AJ Khan
Child Development
Final Project
Dr.Pa Her
Due: 12/19/13
Project #4: Design A Public Service Campaign
Bringing a positive change in children’s behavior within my community of target
will be beneficial in the environment. The change will occur in understanding the
difference between being a bully and a friend. The target communities are the children of
lower working class families in the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown
Heights, and Brownsville. The age group ranges from 2 years old to 5 years old and they
are African-American. I am personally doing my internship at an early learning center
which is part of the Brooklyn Community Service. The name of the agency is known as
The AtlanticAvenueEarlyLearningCenter and it provides service to families that are
under the poverty line and are on government assistance program. For the project, I will
be working with the children to improve their understanding regarding their surrounding
and help them develop skills such as making friends and saying no to bullying. My
primary target are the children that are currently attending the early learning center, and
hopefully will move beyond that.
According to Olweus (1993), “School bullying is defined as a repeated negative,
ill-intentioned behavior by one or more students directed against a student who has
difficulty defending himself or herself. Most bullying occurs without any apparent
provocation on the part of the student who is exposed”. From spending my time with
these children aged 2 years to 5 years old, males and female, African-American, in the
learning center, I began to realize that even without their knowledge, what they were
doing in their break time and in classroom describe a typical bully. Being said that, I
observed name calling in the classroom and playground, the teachers did explain that
name calling is bad and they will not tolerate it in the classroom. I also observed boys
loves to rough-house, a term I got it from a teacher, describing that sometimes they
would get rough and drag and shove a fellow classmate onto the ground. I consider this to
be a bully-like behavior because when two larger kids teams up to show superiority over
the smaller child, this is a classic definition of a bully.
Bullying in early childhood can occur as early as 2-3 years of age. Children as
young as three take participation in bullying. Most bullying develops in early school
setting such as the daycare, preschool, and playground. So preventing bullying at this
early stage can be helpful to the children. In order to do that, I must first apply proper
knowledge to the children regarding the topic of bullying, and prepare activities such as
videos and role playing to get their attention.
Theories learned in classroom can be used to related to this project and be applied
into the project to get the desired outcome. One such theory is the “Social Learning
Theory”, which is related to the theorist Albert Bandura. This theory is about learning and
development, and suggests that people can learn new information and behaviors by
watching other people. Learning by observation and modeling can applied here with
young children regarding the cause and effect of bullying, children sees bullying and they
take participation in it and does not prevent it. A live model [being myself and class
teachers] can demonstrate and/or act out a behavior relating to bullying, I will be the
person that will say things and act out the attitude of a bully and the teacher will act the
part of a child that is being bullied and what that child needs to do. Later, in the verbal
instructional model, we would describe and explain the behavior that was just
demonstrated to them and why they should not do it and prevent it from making it part of
their behavior. Lastly, the symbolic model, videos and books will be used to show non-
fictional character applying such behaviors of a bully.
This will be kept age appropriate as there are many animated clips of bullying and
the role of a bully in YouTube and educational videos. The video will be fictional and
intended for young children and will not by any mean demonstrate real event. I choose
this type of strategy because watching videos helps putting the information into our
memory. For example, being told and being showed is totally different, what is being told
might be forgotten, but being showed will stick out in the brain primarily. For effective
modeling, there are 4 key areas such as Attention, Retention, Reproduction, and
Motivation. My project intervention will focus on the motivation aspect. Having a good
reason to imitate a positive behavior will be the key. The children aged 2 to 5 will be
motivated to show and demonstrate positive behavior in school setting.
The main theory will be Behavioral approach, B.F. Skinner’s operant
conditioning. Reinforcement can be either positive or negative. Punishment weakens the
behavior while rewards enforce more positive reaction. An example of positive
reinforcement is allowing the child to pick his own activity during free-play period, while
the negative reinforcement will be not having a say in which activity the child would like
to participate in. This is relate to the topic of bullying because when you decide to use
power over someone else, you will lose your saying [power] when it comes to play
activities and the child that shows understanding in this matter will be able to have the
power to pick their own activity. If you are being a bully and it is caught by a teacher,
you will have no saying in any of the group participations.
My goals will be to show video clips of different example of bullying, and use the
modeling invention of motivation to encourage standing up to the bully. The children will
understand the need to be more compassionate with each others and making friendship as
well as saying no to bullying.
The steps I will take to reach that goal are:
1- Pick a classroom that is related to early childhood bullying. [Age 2 ½ – 3 plus] I will find out which class is best for the campaign because I know in which class I see such behavior being demonstrated by the children.
2- Let them know what is going to happen from now on. [The topic of bullying and why it is not tolerated, and there will be rewards given to children that can learn how to prevent bullying and negative punishment to ones that keep showing the same bullying behavior such as phone calls to parents and time outs.]
3- Reading stories to them during story time about bullying.
4- Showing them videos about bullying and friendship. [Videos are the perfect tools to show the difference of two things. The videos will show the effect of bullying and then later friendship]
5- Help demonstrate to them how to react to certain events.
6- Encourage them to change any negative behavior. [It will be done by me, that days I am with them, the teachers, and parents at home]
7- Use Reinforcement to help them make development. [Extrinsic reinforcement is better here because it’s a motivation that comes from the outside, and from one’s internal thinking.]
8- Hopefully, get them to stay with their new behavior and prevent bullying. [Expecting the children to learn from the modeling, videos, and demonstration to prevent bullying and showcase positive behavior]
The children will develop what will happen when they display a positive and
negative behaviors. Going back to the modeling process of Bandura’s Social-Learning
Theory, the children will learn to pay attention to this matter, retain the information
relating to this subject, and produce positive behavior in classroom and playground
setting. There will be no teaming up in the playground to fight or lay down someone in
the ground by the means of pushing or holding and dropping. In the classroom, there will
be no teasing or name calling or using words to negatively affect another from expressing
him or herself in the classroom.
This project will help increase the development of the target community by the
means of preventing them from bad behavior such as bullying in a school setting. This is
will lead them to be more compassionate to each others and express positive feeling and
behaviors. The limitation will be in their home setting, as I can not prevent them from
doing activities that will encourage their negative behavior. My suggestion will be for the
parents to observe their child and help use theories to establish a positive reaction.
A research that can be used to show any such method can work is the “Steps to
Respect” program, in which certain schools took a part in participating in the bullying
prevention for elementary school. In the May 2009 issue of the Journals of Educational
psychology, the study found a 31 percent decline in bullying in steps to respect schools.
This program helps teachers create a lesson plan and children/student can begin learning
about how to make friends, recognize and deal with bullying, refuse to take part of it, understand
other’s feelings, and report bullying.
