This Month's Best Practice

Each Month the Maryland Center for Character Education (MCCE) picks one of the Best Practices from a Character Education award winning school to share with you.

FEBRUARY

This month's Best Practices is from an award winning school from 2005-2006.

 

BEST CHARACTER EDUCATION PRACTICES

 

School: Newport Mill Middle School

Address: 11311 Newport Mill Road, Kensington, MD 20895
Contact: Nelson McLeod, Principal  or
         Ellen Turverey, Guidance Counselor
Phone: 301-929-2244
E-Mail: Nelson_McLeod@mcpsmd.org
              Ellen_P_Turverey@mcpsmd.org

 

Title of Best Practice: Peer Leadership Program

Primary Character Trait(s) Emphasized: Respect, Caring, and Responsibility

Objective(s): To develop positive interactions between students to counter the enormous amount of teasing and bullying that occurs among middle school students. The Peer Leadership Program sensitizes students to the effect of teasing, thus, nurturing empathy, and provides opportunities for them to develop practical skills and confidence to interrupt, in effective low key ways, when they witness teasing/bullying.

Brief Description (including such items as materials needed, persons responsible, sequence of activities, observable results, references, etc.)

Materials:

• An application for students to complete who are interested in becoming a Peer Leader ( to be created by the counselors)

• Lessons for the Peer Leadership Workshop Model, as designed by the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence (www.cphv.usm.maine.edu)

• Optional (but helpful) – An in-service for staff on the Peer Leadership Program given by the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. (207-780-4756)

• A place in your school or outside your school where you can hold an all day workshop for the Peer Leader Training.

• Lessons for the monthly after-school Peer Leadership meetings. Purpose of meetings is to provide support to the Peer Leaders.

• Special recognition events, certificates, and awards

• School-wide monthly lessons focused on Respect, Caring and Responsibility with regard to building positive relationships and to interrupting teasing/bullying. The lessons are prepared by the Counseling Department (using general and varied resources) and taught by the teachers.

Persons Responsible:

• Principal arranges a time for the staff in-service training on the Peer Leadership Project and designates a time for the monthly school wide lessons mentioned under “Materials”. (At Newport Mill the monthly school-wide lessons were taught during Advisory Period).

• Team Leaders from each grade level, in collaboration with the Principal, help decide the best time to conduct the school-wide monthly lessons mentioned under “Materials”

• Counselors give the all day Peer Leadership Workshop, and if needed, can give the in-service training to the staff on Peer Leadership.

• Staff members (2) to help counselors run the monthly Peer Leadership meetings.
  Information to be covered at these meetings is developed by the counselors.

Sequence of Activities:

• In-service training for the staff to:
  
  Sensitize them to the deleterious effects teasing/bullying have on students, i.e. foster their caring.

Instruct them on low key respectful ways to interrupt teasing/bullying when they see it (condemnation of the bully/teaser often justifies their
continuation of this practice)

 

Encourage teachers to acknowledge their responsibility to be attentive to the teasing that takes place in their classroom and not to ignore it. (70% of teachers surveyed indicated they almost always intervene in incidents of teasing when they see it. Students who participated in the same study reported that teachers intervene about 25% of the time. Source: Charach, A., Pepler, D.J. and Ziegler, S. (1999) “Bullying At School: A Canadian Perspective,” Education Canada

• Introduce the Peer Leadership Program to students through an introductory lesson. This can be given by counselors or counselors can devise a lesson and teachers can give it. (At NMMS the introductory lesson on Peer Leadership was devised by counselors and taught by teachers during Advisory Period.)

• Counselor-made applications to be available for students interested in becoming Peer Leaders after they have heard the introductory lesson on the program

• Start with about 40 Peer Leaders (total) from all three grades of middle school. Hint: have less 8th graders and more 6th and 7th graders).

• Once you have your group formed, designate a day and space to give the all day Peer Leadership Training

• After the Peer Leadership Training, begin to expand the idea of a respectful and caring school climate by organizing the school-wide monthly or bi-monthly lessons. These lessons will be developed by the counselors and will focus on:
  
  Sensitizing students to the effects of teasing (Caring)

Investigating reasons to help other students (Responsibility)

Instructing them in skills on how to be an ally to students being teased/bullied instead of a bystander. (Respect to all parties involved is the basis of these skills)

 

These school-wide lessons will also help in giving Peer Leaders support from fellow students and will help in legitimizing their role as Peer Leaders.

• Arranging for monthly meetings for Peer Leaders where they can come together to share their mutual experiences and feelings and refine their skills. Counselors and staff (2-3) should be involved in these meetings in a rotating manner. Counselors create the lessons to be used at these meetings.
  

• Organize or celebrate events to support the Peer Leadership objective of creating a school climate of dignity and respect. Examples could be making posters, doing announcements over the PA and video taping role plays for view by the student body. These can be done for such events as No Name Calling Week and can also be done a various times during the school year. Another event Peer Leaders could organize is “Sit With Someone You Don’t Know Day”. Students sit with someone they don’t know at lunch and receive a no homework pass for the day. (Or, they can be given some other form of appreciation)

• By mid year, there will be other students wanting to be a Peer Leader. A time and place can be designated at which they receive the full day’s training and original Peer Leaders can help with the training.

• The success of the program is greatly enhanced if the school-wide lessons on Respect, Caring and Responsibility, as they relate to teasing and bullying, are consistent. Two lessons monthly is ideal.

Outcomes:

• Increasing numbers of students asked to become Peer Leaders demonstrating that students were becoming more interested in becoming positive change agents in their school

• This year a day is being put aside in September and the entire school is going to be trained as Peer Leaders

 

 

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The Maryland Center for Character Education
29 West Susquehanna Ave., Suite 300, Baltimore, MD 21204

Phone: 410-823-4902
Fax: 410-828-9661
E-Mail: MCCEcharacter@aol.com