Abstract
The authors collaborated and shared equal responsibility in all aspects of the development of this project, which reviews current research on bullying, how schools have addressed this issue, and the impact bullying has on students. While there is an enormous body of research on bullying, few studies have focused on the individual views and opinions of the students involved. Due to many of these students normalizing bullying as a part of school life (failing to identify bullying behavior as such and failing to recognize the harmful outcomes associated with such mistreatment), youth remain unarmed with the tools needed to protect themselves. This finding, combined with mixed results of the effectiveness of bullying programs today, was the motivating force for developing this survey and curriculum. The goal of this project is to help teachers and administrators to first, understand the power of their students’ voices and secondly, learn how to support their students while they motivate their peers to create a safe environment. Ultimately, this project will empower staff and students with the knowledge and skills necessary to promote tolerance, while combating today’s bullying epidemic. The Stand Up curriculum for Using Student Perspectives to Create Tolerance and Preventative Bully Strategies was created to offer an efficient product for qualified school personnel to facilitate education, sharing, and having students disseminate information about bullying to high school campuses. The teacher training and facilitation of the entire curriculum is designed to last approximately fifteen hours over a five month implementation. The curriculum and activities are included in the project addendum and are designed for any trained school psychologist to be able to facilitate. This curriculum will assist in creating a more tolerant school campus and has been developed based off a survey administered to students.