05 Apr When Kids Are Afraid to Tell Teachers About Bullying — That Is a Problem
When I first started teaching, I wasn’t exactly sure how I should respond to tattling. I wanted children to tell me what was going on, but I didn’t want to hear everything, did I? After all, how did I know if a child was tattling to get someone in trouble, or telling me information that would help another child?
Then I started hearing and reading about children who were saying their teachers weren’t doing anything about bullying. Or, when they told their teachers about acts of meanness, they were getting scolded…for tattling.
This was my “a-ha” moment: Was the “no tattling rule” really more important than stopping mean behavior? I realized that whether explicitly stated or conveyed nonverbally, children were learning not to tell teachers or other adults in school about anything.
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