This is not the first time the Obama administration has spoken out about bullying. In this two minute video Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shares here thoughts.

Regardless of your political views, it’s encouraging to see our nation’s leadership taking the issue seriously. It’s important that we not let the progress we’ve made in the anti-bullying movement the past couple year stall.

As more and more leaders, celebrities, teachers, students, and community leaders speak out the message becomes clear. Bullying is no longer acceptable and we’re no longer going to turn a blind eye.

Please take a couple moments to watch the video. Perhaps one day we can take the culture of caring that has to be built in our schools and extend it across every plane of American life.

Let’s build that future together.

We were pleasantly surprised to find this article about our recent presentation of Character All Stars!

From the article:

The Parent Teacher Central at Central Elementary continues to magically change the lives of area students.

The group regularly holds events to help involve families in the activities of the children who attend Central Elementary.

On April 4, the PTC hosted a Family Fun Night and Appreciation Raffle. The event featured a Shizzle Dizzle Magic Show for students and their family members to enjoy.

We’d like to thank Central for being such an awesome audience. It was truly a pleasure to EDUtain your students and families.

We know that bullying may lead to brain damage and even lower test scores, but this one’s new…

According to US News and World Report, a recent study suggests that bullying may raise the risk of suicidal thoughts.

From the article…

Children involved in bullying are more likely than their peers to consider suicide by the time they are 11, a new study indicates.

These thoughts of self-harm are not limited to victims of bullying, however. The study also revealed that bullies themselves are much more prone to suicidal thoughts or some other form of self-harm.

Whoa… It’s not just the targets of bullying. It’s the bullies themselves. That’s huge.

I’ve talked about my personal bullying story before. One of the things that surprised me was when I heard from some of the people that bullied me after High School.

They apologized and felt genuinely bad about what happened. I had moved on, but they still had to live with what they did.

That’s one of the things people underestimate. Bullying doesn’t just affect the targets. It affects the bullies too. It hurts everyone.

Even after taking into account other factors, such as family circumstances or preexisting emotional problems, the researchers were unable to find other reasons for the increased instance of suicidal thoughts among children involved in bullying.

The full article is well worth your time to read. Click here to read it.

It’s clear that there are very real risks associated with bullying. That’s why it’s so important to take a stand, reach out, and create cultures of caring at our schools!

There’s many frustrating misconceptions about bullying. One of them is the idea that its effects are short lived.

People still tend to treat is as a “right of passage” or a “part of growing up”. There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. In one study there was even a link found between bullying and brain damage.

Despite this, popular opinion seems to be that the effects of bullying are temporary.

A recent study performed at the Wayne State College in Nebraska reveals that the effects of bullying may last into college:

The data suggest that students who are bullied in high school and/or junior high school continue to be victimized (called names, excluded from class activities, physically abused, etc.) in college.

Whether a consequence of being bullied in high school, in junior high school, or in college, the victims feel alone and isolated. They find it hard to make friends, and they feel that no one will listen to them while in college.

Victims also reported that they do not know how to fight back when individuals say hurtful things to them; they report this to a much greater degree than those not bullied.

All this seems obvious. Why would a bully’s behavior suddenly change simply because they left high school and entered college?

Would the things that made someone an easy target in high school not make them easy targets in college?

There’s evidence suggesting that the targets of bullying score lower on tests.

It seems pretty obvious that the effects of bullying often change the course of people’s entire lives.

It’s more than a phase. It’s more than a “right of passage”. It’s a real problem with real consequences.

Works Cited

ADAMS, FRANK D., and GLORIA J. LAWRENCE. “Bullying Victims: The Effects Last Into College.” American Secondary Education 40.1 (2011): 4-13. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Mar. 2012.

Surprised? Don’t be.

This info comes from an article published late last year in Educational Leadership (citation below). From the article…

Educators can easily get the false impression that bullying is not a problem in their school. That’s because teachers and administrators typically see only about 4 percent of bullying incidents.

The bullying problem is a lot bigger than we realize. Why is so little of it observed? Why don’t we see it happening?

First, bullies have a knack for picking kids that aren’t going to report what’s happening. The targets of bullying often blame themselves. They feel that somehow they’re at fault.

According to the article only about 1/3 of those who are bullied report it, and then it’s only after they’ve been physically hurt.

The second reason is that our understanding of bullies is wrong. I’ve written about this before.

