Ask students “How can we create a safe and inclusive environment in our school to prevent these situations from happening?”

Lesson

1. Ask the pairs to pick one scenario from each type of bullying sheet and answer the following two questions:
   • What actions can I take if someone bullies me in this way?
   • What actions can I take if I know someone else is being bullied in this way?

            Monitor pair discussions and provide guidance as needed.

2. When pairs have completed their work, bring the class back together to discuss. Ask each pair to share one strategy they discussed for combating bullying and supporting others. 
3. Post a final poster board/sheet for the class to create together entitled “Our Classroom Is Bully-Free, because we…”. Have students take ownership of creating their classroom’s Bully-Free sheet as they suggest ways to keep the classroom bully-free. Keep the final sheet posted in the classroom for the students to add to and use throughout the year.

Access the downloadable version of Building a Bully-Free Environment Lesson Plan here.

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