Bias, Bullying & Bystanders - Tips for Elementary School Educators

Practice. Practice. Practice.

• Improving your skills at anything takes practice – including stopping hurtful bullying and teasing.
• Practice with colleagues what you could say to students to stop harassment, to educate, and to let all students know that you expect respect and accept diversity.
• Practice responding to students’ questions about differences.
• Take a look at What Do You Say to ‘That’s So Gay’ & Other Anti-LGBTQ+ Comments?
• See Be Prepared for Questions and Put-Downs about Gender.
• Check out the Professional Development Activity: Responding to Questions About LGBTQ+ Topics: An Interactive Skill Building Exercise.
• Hold a Welcoming Schools Professional Development Training on Preventing Bias-Based Bullying in your school or district.

Teach your students how to be an ally

• Work with your students so they know what they can do if they witness bullying including talking with or befriending the targeted student, confiding in an adult, talking with the student who is being mean, causing a distraction to help stop the harassment, or speaking up in the moment.
• Check out the lesson plan: Making Decisions: Ally or Bystander.

Involve families

• Host a family night with a panel of diverse families from your school community.
• Hold a book night with students or teachers reading from books that show a range of diversity – including racial, ethnic, religious, economic status or family structure.
• Check out Family Education and Community Building.

Use books to engage students

• Read books such as One by Kathryn Otoshi or Benjamin and the Word / Benjamin y La Palabra by Daniel Olivas to spark discussion of hurtful teasing and ways to be an ally to classmates.
• Use books to spark discussions of the real put-downs they hear, paying close attention to ones that target a child’s or their family’s identity.
• Check out the lesson plan: Words that Hurt, Words that Heal.
• Check out Welcoming Schools diverse book lists.