It seems that everyone in life has something they have to grandstand for. Some people choose political avenues, others choose to do it more privately with just their families. Some people choose guns. Some people choose equal rights. Some people just choose simple things like the Golden Rule. I choose bullying. My grandstand is against bullying. Being a teacher is the perfect avenue for me to fight this battle in hopes that one day, it’s eliminated. I realize this is an uphill fight. I still choose to fight it. I realize I won’t win. I will do my best. I will affect those I teach. So long as I make it so even one less kid gets bullied, one less kid has to feel the pain I grew up with, then my grandstand can be deemed a success.
I began by reading to the students an adapted version of Shane Koyczan’s To This Day backed by David Lanz’s Cristofori’s Dream. I filmed it, and promised the students I would upload it, but I guess something happened with the filming or the downloading of it, and you couldn’t really hear half of it. To keep my promise, I used my video camera to record it again. There’s no students in this one. I’m just sitting in my desk, but the sentiment is still the same. The music is still there. The power of the message remains the same.
After the talk each student was given a piece of paper. I asked them to write on that paper every name they could think of which they had been called or they had heard someone called. I asked them to then pretend that this piece of paper was the person, and asked them to demonstrate to me how those made would make that person feel. Some of them crumpled the paper, some of them ripped it, some of them both. Regardless, they all agreed that these names could be very hurtful. I them told them I wanted them to make the paper perfect again; of course, an impossible task. We then tried a bit of magic. We told the paper, “Sorry!” Of course, it didn’t work. The symbolism of this activity being that once a name has been called, there is no taking it back. Not even sorry will truly make things better again….
The activity was brought to a conclusion by all of us taking the following pledge:
I will not bully.
I will not be bullied.
I will not stand for bullying,
but against it.
