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Assistant Professor Hopes Grant Will Help Eliminate Schoolyard Bullies |
| By
Erica Ryan |
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Oct 11, 2002 |
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| Dr. Lisa Pescara-Kovach recently talked to fourth- and fifth-graders at Starr Elementary School about the importance of tolerance and acceptance in lieu of teasing and bullying one another. |
An assistant professor of educational psychology at The University of Toledo received a $7,000 grant from General Mills Inc. in Toledo to implement an anti-violence program in a local elementary school during the academic year.
Dr. Lisa Pescara-Kovach will attempt to prevent bullying among fourth- and fifth- graders at Starr Elementary School in Oregon with a program she developed called PEERS — Preventing, Eliminating and Erasing Rejection in our Schools. The grant from General Mills will cover expenses for supplies and materials.
Pescara-Kovach started visiting the school last week to teach the students tolerance and show them how to intervene when they see another child being bullied. For example, students will discuss acceptable forms of interaction and how peer rejection can affect their classmates. Students who show good behavior will be rewarded.
“If you start at a young age, it’s easy to teach children to accept others, regardless of their size, color, religion or other differences,” Pescara-Kovach said.
The PEERS program is based on research that shows much harassment in the school system could end if just one student stood up to the bully, Pescara-Kovach said. Additional presentations will occur mid-year and at the end of the year. Several UT faculty members in the College of Education will assist her — Dr. Thomas Dunn, Dr. John R. Cryan and Dr. Christine Fox.
Pescara-Kovach said the current attitude toward school violence troubles her because it focuses on intervention when a major problem occurs instead of prevention.
“Most of the plans say, ‘This is what we need to do if we have a school shooting,’” Pescara-Kovach said. “But if we focus on prevention, we might not need that kind of intervention.”
Her interest in preventing rejection developed from seeing bullying in her own children’s schools and witnessing harassment among the neighborhood children. Although many say bullying is “just part of growing up,” Pescara-Kovach contends that it does not have to be.
She said she would like to make children’s learning experiences positive ones. “If you speak to adults who have been bullied as children, they never forget the experience, and it’s always negative,” she said. “The grant is designed to help make all children’s experiences at school positive ones. It’s very hard to concentrate in school when you are the target of a bully’s aggression. Children who are bullied are often those who, in turn, skip school, perform poorly, and become anxious and depressed.”
The investigative team plans to chart its progress throughout the year by giving the students questionnaires asking them what they do when they see a child being bullied and similar questions. “We’ll look at the changes during the year to determine the effectiveness of the program,” she said.
Pescara-Kovach said she picked Starr Elementary because she lives in Oregon and wanted to serve her community.
And Marilyn Beckman, Starr’s principal, said she and her staff are looking forward to helping implement the program in their school. “We think it will have a very positive effect on peer relationships.”
Beckman said she and her staff had been pursuing similar programs when Pescara-Kovach approached her, and the PEERS program seemed like a great option. “I think the country in general is in a time of turmoil. And often negative paths are chosen instead of talking it out. We think this is a positive way to deal with that.”
Pescara-Kovach received all of her degrees from UT and served as a postdoctoral fellow in the psychology department before transferring to the educational psychology section of the College of Education, where she served for three years as a visiting assistant professor. She began this semester as a tenure-track assistant professor.
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