The Anti-Bullying and Teasing Program: The Center’s Perspective

• In Event: Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Innovative Replicable Early Childhood Anti-Harassment, Intimidation, Bullying, and Teasing Programs: School and Museum Settings

Abstract

This paper will present the views of English and Spanish-speaking urban center staff about TABT program and class visits to Kidsbridge Museum. The research reported in this study builds on the foundation laid by the English language ABT book and classroom programs during Phase I by implementing the Spanish language program and interactive bilingual tolerance museum exhibits in Phase II. It includes a description of the integration of TABT program into core curriculum and program activities at one center.

Staff members’ objectives for this study included assisting the children in responding positively to environmental and interpersonal cues and supporting the positive affective development of children and adults.

Teachers and supervisors at Howley School have been working with TABT program and its predecessors since 2003. In Phase II they added the Spanish language ABT book and related trade books, and reviewed the work of Fortuny et.al., Garcia et.al., Paley, Copple and Bredekamp, and Kaiser and Rasminsky for theoretical perspectives.

In addition to lesson plans and reflections, teachers at Howley School kept journals of the ongoing classroom integration of ABT program themes and concepts, and assessed the Kidsbridge Museum visit in terms of its applicability to their ongoing work, in addition to evaluating its effectiveness for their students. Reflective summaries cite children coming up with their own solutions to conflicts, generating rules, helping one another, dealing with feelings appropriately, and developing a sense of community and pride as outcomes of Phase II.

Teachers at Children First Academy began to implement the Spanish language ABT program in the fall of 2012. When they visited Kidsbridge with their classes in spring 2013 they were completing their first year of lessons and activities. In addition to including specific ABT activities in their lesson planning, the teachers kept notes on student responses and their own reflections.

Four TCNJ students worked in classrooms with the teachers in the experimental group. Two students from the undergraduate research seminar were assigned to practicum placements at Howley School in the fall of 2012 and continued to attend in the spring of 2013, and one research student assigned to Children First in the fall also taught a required social studies lesson on “favorite foods.” Two students from the Spanish 223 - Experiential Learning course were assigned to Children First in the spring. One of those students also taught required anti-bullying lessons for her social studies course at the school. The teachers at Children First appreciated the student and collegiate support as they began their work with the program. (Santiago, Personal communication, July 2013).

Author

• Lisa Cipriano-Rogalski, Howley School