When you think of a bully, what do you think of? Most people describe a lonely social outcast. This type of bully certainly exists, but most don’t fall into this category.

From the article:

A recent study of three North Carolina schools found that most bullies are not the stereotypical social outcasts waiting in the back hallway to extort lunch money. Rather, they are often popular or semi-popular social climbers.

The extensive survey of student interactions found that at least one-third of students displayed aggression toward others (favoring social aggression over physical aggression by a 2:1 ratio) and that more popular kids displayed more frequent social aggression.

Stated bluntly, many kids climb the social pyramid on the backs of other students, using ostracism, ridicule, and gossip to gain social status.

So what’s really happening? It’s not just the outcasts that are the bullies. It’s the popular kids too! In fact, the more popular the kid, the more likely they are to be a bully!

This seems counter intuitive. Why would the most popular kids be the biggest bullies? It’s because they use their superior social skills to manipulate their way to the top…

Make no mistake. The socially connected bully is smart. Too smart to let a teacher or other authority figure see what they’re doing.

This makes the effectiveness of any anti-bullying program questionable. How can we stand against bullying when most bullying behavior is done “under the radar”?

…the best approaches work to change the overall school climate through ongoing messages (via parent meetings and newsletters, school information, and the classroom curriculum) that help students recognize social aggression and stick up for victims.

Ultimately, bullying becomes not socially beneficial, but rather socially unacceptable.

Put simply, it requires a cultural change. Bullying has to become “uncool”. When it no longer is a viable tool to gain popularity, students will quit using it.

Cultural change doesn’t come easy. It requires persistent and consistent effort. It’s a long term commitment.

That’s why our approach to anti-bullying assemblies is different.

There’s a limit to what we can accomplish in a single assembly. We’re not naive enough to believe that all your bullying problems will be solved when we leave.

What we give you is a springboard…

When we’re done, your students will be buzzing with energy. They’ll be excited about taking a new direction. The question is… Who will lead them down the path?

Works Cited

Goodwin, Bryan. “Bullying Is Common — And Subtle.” Educational Leadership 69.1 (2011): 82-84. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Mar. 2012.

Our home state of Ohio is still reeling after the recent violence at Chardon High School. It’s a sobering reminder that we need to stand against bullying.

We know that most anti-bullying programs don’t work. What can we do to make a difference?

CNN recently did an interview with Jessie Klein, author of The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America’s Schools.

Check out the video from the interview. It’s well worth a couple minutes of your time to watch…

The idea is simple but brilliant… We need to stop focusing on worrying about individual kids and start looking at the school culture as a whole.

Instead of allowing a culture of hostility, we need to create a culture of caring!

We don’t accept every school that contacts us to visit. We pick and choose carefully. I made the decision a long time ago that I only wanted to visit schools where I felt like we could make a difference…

This is One of the Things We Look for when
Choosing Schools to Visit…

Do they try to rule with an iron fist? Do they try to maintain control through fear and intimidation?

…Or do they try to inspire the kids to do better? Do they build relationships? Do they try to create a culture where every student know they’re cared about?

I’ll never forget one of the principals we partnered with a couple months ago. The students were exceptionally well behaved and were a joy to present to.

When I talked to him afterwards he told me something interesting. One of his highest priorities is building relationships with the students.

As I observed it was obvious that he, the teachers, and the staff all had created strong bonds with the students.

He told me about another school he worked with where this strategy reduced referrals to the office by 75%!!!

Ladies and gentlemen… That’s the power of a culture of caring…

Thanks to everyone who came out to see us at the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts! You were truly a fantastic audience. I hope you enjoyed the show as much as we enjoyed performing it for you!

Thanks to all of our audience volunteers. You’re the REAL stars of the show. Each of you totally rocked and made the show special!

To everyone who stuck around to learn the magic trick afterwards… If you forget how to do it here’s a video to help you out…

We teach this trick and more in our magic classes! We actually have a super secret area of this website filled with videos similar to this one. You can log on and re-learn how to do all the tricks!

Thanks again for coming out. If you’d like to stay up to date with what we’re doing, why not like us on Facebook?

Thanks Again to the Sponsors!

A while back we did a post on why we take a different approach to anti-bullying assemblies.

Most presentations try to “scare the kids straight”. They hammer on the harmful effects of bullying and try to create change by making everyone feel miserable.

We’ve been skeptical of this approach from day one. We believe it makes a bad situation worse.

Turns out we’re right. There’s academic research to back it up. “Preaching” at the kids and following up with severe punishments doesn’t work.

