"Quit it!" addresses name calling, mocking, pushing, shoving, and other forms of conflict by integrating the topic of teasing and bullying into the daily life of the classroom - at early ages. Inspired by the recognition that "The seeds for conflict are sown in childhood", the literacy–based curriculum includes such developmentally appropriate activities as reading and discussion, experience charts, art projects, creative writing, role–playing, mapmaking, and graphing. It also includes intensive professional development for teachers, workshops for nonprofessional school personnel, and outreach to parents to ensure that they carry out the programme's strategies at home.

The Quit it! curriculum is grounded in the centrality of participation by administrators, teachers, other school personnel, and parents. Quit it! is a research-based, school-wide model that includes a teacher's guide (Quit it! A Teacher's Guide on Teasing and Bullying) and two accompanying CDs. The teacher's guide integrates the topics of teasing and bullying into the daily life of the classroom through 3 sequential themes: Creating Our Rules, Talking about Teasing and Bullying (click here to access this lesson in PDF format), and Exploring Courage. The classroom CD, "Stories about Teasing and Bullying," is interactive and illustrates how boys and girls problem-solve real-life teasing and bullying situations. "Implementing the Quit it! School-Wide Model," provides research findings, assessment tools, agendas for professional development, family involvement workshops, policy development, and resources. The Anti-Bullying and Teasing Book for Preschool Classrooms, available for purchase, includes 40 activities that focus on reducing teasing and bullying by cultivating friendships, community, and positive feelings.

Children, Education.

According to organisers, "Early childhood teachers are first in importance, next to the family, in helping a young child become a comfortable and cooperative member of society. And, early childhood is the time when parents and other family members have the closest communication with their child's school, which again presents opportunities for positive socialization. Finally, the early childhood curriculum ensures many occasions for using a proactive approach to reducing teasing and bullying. Familiar activities - storytime, reading, meeting-time discussions, experience charts, drawings, art projects, creative story writing or dictation, puppet plays, charting or graphing - all are avenues for exploring the topic of behaviors within the daily curriculum."

This theoretical grounding inspired EEC at AED to working in collaboration with the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women in New York and Massachusetts schools, and the Bank Street College of Education to create the research protocol that informed the development of Quit it! This research, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Education, included classroom observations, interviews with children, and focus groups with teachers and parents. It showed that:

• Teachers and other adults did not intervene most of the time, and in many cases, they felt unprepared to say or do anything helpful.
• Teasing and bullying were pervasive in the early grades.
• Boys were the primary initiators of these behaviours, although both boys and girls were equal recipients.
• Gender plays a subtle but important role in teasing and bullying behaviour. Click here to access a related article by Quit it! developers, in PDF format.

Evaluations conducted at schools in Manhattan (New York), New Jersey, and Connecticut indicate that teasing and bullying decreased by 35% after implementing Quit it!, and adult involvement in preventing those incidents more than doubled. According to AED, additional results include:

• Staff recognised that adult mediation is an effective intervention strategy.
• Fewer staff saw teasing and bullying as a serious problem in their school.
• More staff perceived that students were aware of the issue and were equipped with effective strategies for dealing with it.

As one teacher put it, "'Quit it!' changed the whole climate of my classroom. It used to take me half an hour after recess to resolve issues, but now the kids are better able to resolve their issues themselves, and I have more time to teach."