The rise of "it's cool to be young, rich, and mean ..." has infiltrated our schools. Young adolescents, steeped in popular culture, take their cues from the stars, athletes, and socialites who flash bling, curse their adversaries, and behave badly in public and on the Internet. Your students emulate what they see on the big screen and in the pages of celebrity magazines. Materialism and the desire to develop a "fan base" can exacerbate the clique culture.
In this excellent book by two well-known experts on young adolescent behavior, middle school educators will find useful information and solutions on this most vexing issue dealing with cliques and bullies. While natural to lay blame on larger, societal issues, that offers little help to classroom teachers who deal with these issues every day. The many manifestations of cliques and bullies dealt with in this book are very real, persistent, and detrimental to any learning community in any middle level school.
Giannetti and Sagarese tell us how cliques and bullies operate, where they come from, and how they flourish. They also show the critical role of each teacher in building a "class-less" environment. Throughout the book they answer questions that middle school teachers raise when dealing with these issues.