17 de abril de 2012

New course aims to fight bullying


By MARK PAYNE 

Published: April 11, 2012
Cal State Fullerton will be offering a new five-week professional development course this summer. The course is geared toward providing educators with new and effective tools to address bullying in K-12 schools.
The one-credit online course, “Understanding and Addressing Bullying,” starts July 16 and will be offered through the university’s Extended Education program in collaboration with faculty members from women and gender studies, psychology and education, and other experts who will provide video lectures.
According to the course website, the class will deal with the issue of gender identity and presentation, sexual orientation, how it is perceived, and how they play a significant role in most bullying cases.
The course is designed to give teachers, administrators, counselors and staff the ability to recognize and effectively address the dynamics of student bullying.
The driving force behind the development of this unique course is Karyl Ketchum, Ph.D., assistant professor for women’s and gender studies at CSUF.
Ever since her daughter had first-hand experience with cyber-bullying in high school, she has been working toward establishing a bully-free environment in schools.
“Back in 2009, my own daughter was bullied at Corona del Mar High School, and as a result of that incident I was also able to connect with some of the LBGTQ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, queer or questioning) kids at Corona del Mar High,” said Ketchum. “While my daughter and other young women at the school were being bullied and really sexually harassed, at the same time the LBGTQ students at Corona del Mar were likewise being bullied and harassed.”
The incident led Ketchum to take legal action.
“So we ended up enlisting the aid of the ACLU to file a lawsuit against CDMHS, which we won, and the school was forced to instate some training,” Ketchum said.
“The experience of seeing how a school can turn itself around once the people involved at the school …  get a little bit of education was really a profound experience for me and my family,” Ketchum said. “Maybe we can prevent these cases of bullying before they happen, as opposed to being reactive.”
The class, which is open for registration, will also deal with areas of bullying such as behaviors of bullying, characteristics of bullying and motives for bullying, as well as the different aspects of bullying including cyber-bullying, homophobic bullying and sexism.
Undergraduate assistant Michelle Rouse, who is a child and adolescent development major with a minor in queer studies, has worked closely with Ketchum in developing this program. She said working on the project has been very educational, and it has helped her prepare for a career helping children and families.
“Children need to learn how to be problem solvers, how to collaborate, how to play by rules … There are a lot of lessons to be learned in conflict on the playground that is resolved as a team, positive effect,” said Rouse. “But that is not the same thing as targeting someone; bullying targets an individual.”
Research assistant Jamie Hunt, who is studying psychology and women and gender studies, also worked closely with Ketchum to develop the course. She said bullying occurs especially to children who are gender nonconforming.
“This means that they do not show themselves in what others consider to be what ‘normal boys’ or what ‘normal girls’ wear. When a child breaks those gender roles, bullying happens a lot,” said Hunt.
Ketchum said she hopes educators who take the class will see their schools as social systems, and that by implementing some positive and effective measures they can assure students a campus culture that will focus on learning.
Another key aspect of the course will be to include information on how to respond to situations when students take extreme actions such as suicide or school shootings because of bullying.
“We’ve had young people, and continue to have young people, feel that it’s easier to take their own lives than go to school the next day because they’re being bullied. That has to stop, and that is what this course is all about,” Ketchum said.





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