Bullying and Name Calling

Taking a proactive approach to end bullying will positively affect every student in the school. Schools have a responsibility to ensure that all students experience a safe learning environment.

Welcoming Schools includes elements of social/emotional learning and character development. Welcoming Schools also includes very specific attention to family diversity, including LGBT families, anti-LGBT bias and gender stereotyping within discussions of bullying.

If your school has already adopted or is planning to adopt an anti-bullying program, you can work to integrate material from Welcoming Schools to enhance the impact on your school.

• Connect with a Welcoming Schools trainer or consultant in your area to start developing plans for your school or school district to specifically address bias-based and anti-gay teasing and bullying.
• Use our new film, What Do You Know? as a starting point to discuss ways to stop bias-based hurtful teasing and bullying in your school. See that students want teachers to stop this hurtful behavior. Use the special feature on the DVD Teacher’s Respond to discuss teaching practices.
• Organize evening events for parents and guardians to look at hurtful teasing and bullying and how students in elementary school.
• Make the most of teachable moments. Be prepared to respond to hurtful teasing and bullying.
• Check out What Do You Say to “That’s So Gay?” to see simple ways to interrupt hurtful behavior.
• Help students become allies to one another through a lesson in “Making Decisions: Ally or Bystander.” Bystanders lose self-esteem and empathy when they observe someone getting hurt and live under the fear that they may become the next target.
• Start the school year with a simple discussion based on the lesson “A Welcoming Classroom.”
• Discover books that engage students in how to stop bullying through our bibliographies on bullying including specific bibliographies on bullying and gender and books that are inclusive of gay topics and bullying.
• Check out “Facts on Inclusive Schools” for more research on the importance of a welcoming school for children. For example, hurtful teasing, name-calling and bullying affect the targets, the perpetrators and the bystanders. Children who are targeted and the students who exhibit bullying behavior have lower academic achievement.