I have been teaching for about 15 years, with a mix of high school and middle school experience. I also worked for 6 months in an elementary school supporting students behaviorally. I have seen bullying my entire professional life.
I have participated in countless professional development experiences over the years, and I have grown a healthy skepticism towards commercial offerings that aim to solve school-based problems. So I was not excited when we had to do a workshop based on the Olweus bullying prevention program [1]. I was completely impressed, however. This organization has examined bullying very carefully, and they have used the results of their studies to offer meaningful, concrete steps that can be taken to deal effectively with bullying.
The two clearest things I learned were a good working definition of bullying [2], and a breakdown of the roles that people play in a bullying situation [3]. Bullying is negative behavior aimed at a person who will have difficulty defending themselves; it is repetitive in nature; and it is carried out by someone with an imbalance of power over someone else.
In bullying situations, there are 4 negative roles: bullies, followers, supporters, and passive supporters. There are disengaged onlookers. There is a person who is being bullied, and there may be defenders and potential defenders.
I learned that is often best to give our attention, when interrupting bullying, to the victim. Clearly if there is serious, immediate physical danger, we confront the bully first. But if saying something simple like, "Hey xxx, I don't like the way you're being treated, do you want to take a walk with me?" takes the power away from the bully, and stops giving that person the attention they have been craving. This is not enough; we need to follow up by dealing directly with the bully. But engaging the bully directly just feeds them the attention they want, and gives them more power.
Quick story: My high school classroom looks out on the back of a kindergarten-first grade playground. My students and I watch little kids play all day long. We watch all the misfit kids play at the back, less-watched part of the playground. Most of what we see is low-level shoving, self-regulated by peer groups. I finally saw something I needed to interrupt last week. I watched a kindergarten kid grab another kid by the collar, shove him against a chain link fence, and hold his hand up to the kids face like a gun. I walked over and said, "Hi, my name is Eric, who are you?" to the bullying kid. He let go and got really humble, and said his name. Then I remembered to focus on the victim. He turned around, and he was a classic snot-nosed kid who looked like he'd be picked on a lot. I asked him his name, said it didn't look like he was being treated very well, and talked to him for a few minutes. All of the onlookers gave their attention to the victim, and you could see the bully backing out, not in fear, but because no one was paying attention to him. I did ask the bully before they dispersed, "Do you really want to shoot someone?" He said no, and I said he might want to find another way to play. By the way, if he had run off, I would have gone into the school and found him in his classroom. Those kids need to know that strong, positive adults are watching them.
[1] - http://www.violencepreventionworks.org/public/index.page
[2] - http://www.violencepreventionworks.org/public/faqs.page#Answ...
[3] (pdf, page 4) - http://www.pa-strengthening-families.org/providers/308/bully...