Teaching Anti-Bully Classes at School

How to prevent bullying?

How to prevent bullying?

Bullying: an ever repeating and all destructing phenomenon. Every year, millions and millions of lives are irreversible damaged. And it is not like bullying is just a temporary problem; a problem that will resolve itself as time goes by. It is structural, in the sense that it seems to be deeply ingrained in human nature. So the question is: what can – and what should – we do about it? Should parents teach their children about the negative consequences of bullying? And what about schools; should they too make a (more profound) effort to stop bullying?

But before we start, let me ask you something. When you look back at your time at school, what are the first memories that come to mind? Is it the Latin vocabulary you were forced to remember in the first year of high school? Is it the utterly useless, but sometimes amusing, gym classes you had to take? Is it the list of historical facts that you had to recall? I can only speak for myself, but I would respond with a firm ‘No’ to each of these questions.

Self-development
Looking back at my years in school, I can only remember the social bonding we, the children, had. I remember us kids playing together, trading collector-cards and chasing girls. Those are the experiences that – I believe – anyone is likely to remember about his childhood. Those are the experiences that have made you into the person you are today. It is because of these experiences that you have learned that it is not okay to steal someone’s football, and that it is no fun to kick your little brother. It is because of these experiences that you came to know that you were accepted by society. These are the experiences that proved to be truly important later on in your life.

But what if you would not have learned these lessons? What if you would not have learned what it is like to play with friends, trade cards, play hide and seek, or be in any other way involved in the social interactions that are of such great importance in the formation of any child’s identity? These are the lessons that get down to the core of what it means to be a human being. Of what it means to be wandering around on this earth of ours with your fellow species members. And let’s be honest: if you would have missed these lessons in your childhood, do you truly think that your life would have been any better if you would be able to remember the exact year Columbus reached America? I do not think so.

Schools
I believe that schools should, next to the regular classes, include a course about social dynamics, in which children are taught how they could – not should – interact with others. A class that teaches children the pros and cons of treating people in a certain way. A class that teaches children what the consequences of being bullied might be in what might very well be the most important years in a person’s self-development. A class that might make use of acting and little role-playing games in which the bully and the person being bullied repeatedly switch roles. Make it realistic. Make it tangible. Make it painful.

Because let me ask you the following: is it fair to put the blame on those that are being being bullied? To urge them to stand up for themselves and promise them that, if they don’t do so, things will only get worse? Is that how you truly help a child? And, on the other hand, can you blame the bullies for bullying if they have never been taught why it is wrong to bully? If they think they are just fooling around and that their behavior is simply the way you should behave among classmates?

Shouldn’t the responsibility lay with the adults? The ones who are supposed to know how to behave? And with the schools, the place at which children are present most of their time? And sure: schools might say that is not their responsibility to teach children how to behave. That it is the parents’s duty. But note that I am not saying that schools should teach children how to behave. I am only saying that schools might teach children what it feels like to be bullied, and what the consequences of this behavior might be. After taking these classes, children are totally free to decide for themselves how they want to behave. And if that doesn’t stop them from bullying, maybe more drastic measures, as in lowering bullies’s grades, might be necessary.

But what do you think? Should schools be more proactive in preventing bullying from happening? Or is it fully the parents’s responsibility to do so? And why?

Are the Exact Sciences being Taught Poorly?

I was relieved when I heard that I passed my final examination for mathematics on high school. Finally…no more need to memorize those nonsensical rules. No more need to study this weird language that, just like French and German, just seemed to make no sense at all. No more frustration. What a relief. That was how I have felt about mathematics, and about the exact sciences in  general, for my entire high school period. But in the last couple of years, I slowly became aware of the beauty of each of these “nonsensical” disciplines. I have read about Einstein’s theory of general relativity and other world-changing ideas that have catapulted our society into the 21st century. And this made me think: are the exact sciences being taught in the wrong manner? Is that maybe why I – and possible many others – couldn’t appreciate their beauty?

The (Dutch) labor market is short of beta-educated people. Why is that? Well, maybe it is because of the manner in which mathematics and physics are being taught at high school. Maybe children are being scared to death in the few years they are at attending high school, so that they promise themselves never ever to study mathematics or physics later on in their lives. That could be an explanation for the fact that the majority of children finishing their high school education start studying law or business, two subjects that aren’t being taught at high school and – therefore – could not have scared away any child (yet).

But there might be many opportunities for making the exact sciences more attractive to children. There are websites like BetterExplained, Khan Academy, Ted-Ed and MinutePhysics that are capable of teaching seemingly dry and formal concepts in a playful and interesting manner. These people have taught me the ideas behind mathematical formulas and the laws of physics governing our everyday reality. I believe that it is a lack of idea-oriented teaching, as being applied by the aforementioned websites, and an overdose of rule-based teaching, as currently being applied at high school, that is what is discouraging many youngsters from choosing to continue their education in the exact sciences.

Another reason why teaching according to the idea-oriented approach might better suit the needs of children, and thus of society, is that the parts of children’s brains required for being able to process abstract information are frequently not fully developed yet in the period they are attending high school. Therefore, even if they wanted to, they might simply be unable to understand what is being taught to them. Concepts like atoms or differentiation are not similar to any everyday experience a child knows of. These abstract concepts might ask a little too much of children’s underdeveloped little brains. And it is this “asking a little too much” that might result in children not understanding the topics and, what seems to be an even bigger problem, not enjoying to learn about them.

But it is not only at high school that rule-based teaching seems to dominate idea-oriented teaching; many university courses also seem to stick to the procedure of “just follow the steps” in teaching students about – for example – mathematics. But what if you go wrong by following these steps? What if you ask your teacher for advice and he says, “Of course you went wrong, you skipped step 6”. How would that contribute to your understanding of mathematics? Not much, right? Is that truly how we want to teach mathematics to students? Given that there seems to be no creativity required for performing these types of calculations, can’t we just let computers do it for us? Then we will at least be sure that no steps will be forgotten, right?

My question to you is: do you also think that the manner in which the exact sciences are being taught today might prevent children from studying them later on in their lives? And do you believe that the manner in which the exact sciences are being taught, whether it is in high school or at university, is wrong from a didactic point of view? I am curious to know what you believe.