Proactive Aggressors

Introduction

The teacher is the first authority figure to witness of the bullying incident, thus, in this section, teachers will learn how to make instant interventions, how to understand and follow up the situation and how to improve students’ situation. In addition, teachers will learn how to advocate for students to support each other, promote an anti-bullying culture and solve the problem of violent incidents in schools.

 

Wai's case

Wai was a bully in the school. One day, when Wai found an introverted classmate looking at her phone in a corner of the school, Wai and her gang began to tease the classmate. Wai grabbed her classmate’s phone and threw it back to her gang, one of whom then intentionally dropped it on the floor. Even though the teacher noticed the incident, Wai argued that she was just trying to discipline the classmate for the teacher. The victim did not accuse Wai of bullying, because she was afraid that Wai would retaliate, so the teacher had no reason to follow up the incident.

Wai's considerations and actions
Cognition
Well-planned: has clear division of labour with her gang, so that the bullying cannot easily be discovered. Goal orientated: Wai’s aim is to demonstrate her strength. Good at estimating the pros and cons: Wai knows that she would not benefit from selling the phone, and that it would be disadvantageous to her if the incident escalated. Underestimates the negative consequences: she does not consider the possibility that the teacher may discover the truth and follow up the incident. She assumes that she will be able to avoid blame.
Emotion
Calm and rational: she does not panic, even when discovered by the teacher. Lacking empathy: Wai gains satisfaction from teasing others and ignores her classmates’ feelings.
Behaviour
Likes to challenge authority: by denying the teacher any means of following up the incident, she gains a sense of success. Self-centred: all of her actions are in her own interest and she does not consider the feelings of others.
Social Network
Plays a leadership role: she is the leader of the gang and often bullies others in the gang. Demands that peers need to obey her: Wai uses threats and inducements to persuade others to do what she wants.

 

Instant intervention

• Follow-up the students individually.
• Do not condemn students immediately.

Because proactive aggressors always think highly of power and pride, they will refute or deny responsibility in public, even though they know they are wrong. Therefore, it is not appropriate to deal with the incident in front of other classmates, nor to immediately apportion blame to the proactive aggressor. Teachers should follow up the incident with participants individually to fully understand it.

 

Intermediate intervention 1 (Assist aggressors to realise the consequences of their aggressive behaviour, and their responsibilities from this)

• Pinpoint the real intention of the aggressors, and stop their arguing.
• Emphasise that aggressive behaviour will result in punishments and other negative consequences.
• Request the aggressors to take responsibility for their own misbehaviour.

At this stage, teachers should inform proactive aggressors that teachers can discern their true intentions and will not be deceived by their sophistry. When imposing punishments for proactive aggressors, teachers should ensure students understand the meanings and reasons for the punishments, to prevent them from resenting and misunderstanding their teachers. Similarly, the punishments must be in proportion to the misbehaviour of the proactive aggressor students.

 

Intermediate intervention 2 (Help the aggressors to find out positive ways to achieve the same goals)

• Teach the proactive aggressor students the importance of taking others’ perspectives, and the negative influences of their behaviour towards others.
• Find out what motivates their aggressive behaviour, and ask them to try to achieve the same goals in non-aggressive, appropriate ways.

In addition to deducting conduct points or imposing detention after class, teachers can devise other types of punishment to encourage students to reflect on their misbehaviour. For instance, when the student is given detention, the teacher could ask the student to evaluate the negative effects of his/her bullying behaviour and try to get him/her to reflect on the other person’s feelings, to develop more empathy. Teachers could also ask the students to participate in volunteer work or extra-curricular activities, to help them establish positive experiences and gain a sense of achievement from something other than bullying. Importantly, their irrational beliefs would also be challenged by having these new, positive experiences.

 

Educating other students (Show other students the realistic, negative consequences of misbehaviour)

• Assist students to realistically understand the negative consequences of misbehaviour.

The values of proactive aggressors will negatively influence the values of their classmates, potentially encouraging utilitarian and hegemonic tendencies to develop. It is imperative, therefore, for teachers to help every student understand the undesirability of these values. This will lessen classmates’ ‘passive’ support of the negative behaviour of proactive aggressors, leading to proactive aggressors beginning to question their irrational beliefs, and/or having fewer opportunities to use these irrational beliefs to gain social benefits. Ultimately, this will lead to proactive aggressors surrendering their attempts to assert hegemony in the classroom.