News & Events

On Monday January 30,  the Office of Research and Professional Development in the Faculty of Education hosted a conference on how to tackle bullying in Ontario schools.  Over 100 participants made up of teachers, educators and school administrators attended Bullying Stops Now! at the Markham Convergence Centre. The focus of the conference was to discuss the latest research, best practices and legal issues related to bullying, as well as the proposed Accepting Schools Act for Ontario, in order to provide attendees with the information and tools necessary to create effective school plans to combat bullying.

Eric Roher a partner and national leader of the Education Focus Group with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP and advisor to school boards on education law, opened the conference by painting the grim reality of bullying in schools. “According to a 2009 survey of grade 7 to 12 students by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, almost 1 in 3 students have been bullied in school”, commented Roher. “In order for this to stop we need to incorporate other strategies with Bill 13 to make it more effective.” He then went on to discuss how Bill 13, Ontario’s proposed anti-bullying legislation, could be more effective in schools by meshing it with other strategies. Some of the proposed strategies that he discussed included the implementation of an early intervention program; providing School Board’s with resources to support everyone who is impacted by bullying (bully, victim and bystanders); and, funding for mental health issues in schools.

Renowned bullying expert and Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at York University Dr. Debra Pepler led a session titled Bullying Prevention: It’s Up to All of Us where she discussed the importance of relationships as being key stopping bullying. Pepler looked at the positive relationships between parents and their children and the relationships and interactions amongst kids as being essential to not only preventing, but also dealing with incidents of bullying. She noted that Canada ranked high when it came to academic performance but only ranked 18 out of 21 countries when it came to relationships. “A part of the problem is that there is no engagement between children and their families. Families don’t even have dinner together anymore”, she commented. “Relationship Capacity is essential for a happy, healthy and productive life and families need to be better equipped to provide supports to ensure that children learn this critical skill”.

The Faculty’s own Dr. Esther Fine looked at conflict resolution by presenting her Children as Peacemakers research project. The project, which has had a number of phases over the past 20 years, explores a peacemaking circle as a way of dealing with the day-to-day conflicts that occur as a normal part of schooling at a downtown alternative school. The project web site www.childrenaspeacemakers.ca contains videoclips from the initial studio as well as some of the resources that were developed out of the project.

The last session of the day was on Planning and Innovating for Positive Change and was moderated by conference organizer John Morrison who spoke about the essential components of an effective anti-bullying plan and more importantly, how to breathe life into that plan through engaging leadership from all levels of your school community.  John focused on a grassroots approach, utilizing students as a resource and source of innovative ideas to bring about a change in the very culture of the school. “No matter where you are in the organization, you have a 360 degree sphere of influence”, he stated, and encouraged all stakeholders in education to lead by example.  Participants were also introduced to an online Moodle specific to this conference, where resources have been posted and where they might also contribute and share with this new learning community.

“Education is one of the cornerstones of our civil society and as such, must work tirelessly to nurture a commitment to democracy and civility in all that it does”, said Morrison.  “As a Faculty, one of our primary goals is to provide educators with the knowledge and tools to successfully engage students in this process.  This conference focused on an issue that can erode the foundation of education.  We not only dealt with  the identification of the issue and the most recent research, but also with our obligations and models of best practice that will lead us to an even safer and more inclusive school environment for all of our students and educators.”

Part two of the conference takes place in late May for a half-day session where this same group of educators will reconvene to talk about and share their best practices.   Stu Auty of the Canadian Safe Schools Network will speak about the support and resources available to educators through his organization.