There was a peer reviewed article published on this back in October 2011. It’s cited at the end of this post. Here are a few crucial bits that I feel are relevant.

Once school teams identify bullying behavior as a problem, the most common response is to implement a standalone, anti-bullying program. Such programs commonly include holding school assemblies with speakers who highlight the harmful effects of bullying and teach students how to identify bullies, then follow up with a focus on catching such students in the act and providing increasingly severe punitive measures…

Unfortunately, these practices have shown to be generally ineffective–they may actually be as likely to exacerbate problems as solve them.

To us that’s always been obvious. It’s nice to finally have actual academic research to prove it. While everyone else is trying to make the kids cry we’re making a rubber chicken lay invisible eggs…

Everyone knows the harmful effects of bullying. Hammering on that doesn’t help.

Rather than make kids fearful of consequences, we feel it’s more powerful to inspire them.

Think about it… If you WANT to do something you’re much more motivated than if you HAVE to do something.

Bottom line… Leaders inspire. Dictators threaten. People love a leader. They fear a dictator. A leader gets the best out of people. A dictator gets the bare minimum to meet his or her demands.

Still not convinced? Ok… Let’s look at another part of the article…

Stand-alone, anti-bullying programs and curricula are often based on the premise that bullying can be reduced solely by increasing supervision, identifying perpetrators, and punishing them until they no longer bully other students. However, a program based on such an approach was shown to increase the number of students who reported being bullied by 20%.

Students who engage in bullying may obtain social prestige or desired attention from their targets, and these rewards are often immediate and outweigh later consequences. In addition, children who are labeled as bullies may draw self-confidence and self-identification from that label, which may, in turn, cause them to use such behavior more often.

Moreover, school discipline programs that rely on zero tolerance policies and increasingly severe punishment procedures for offenders have shown to increase instances of aggression.

So basically what you create is a cycle of fear and punishment. Bullies love fear. Typical anti-bullying programs actually create the types of environments that bullies thrive in.

So what’s the solution? Character education. Specifically, Positive Behavior Support is showing very positive signs of reducing bullying.

Here’s one more quote…

A promising alternative to the standalone, anti-bullying program is to include the anti-bullying program as part of a broader systems-level approach to preventing and addressing problem behavior. One such approach is Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support.

SWPBS is a proactive, systems-level approach that provides the tools and practices to help support students and staff and promote positive social and learning environments.

Randomized control trials have consistently shown significantly improved academic and behavioral outcomes for students in schools implementing SWPBS compared to control schools.

A lot of people are surprised that we updated Character All Stars less than a year after launching it. It’s now focused around Positive Behavior Intervention Support.

Why? BECAUSE PBIS WORKS…

Remember… All this is coming from peer reviewed sources. It’s significantly easier to prevent bullying from happening than it is to react to an existing problem.

It’s our goal to give you the absolute best anti-bullying and character education assemblies possible. We want to create real change.

If the academic research says we need to throw out an entire script (which is what we did with Character All Stars), so be it.

Definitely check out the full article. It’s about nine pages long, but well worth your time. The citation is below.

Works Cited

Good, Chris P., Kent McIntosh, and Carmen Gietz. “Integrating Bullying Prevention Into Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support.” Teaching Exceptional Children 44.1 (2011): 48-56. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.

About This Video

This is a great way to introduce positive character traits to your classroom!

Have each of your students call out a positive character trait. As they’re named, write them down and place them in a bowl.

At the end one piece of paper is drawn out of the bowl. The trait that’s written on it matches a prediction that you made earlier!

This is another super-easy, totally self working trick that your classroom will love! In addition to character traits, you can use this to introduce any concept you want.

Would you like to get more “Magic in the Classroom”? Just fill out the form below! We’ll send you an email whenever we release a new trick. Don’t worry. We won’t sell your information or send you a bunch of SPAM. We hate that stuff too!

Our thoughts, prayers, and best wishes are with the students and families of Chardon High School. If you’re not aware of the details of today’s shooting, please take a look at WOIO’s coverage.

It looks like five students were shot. One student is confirmed dead. Details are sketchy regarding the motivation behind the shootings.

Whatever the reason, it’s a sobering reminder of why we have to take bullying and character education seriously. Our kid’s futures and their very lives are at risk.

Please keep Chardon in your prayers today. I truly can’t even begin to imagine what they’re going through.

- Matthew