Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Bullying isn't always done with fists. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I hate to admit this. I was picked on as a child. Left out. Not included. Surely some of the fault was "my own." I was clueless on fashion. I played outside and petted my animals--- a lot. I may have gone to school smelling like Grunt, my black lab or Crissy my cat with a limp and 3/4 of a crooked tail. "Icky Vicki" "You have no common sense." "You will never have any friends." Other things that hurt. Well, I lost weight, studied fashion magazines and was at least treated courteously by some of my classmates. But I never forgot. What I learned from being bullied: People can be mean but... My family loves me and supports me. They know me.  I trust my family's feedback on my weaknesses above the stranger who pretends to know everything. No one is going to be liked by everybody. It isn't how I am treated that is as important as how I treat others. T...

I admit that I dread lunch duty. But as I stood there talking to a student during my week to serve, it struck me just how important this monthly occurrence is to my personal effectiveness as a teacher and the overall well being of our school. Photo Credit: Big Stock You may think it is silly to have thoughts and guidelines for doing a good job at lunch duty but I think you can tell a lot about the greatness of a teacher by how seriously you take this time to interact, supervise, and connect with the students. But I want to start with a word to administrators. 1 - Lunchtime is time for Administrators to show up Eating together has been a time of fellowship and friendship since caveman ate mammoth over an open fire. The best administrators I've worked for let themselves be seen and interact with the students during this time. I'll see them laughing, talking, and asking questions of students about their lives or sometimes talking about a question that students have. Yo...

This 2007 video by students Kyle Barrett: University of Illinois and Bobby Barrett: Cary Grove High School) for students now has over 100K hits. I'm not sure how they got permission to use the music but it is very compelling and something you can share if you're working with a bullying prevention program. I think the toughest thing for me is that I've seen teachers who are bullies. It makes me angry. We must all know that any power we may have can be used for good or be used for bad. Often, the teachers we remember are the "bad ones" and the bad ones almost always wielded their power to intimidate, humiliate, and embarrass. Often teachers don't know it. We must always be careful to: Watch. Watch the body language of our students. If several respond with a remark like "ooh" or "you told him" you often have embarrassed a child. Talk to them later and privately and apologize. Apologize. Good teachers apologize because all teachers...

A simulpost with TechLearning All the technology in the world and the excellent teaching in the world doesn't matter a "hill of beans" if kids aren't watched properly on the playground. How can we tell students to have excellence in the classroom when the PE coach sits idly by as the children rough-house and the bullies roam free? We often take the teachers who cannot control their classrooms and move them out of the classroom. Where do many of them go? Onto the playground, the last place they should be. Attentive, diligent, loving adults must vigilantly watch children. Every room must be a safe zone. Children must feel safe. They need to trust that teachers are watching keenly enough so that the initial perpetrator is caught... because more often than not, when the kid who is being picked on retaliates, they are the ones who are victimized all over again. Meet Me, the Underdog I write this because I am an underdog. I was picked on horribly in middle school. ...