Bully's punch leads to peace

A playground punch that broke a girl's arm was the last straw for teacher turned anti-bullying campaigner Yvonne Duncan.

Mrs Duncan was taking a break between classes in the mid-1980s when outside a 10-year-old boy vented his anger on a girl about the same age.

"He punched her so hard he broke her arm. And I realised if I was going to teach effectively I had to address the behavioural problems, because I wasn't going to get through otherwise."

Mrs Duncan became the driving force behind the Peace Foundation's peer mediation programme, Cool Schools, one of the three organisations heading the battles against violence in our schools.

Cool Schools and the other main programmes, the police Kia Kaha scheme and the Specialist Education Service's Eliminating Violence programme, have all been commended for reducing violence in the schools in which they operate.

Individual schools and communities have other smaller programmes.

Kia Kaha (Stand Strong) teaches children a plan of action to deal with bullying, and Cool Schools trains children as mediators so they can take responsibility for school disputes.

Eliminating Violence is a year-long programme that encourages schools and communities to work together to manage violence and create safer schools.

But critics say the programmes do not go into enough schools, and that schools do not always commit to the project or get enough resources to properly deal with violence.

And they say schools are being lumbered with society's problems and that solutions need to be found in the wider community.

Researchers Janis Carroll-Lind and Gabrielle Maxwell said teachers and boards of trustees could help make the world a better place for children - but the whole school had to make a commitment.

They say bullying is part of a school climate, so change cannot come about by modifying the behaviour of a few pupils. Rather, the atmosphere of the whole school has to change.

Victoria University senior lecturer Dr Keith Sullivan says one of the biggest problems is getting a school to admit it has a problem with bullying, especially since educational reform had created a quasi-free market of education.

"No school wants bad publicity and bullying attracts such publicity," he says.

Legally, schools must provide a safe physical and emotional environment, and are required to have a behaviour management policy.

But a teacher who left a Waikato school after a 14-year-old boy threatened her with a knife thinks the problem is getting beyond teachers.

"Maybe it's bigger than we think. I think society's got to change, to be honest."