Jay Banks
Last year’s middle school student council was intrumental in bringing to Cook County Middle School this September an educator and entertainer who has appeared on national television. Cook County Extension Service coordinator Diane Booth said the student council had requested help dealing with bullying, saying the adults in their lives didn’t know how to deal with it, either.
Jay Banks, Ph.D., has been a speaker and trainer for 30 years. His fast-paced talk entertained and educated the students, and his advice was based on research.
Eighty to 90 percent of kids get bullied, Banks said, up to 30 percent on a regular basis. To help the kids combat bullying, he told them they would be getting a new I.D. called AFRA. With this new identity, they would be able to reduce bullying by 50 percent.
AFRA, four letters inside the phrase “I am unafraid,” is an acronym: A: Avoid bullies.
The Golden Rule works most of the time, Banks said, but some people will not like you even if you’ve never given them a reason. Many adults learn to stay away from people who don’t like them, he said.
Banks liked a definition of bullying he got from a kindergartener: “Bullying is when somebody tries to be the boss of you.”
Bullying is not a one-time act. It is when someone repeatedly tries to be the boss of you physically, emotionally, or socially. Both boys and girls are bullies, but girls tend to bully more covertly, he said, and that is just as harmful as physical bullying.
Banks advised the kids to think about where they would be likely to encounter a bully – the back of a school bus, for example. Don’t sit where the bullies will be, he said, even if it is more fun to go over bumps when you’re in the back of the bus.
Banks said avoiding bullies will reduce the problem by 75 percent. F: Find a friend.
Bullies know that they can get away with things when no one else can see what they’re doing, Banks said. He recommended staying within eyeshot of a teacher or trusted adult.
Banks cautioned against being in public alone. Sticking together with friends creates safety against bullies. R: Report bullying.
Research has indicated that nine out of 10 cases of bullying are not reported. Seventy-one percent of kids who are bullied don’t report it because they believe teachers and adults don’t care.
Banks had all the teachers in the room stand up. He told the kids that those teachers had been bullied and that they were equipped to deal with it. If he wanted to buy a cake, he said, he would buy it from a baker and not a plumber. “These are professional bakers of knowledge,” he said.
Banks had the teachers say to the kids, “If you tell me, I can help you. If you don’t tell me, I can’t help you.” He had the kids say to the teachers, “If I tell you, you can help me. If I don’t tell you, you can’t help me.”
Banks advised the teachers to never implicate or reveal the person who has reported the bullying. A: Act confident.
A student with a confident demeanor, what Banks called a “game face,” is three times less likely to be targeted for bullying, he said.
Banks told a story about an aggressive Chihuahua that challenged him and his siblings every time they walked by his yard as kids. One day, Banks was angry as he walked by and forgot to be afraid of the dog. The dog acted afraid of him. His demeanor made the difference. What schools can do
It is essential for counselors, administrators, teachers, students, and parents to work together to ensure program success. With a premise that bullying is a learned process that can be unlearned, schools need to adopt bullying prevention ideologies and adapt new intervention methodologies.
Banks said anti-bullying programs that establish clear and consistent models of appropriate behavior and consequences for inappropriate ones along with empowering bystanders show an average 50% reduction of bullying incidences.
More information on Jay Banks can be found at www.jaybanks.com.
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