Classroom Team-Building Activities

Case Studies:
Teachable Moments from Bullying in Schools

School is about learning. The reason we do classroom team-building activities to create strong classroom communities is because dysfunctional ones get in the way of learning, while strong ones magnify every teaching moment in the day.

Easy things include sending a note home to a parent about something amazing their child did in school, or asking for a round of applause for a classroom volunteer.

Harder things...well, here are a few case studies about bullying in schools to illustrate.

As sweet as these kids can be, there is a little mean streak running through most humans. That's the little voice that whispers to all of us at all ages to gossip, or pile on when someone is down, or make fun of differences. These cases require special handling or they will form little wounds that weaken your community.

Click on each of the following links to open a pop-up window with details.

• I returned from a day away to find that most of my class had been treating Grayson, an ADHD/OCD boy, as if he were dead. Case details

• Danielle was a large, special-education girl who was hard to get to know - but when I found out that the other girls were refusing to use the bathroom after her and making fun, it was time for a lesson on appreciating differences. Case details

• Gossiping girls can be bad news. This one is a scenario that spilled over into my personal life when I got an e-mail from a student at home, pleading her case. Case details

Note:If you have pop-ups disabled, you'll need to enable them in your browser, or, if you prefer, you can review all case studies at once in this PDF document.

Kids are human

There is nothing in any of these case studies that reveal some aberration of parenting, some impact of low socioeconomic status, or some defect of the education system.

Rather, these cases reveal nothing more startling than the fact that children are human and unless they are guided appropriately, they can easily display all the things that make humans disagreeable.

If you are willing to confront some unpleasantness and expend extra effort, you can use any teachable moment to strengthen your classroom team-building activities and your classroom community.

Take at look at classroom community books for good read-aloud ideas.

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