TAB

Training Active Bystanders

2007-2008

"Treat people as if they were what they should be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming"
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

About the Active Bystander Program
The active Bystander Program is an anti-violence program, created in collaboration with the Athol and Mahar Regional school systems, the Orange and Athol Police Departments and Quabbin Mediation. The curriculum was developed by Quabbin Mediation and Ervin Staub, Ph.D., the international authority on bystanders and why people help or harm others.

Quabbin Mediation mediates disputes in the community and in 7 courts, and trains volunteer adults as mediators. Since 1995 Quabbin Mediation has trained more than 60 adult volunteer mediators and over 1,000 students as peer mediators in five school districts.

Dr. Ervin Staub is Professor Emeritis from the Psychology Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His books include The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence,(1989) and the Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others (2003).

TRAINING ACTIVE BYSTANDERS (TAB)

TAB is an innovative prevention program that trains students to be positive bystanders who can safely intervene in conflict situations. One inventive element of TAB is the three trainers who are co-presenters: two middle or high school students and a community mediator from Quabbin Mediation. . TAB will encourage active bystandership by promoting caring for those inside and outside one's own group, a sense of responsibility for others, a willingness to help them, and moral courage. Studies have shown that 85% of students are bystanders and, as bystanders, they have considerable power. Quabbin Mediation received funding Congressman John Olver to pilot and replicate TAB.

Partners: Our partners are the Orange and the Athol Police Departments, the Athol-Royalston School District, the Ralph C. Mahar School District, and Ervin Staub, Ph.D., UMass-Amherst professor emeritus and an internationally known expert on bystanders, violence and what directs people toward constructive, non-violent behaviors.

Impact:

* Mediators will gain more respect and responsibility, and be powerful role models.

*Students will feel more connected to the school (a key protective factor) and more competent to confront bullying and harassment

* Teachers will feel more competent to intervene and to use skills in class (TAB will be integrated with the educational frameworks).

* TAB can make the school environment a better place to learn.

* Using long established relationships with the schools, we will be able to teach thousands of students in hundreds of classrooms despite tight time constraints under which schools operate.

Replication: There is already interest in supporting replication state wide and regionally:

· The Mass. Attorney General’s office (a staff member is helping with the evaluation).

· The area director of Department of Social Services (DSS).

· The District Attorney for the Northwest District (a staff member is helping with the evaluation).

· Dr. Staub hopes to replicate TAB in his international projects in Rwanda and Amsterdam.

Timeline: Grade 8 students will receive 6 lessons in their health classes through out the school year.

TRAINING ACTIVE BYSTANDERS
STUDENT TRAINER COMMENTS
November 20, 2006

To me TAB means training kids to try to stick up for themselves and other kids that cannot stick up for themselves. Also it means kids can now know what to do in a situation. In school, maybe kids will not get into fights as much anymore, because they know all the bad things that can come from it. Also, it makes the school look good in the community, how the kids act; and when we do well in school and behave, we may get good things for the school. For example, with track and field, if we did not behave, and we just did not try in school, the community might think, these kids just don’t deserve this track and field. So that’s why TAB is very important to know and use.

Ryan Murphy
TAB Trainer
Mahar Middle School
8th grade

TAB is extremely important because it not only affects the school that I attend, but it affects the entire community. With the training active bystanders group, I feel that I personally can help with the making of a safe, friendly community .as we were taught in the training, I hope to eliminate the “them” and make more of an “us” outlook on the way our community lives. I already see that just in my school, people have begun to break out of their cliques and focus on a person’s inside rather than his or her outside and not judge people by appearance. My main goal when stepping into this training was to try to positively effect everyone’s lives with a simple teaching on the outlook of harm and why it happens, how it happens, why it isn’t stopped, and how to stop it. I hope that we have and believe we have started a wonderful new beginning to a save and friendly world.

Shelby Bickford
TAB Trainer
Athol-Royalston Middle School, Grade 8

Moral Courage

Moral courage is doing the right thing even though others might disapprove of our actions.

When to be an Active Bystander

When someone needs help.

When someone is being picked on.

When someone is being threatened.

When there is a fight.

When someone is spreading rumors.

You must be safe to be an effective active bystander. Your safety is extremely important in making your decision on the best course of action as an active bystander.

How to be An Active Bystander

Below are some basic ideas of what an active bystander does with one example of what might be said to stop harm doing and change people’s minds about what is going on. Can you think of other things to say?

Call attention to a situation      Hey! What’s going on?
Offer help                              Is there something I/we can do?
Express disapproval              Stop that!
Recruit Allies. Make suggestions for what other bystanders might do.    “You go get help and I will stay here.”
Stop negative bystanders      When you laugh you encourage them.
Support the target                Do you want them to stop that?
Raise the target’s spirits       I am sorry this happened or, that they did that.
Support the harm doer in non-harmful action   Could I help you figure this out?

Active Bystander Contest

Quabbin Mediation Website

TRAINING ACTIVE BYSTANDERS

November 20, 2006

Excerpts from Grade 10 Student Participants’ TAB Journals:

“We learned about calling attention to a situation, how to offer help, how people express their disapproval, how to stop negative by standers, and what to say in all of these situations. It would help because you would know what to do in these situations.”

“I can use it by helping others around me more, myself included. Also, I could try to get other people to do that. Maybe like a pay it forward act.”

“I can use what we talked about today by knowing in many situations where I am a bystander. Most people feel the same way as me, so if I do something, other people may want to, also. Everyone wants to help but no one does.”

“We learned about why bystanders do not act. I can use what I learned today by sticking up for what I believe in, own up to responsibility, ask if someone needs help, and not to be concerned with what others think. Keep the Peace.”

Excerpts from Grade 8 Student Participants’ TAB Journals:

“I can use what we learned today to be an active bystander, because if everyone was a passive bystander, it would be a crazy world. Inclusive caring could affect a situation because someone could stand up for the target. Also, empathy could affect a situation because a harm-doer could put himself in someone else’s shoes and stop picking on other people.”

“I have more courage to stick up for someone.”

“When I helped someone, it did change me. I felt good about myself and didn’t feel bad because I didn’t help them. It gave me more courage to help not only who was getting hurt but to help the harm-doer try to become nicer to everyone.”

“I can use what we learned today by when I should and should not intervene. I should intervene when the conflict is only verbal. I shouldn’t intervene if the conflict is at all physical or if it puts my safety at risk.”

“It gave us options on how to recruit people to stop a situation. It showed how strength in numbers is very effective. Having more people with me would give me more confidence to stop a fight or a situation.”

“I can use what we talked about today because if anyone’s house was burning down, I would call the fire department and help them with their stuff or I would let them live with me until they found a place to live. I would supply them with food and drinks.”

“One of my friends was in a bad conflict with some new student and they almost got in a fight so I tried to stop it and that change me by helping people out of they need it.”

Dr. Reza Namin

Superintendent of Regional School District
507 South Main Street,
Orange, MA 01364
Superintendent's Office (978) 544-2920
E-Mail: Dr_Namin@rcmahar.org

The Ralph C. Mahar School District is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to the provision of quality educational programs for all students. Ralph C. Mahar School District does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age or sexual orientation.