Discussion cards:
CLASSROOM EXERCISE – Brainstorming Positive Bystander Strategies
Randomly select a situation from one of the many scenarios described in this exercise. These are situations that a student could witness directly or become aware of. Some teachers have chosen to write each situation on a separate card that can be drawn randomly from a pile, but this is not absolutely necessary. Staff should feel free to create their own situation cards based on their experiences at their school. Some cards could present questions for personal journaling and discussion rather than a specific situation (see below for specific journaling questions).
Suggested Discussion Questions For Each Bystander Situation:
1. How often do you see or hear this behavior at school? (no names, please)
2. How do you feel when you see this behavior at school?
3. What do you wish teachers would do when they see or hear this behavior at school?
4. What else could the school do to discourage this behavior?
5. What could you and other students do in this situation that would be safe and helpful?
6. What would happen if you did that?
7. What else could you do that would be safe and helpful?
8. What would happen if you did that?
9. What else could you do that would be safe and helpful?
10. What would happen if you did that?
11. What is your plan if you see or become aware of these behaviors?
12. Let’s role-play! (Ask for volunteers to play the target and the bystanders. Only teachers should play the role
of the mean kid. Don’t ever allow audience members to play the mean kid).
Ground Rules For Discussion:
Remember and remind students of the following:
• Do not use students’ names or other identifying information during the discussion.
• We want to invite a wide range of ideas about safe and effective bystander interventions. There may be more than one
or two right things to do.
• When students suggest verbal or physical aggression as a bystander option, explore the safety risks of this kind of
aggression towards someone who is teasing, harassing, or threatening another student.
• Many effective bystander strategies can be quiet or low key ones: verbally supporting the target later, helping the target
get away, talking with others about your concerns, being friendly to the target during free times during the day without
mentioning the bullying, asking a friend to stop his or her aggressive behavior if done out of concern for that friend and
in a friendly way, using your sense of humor to diffuse tension or change the topic, leave the area so there is no
audience for the mean behavior, provide a distraction, quietly getting adult help, etc.
• Telling an adult about cruel behavior is never ‘tattling.’ Even if the person being aggressive is a friend, students may be
helping him or her to stop a dangerous behavior pattern which could lead him or her into real trouble later in life.
Important Information For Teachers Or Other Discussion Leaders:
• Your goal is to help students generate and evaluate a wide range of solutions to the very real dilemma of
seeing someone be cruel to someone else. Please do not approach this task believing that you have the
answers about what you think will work best for them. Remember that this challenge is one that we adults
face and are challenged by as well.
• Please discourage counter-aggression as a strategy. It is dangerous and frequently will backfire. Assertive but
not aggressive confrontation is an option, but it takes judgment and self-confidence. Some bystander students
will be unable or unwilling to be verbally assertive with the aggressive student in the moment. This can be
hard for even adults, so unless you yourself often confront bullying colleagues, parents who yell at their
children in the supermarket, or people saying racist or sexist things in public places, don’t be overly insistent
about use of this strategy if students are uncomfortable. Even if you personally use the strategy of
assertiveness, remember that you are an adult and your students are not, and using it in a helpful and safe way
may be very tricky for them.
• Steer the discussion away from identifiable events that involve someone in the class or some other student
who can be identified. It is easy for discussions of those events to end with a re-enactment of the cruel
behavior.
• Find a way to have students practice the solutions they have developed through acting them in front of the
class so the whole class can see and evaluate the outcome of each solution.
• Work to involve as many students as you can in the discussion. One way to do this is not to allow one student
to respond to more than one question until most of the others have joined the discussion. It will also help to
ask students their opinions by name rather than just calling on students who raise their hands.
SAMPLE SITUATIONS (feel free to make up your own)
