Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Summary:
“Tapping Into the Power of School Climate to Prevent Bullying: One Application of
Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports” begins by pointing out issues with
bully reduction programs and what can be done to improve outcomes. The authors address a
major issue with bully reduction systems by suggesting that bullying is often looked upon as an
individual matter instead of as an issue with school environment. The link between aggressive
behavior in schools with high conflict versus the lack of aggression in schools that portray
harmony is a key component that supports a positive school climate as a crucial component to
reducing bullying. In the end, the concept was supported through the decreased rate of bullying
at Mountain Middle School after the implementation of a bully reduction program called School-
Wide Positive Behavior Intervention (SWPBIS). The set of systems utilized in this bully
reduction program aim to create a universal attitude throughout the school that gives a sense of
structure, support, and positive relationships through the application of operant conditioning,
Critical Reaction:
Overall, this system is effective because it works through preventative measures instead of
reactive measures. They use a public health approach of working to stop the spread of disease
instead of treating individual cases of sick patients. One of the tools that aided in their success
was using a natural human behavior, peer pressure, as a guide for a positive life style. In this
case, they use the students’ inclinations to mimic those around them to create a better
environment.
Additionally, their technique of using behavior strategies to help children grow is key.
Children are often reprimanded for their wrong doing and then left with little clarity as to why
their actions were unacceptable or what they can do to change their behavior. In this case, they
do not reprimand children for not understanding their wrong doing, but rather help them
understand how they can grow out of inappropriate behaviors. It would have been nice to read
about specific behavioral strategies that were used. The article states that problem-students were
taught to “self-monitor the behavior and recognize themselves when they violated the
expectations.” This is a very open-ended statement and does not have clear implications as to
how they accomplished their goal. Presumably the clear expectations of “Be Safe, Be
play to help all students self-monitor their behavior, but what individual attention was given to
students who continued to bully? As a whole, the strategy of using clear and applicable
definitions for a positive environment is key. Students can be quick to dismiss positive jargon as
adults being tacky. It is useful to couple the positive terminology with concrete actions. For
example, the practice of teachers modeling good behavior and having the children role play were
good tools to help the students connect positive ideology with positive action.
In light of this, it is important to make sure the adults in the school are all on-board with
the system. Their use of positive reinforcement through Mountain Bucks was a tool for
conditioning both adult and student behavior. They state that, when students were drawn for
front of the line passes, the adults who gave them the Mountain Bucks were also acknowledged.
This could serve as a motivation for adults to hand out mountain bucks (or it could deter teachers
who do not like recognition). The Mountain Bucks recognition is the only method mentioned to
describe how teachers were held accountable for upholding the positive school environment and
healthy teacher-student interaction. More effort could be placed into creating a way to motivate
More specifically, the use of operant conditioning through positive reinforcement (Mountain
Bucks) directly correlates to the material covered in chapter 3 of Human Learning. The
differentiation between authoritarian and authoritative discipline also touches on the concepts of
Future Research:
The case study for SWPBIS at Mountain Middle School was a good display that
incorporating human needs for structure, support and positive relationships is key to reducing
accounts of bullying. The argument would have been more convincing if this framework was
used in multiple schools. In the future, it would be useful to know the implications of this system
in schools with varying cultural (or sub-cultural) backgrounds. It would also be interesting to
follow the students through into adult hood and see if those who grew up in a SWPBIS
environment displayed kinder behavior as adults in environments that are not as intentional about
creating a positive environment. One component of the system that can be tested is if the
reduction in bullying was due to a true change in behavior or if it was due to a reduction in
opportunities. Intervention approaches were taken to change the environment so that students
would not feel the need to bully. They gave an example about un-crowding the hallways so that
students don’t shove each other. An experiment could be done where they add the old bully-
prone structures back in. If this correlates with an increase in bullying events, then this would