The most common behaviors eliciting a student referral for special education evaluation related to emotional disturbance (ED) are adult- and peer-targeted aggression. Curiously, the word aggression, which is an externalizing behavior, does not appear anywhere in the federal description of ED. Despite the lack of clarity surrounding definitions, as…

Bullying often persists in spite of formal programs targeting this problem. Supportive school and classroom communities enlist brave peers in consoling, encouraging, and befriending victims, which removes the status that fuels bullies. For the past 18 years, this author has worked in multiple children's agencies and schools, studying bullying…

It seems as if at no other time in the distant past has there been so much media coverage of bullies and bullying behavior within the schools. Has it always been present in some form? More than likely. Should it be brought to national attention? Absolutely. No one, student or not, deserves to feel unsafe, threatened, or invisible, whether it be at…

Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) is a therapeutic, verbal strategy for intervention with students in crisis. It explores a student's reactions to stressful events to gain insight into thinking, feelings, and behavior in order to strengthen resilience and self-esteem (Long, Wood, & Fecser, 2001). By exploring timelines of challenging…

Emotional literacy has an important place in the English curriculum because emotions cannot be separated from reading, writing, and thinking critically with language. Teachers can use the study of literature, writing, and language to reframe emotion from being something that creates victims and victimizers into feelings that can be critically…

Charlie was a target for bullying in the high school where the author taught. At 15, kids had not grown out of the need to pick on Charlie for his high-pitched voice, his overweight stature, and his uncontrollable and exuberant laugh. What really targeted Charlie for the bullying, however, was his seemingly childlike fascination with drawing comic…

This Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) guidance report is designed to support senior leaders in primary and secondary schools to make better-informed decisions about their behaviour strategies. It includes a number of practical examples of programmes and approaches that should be helpful in schools and classrooms where behaviour is generally…

Writing, reading, and dramatic performance have long been powerful means for representing and contending with thorny problems, and the authors see much promise in engaging students in authoring the dramas and solutions that represent their fears and their hopes for resolutions. In this article, the authors share a series of writing activities and…

"Everything...affects everything," from Jay Asher's young adult novel, "Thirteen Reasons Why," captures a central message of this text in which a young woman named Hannah Baker leaves behind a series of tapes addressed to particular individuals who played a part in producing the snowball effect that led to her suicide. "Everything...affects…

This article focuses on recent developments to find strategic solutions to the problem of truancy. It considers issues related to defining truancy and why reducing truancy matters before considering what causes truancy. The article concentrates upon seven areas where further work is needed: the role of parents (and carers); early intervention,…

One need not look hard to find evidence of concern related to the nature of student behavior in our schools. School violence, aggression, bullying, and harassment (e.g., racial or sexual) are often cited as challenging behaviors confronting educators and community leaders. Unfortunately, most schools address these concerns with aversive…