I'm not surprised either that the original violence rates were so high or that the teachers were unaware of the violence level. Every kid who's been bullied extensively knows that.
I am surprised that peer mediators are able to make that much of a difference. I would have thought that a drastic increase in teacher:student ratio on the playground would be necessary for that. It certainly sounds like peer mediation is an essential component of safety at any school, although I am skeptical of its ability to help bullying situations where the bully is significantly more popular than the victim. There was peer mediation at my middle school, but I didn't use it--I knew the bullies had a lot more friends than I did and I figured that an opportunity to air grievances at each other would just be an opportunity for bullies to run roughshod over me verbally. In hindsight, I don't know whether it would have been helpful or not. I'm curious about whether any of the research on peer mediation has assessed how much socially rejected and/or ASD kids are helped by it.
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Date: 2010-11-27 12:47 am (UTC)I am surprised that peer mediators are able to make that much of a difference. I would have thought that a drastic increase in teacher:student ratio on the playground would be necessary for that. It certainly sounds like peer mediation is an essential component of safety at any school, although I am skeptical of its ability to help bullying situations where the bully is significantly more popular than the victim. There was peer mediation at my middle school, but I didn't use it--I knew the bullies had a lot more friends than I did and I figured that an opportunity to air grievances at each other would just be an opportunity for bullies to run roughshod over me verbally. In hindsight, I don't know whether it would have been helpful or not. I'm curious about whether any of the research on peer mediation has assessed how much socially rejected and/or ASD kids are helped by it.