What was the key takeaway from this year's Bullying Prevention Summit, hosted by the Department of Education?
Peers matter.
It's not a revelation that we need to focus on the big picture, not just the incident. We need to be deliberate about influencing the environment and culture that allows bullying behavior to take place.
As Phil Rodkin wrote in Educational Leadership after the 2011 Bullying Prevention Summit, "Peer relationships are like oxygen that allows bullying to breathe and spread; peers can use these relationships as a cudgel, a weapon of shame against victims."
Citing "Peer Processes in Bullying: Informing Prevention and Intervention Strategies" (p. 470), Rodkin went on to say:
'Bullying is a social event in the classroom and on the playground,' with an audience of peers in almost 90 percent of observed cases. This silent, mocking audience grows exponentially, in frightening anonymity, with cyberbullying. Thus, the problem of bullying is also a problem of the unresponsive bystander, whether that bystander is a classmate who finds harassment funny, a peer who sits on the sidelines afraid to get involved, or an educator who sees bullying as just another part of growing up.
How do we solve the problem of the unresponsive bystanders? Encourage kids to speak up during the