1. Someone says he or she is going to beat up another student after school tomorrow.
2. Someone calls another person gay/faggot.
3. Someone shoves into another student while walking down the hall.
4. While online you see a website that makes fun of one of your classmates.
5. You see someone steal another person’s belongings.
6. Someone decides that they don’t want someone to be in their group anymore.
7. Someone says that he or she will bring a knife or gun to school tomorrow.
8. Someone flips off another student (gives someone the finger).
9. Someone makes the “loser” gesture to another student and then starts to laugh.
10. A student says to another student “Do you want to fight? Let’s go.”
11. A student says to another student “I am going to break your neck.”
12. A group of girls calls another girl a lesbian.
13. At recess, the leader of a group of friends is telling one kid that he/she can’t play.
14. A student is told “You’re so gay!” based on what he wears.
15. You hear someone telling another student’s embarrassing secrets.
16. You hear someone say to another student “You’re fat and ugly.”
17. You hear someone say to another student “You’re stupid. Just kidding.”
18. You see someone sticking another person’s MP3 player or cell phone into their pocket.
19. You see two people playing at recess. One hits the other across the face.
20. You see two people shoving each other. They start with small shoves and work up to stronger ones.
21. Your friend says to another friend “If you don’t do what I say, I won’t be your friend anymore.”
22. Someone shows someone their fist and then draws their finger across their throat in a threatening way.
23. You see someone “accidentally on purpose” hurting other students in a soccer game.
24. Someone makes cruel jokes at lunch about how much another student eats.
25. Someone hits another student with a book (hard), but pretends they were goofing around.
26. Someone calls another student an idiot/dork/geek.
27. You see two students kicking another student who is on the floor. Everyone is laughing, even the target.
28. Your friend told another friend that they can only play with certain people and not others.
29. Students in the cafeteria save all the seats at their table and tell other students they can’t sit there.
30. Someone is throwing things at another student.
31. One person on the athletic team is really getting down on another player for mistakes.
32. Students agree not to let someone join a cooperative work team in science class.
33. Students shut some other students out of games in physical education class and complain publicly when they are told they have to include those students.
34. Someone calls another student gender-related derogatory names: b****, c***.
35. Boys tell girls that they can’t play a recess soccer game.
36. One or two people at recess always decide who gets to be on which team and they always pick the best players for their team.
37. A guy tells a girl that girls stink at soccer, math, and videogames.
38. Someone threatens: “If you hang out with him or her, I don’t want to hang out with you.”
39. Students pressure someone into a poor action by threatening to shut them out of the group.
40. You hear a student criticizing or saying mean things about someone who isn’t in the room.
41. A group is talking behind the back of a student with a handicap, calling her a retard.
42. Someone cuts someone else in the lunch line. This happens every day.
43. Someone is trashing someone behind their back to you.
44. Someone forwards you an embarrassing photo of another student at your school.
45. Someone spreads a nasty rumor about someone. They encourage others to pass it on.
46. You see someone making sexually harassing faces at another student with tongues/fingers.
47. Someone jabs another student with a pencil.
48. Someone keeps lightly poking another student with a pencil.
49. You hear someone get called a nasty name because of their race.
50. Someone trashes another student on their Facebook wall and you see it.
51. You hear students outside the special ed classroom saying “That’s where the retards go.”
52. Someone in class publicly makes fun of another student who struggles in learning.
53. You hear someone saying “That test was so gay.”
54. You hear someone say “No offense but, ….” And then cruelly insult the other person.
55. You see a guy twist another guy’s nipple (hard) as a joke.
56. Your good friend is being verbally cruel to another student in front of you.
57. During lunch, your friends are nastily gossiping and trashing another student behind his or her back.
58. Someone swears at another student.
59. A friend of yours comes up to you to tell you that another friend was saying “bad stuff” about one of your mutual friends at lunch today.
60. You hear someone say something nasty about Jane. Jane is your friend.
61. You hear something embarrassing about someone else and are tempted to tell people.
62. You’ve invited someone new to sit with you at lunch. She is really sweet and funny and you’re really enjoying getting to know her. Some of your friends, however, are annoyed with you for letting her sit at your table. They have started subtly making fun of her.
63. Someone walking down the hall on the way to class slips and falls. All his books go flying. A bunch of kids are standing there laughing.
64. You’ve noticed that a couple of people at lunch always seem to sit alone.
65. You notice that someone at recess has no one to play with.
66. Your friend tells you and all the rest of your friends to give someone the silent treatment.
67. You see one student hit another student on the butt or in another private place.
68. You see someone play a mean trick on someone else to embarrass them in front of others.
69. You hear from a classmate that another student definitely brought a weapon to school.
70. In the morning, you heard that a serious fight was going down after school off campus.
71. You see someone play a mean trick on someone else to humiliate them in front of others.
72. Your friend is sending nasty text messages to another student.
73. During a group IM or chat, your friends start ganging up on one of the group members.
74. Add a situation that you have witnessed here. No names please.
Journaling and Discussion Questions
1. Without using names, describe something you did to support someone who was being teased, hit, or harassed. What happened after you did that? Would you use this strategy again? Was there anything else you could have done that might have been helpful?
2. Without using names, describe a time when someone was being mean to another student and you couldn’t figure out what to do to help. How did you feel? What do you now think you could have done?
3. Without using names, describe something someone else did to support a student who was being teased, hit, or harassed. What happened after they did that? Would you use this solution yourself? Was there anything else they might have done that would have been helpful?
4. Without using names, describe something a teacher or staff member did to stop a student from name calling, threatening, or excluding. Remember to thank the staff member for what he or she did.
5. What changes would make this school a better place?
6. What actions or traditions at our school show that we accept and value some students more than others?
7. What actions or traditions at our school show that we accept and value everyone?
8. Do the rules here apply to every student? If not, without using names, please identify the groups of students who some rules do not seem to apply to.
Developed by Stan Davis, Empowering Bystanders Workshop, April 2008.
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