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Student-led anti-bullying program growing in PA

Oct 22, 2013 | 7:34 AM

Students from Carlton Comprehensive High School in Prince Albert will soon become teachers.

Twenty drama students spent Monday training to teach preventative strategies to deal with bullying.

SUB: How Carlton’s anti-bullying efforts started

The drama club at Carlton has been taking on social issues for more than two years now.

Putting an end to bullying and domestic violence isn’t just a hope for the members. They have actively worked on being positive role models, starting with the Red Cross’s anti-bullying film festival.

Last year, fourteen students from Grades 9 to 12 went through a Red Cross anti-bullying program that teaches them how to pass on anti-bullying strategies to elementary school students.

“This year I thought, ‘those students are eventually going to graduate. Let’s build the program.’ So, we have 21 students today supplementing the students the already-existing students we have in the programs,” said drama teacher and anti-bullying workshop coordinator David Zulkoskey.

Anti-bullying workshop gets teens ready to pass on the message

In the day-long Red Cross training, the 21 student leaders learned about serious things including how to spot discrimination and the effect of bullying on both the victim and the bully.

However, they were also free to have a little fun.

They discussed different ways to teach elementary school students in a hands-on way.

At the end of the workshop, the students were split into smaller groups and had to teach the rest of the room how to perform a task. Members of one group giggled and enjoyed themselves as they figured out how to teach changing a diaper to people who are visual learners.

The session also allowed the teens to speak openly with each other.

“I feel that we learned a lot about each other in today’s class. Because, coming into this workshop, a lot of us may have not have known everything about each other. Knowing that everyone’s been through similar situations, you can help each other cope with problems and strengthen each other,” said Carlton student Loϊc Bolay.

Another exercise that really had an impact on the teens used visual learning.

One game involved peeling a banana and each group member taking a chunk of it. After that, they had to try to put it back together so it would look the same.

“We realized you couldn’t put it all back together. There were scars left… We realized that once that happens, it won’t be ever the same. There’s still some scarring left,” said Katrina Bear.

Bolay noted that the more people tear into the banana, the more it changes.

This metaphor shows how bullying in large groups can really damage someone. That knowledge is a real incentive to break free from group bullying, he said.
“If you can get rid of the mob mentality, where they are just overwhelmed because there are so many of them bullying at the same time. Because it is a lot scarier to have a group of people making fun of you, compared to just one-on-one.”

Why teens make good teachers

The Carlton students attending the day-long training had many reasons to get involved in the anti-bullying efforts.

One is simply that the younger kids the teens will be speaking to later on may think “in three or four years, that’s gonna be me,” Bolay said.

He added that there may be a major age gap between the teachers in charge of the workshops and the elementary school students.

“I’m not trying to say that it’s wrong that a teacher could help, because teachers still help a lot. I’m just saying that if you could have someone closer to your age range, they’d be able to relate to you more in your problems right now. And you can really see that maybe one day, you could be at that level and help others.”

That ability to relate adds an extra incentive for the teens to be responsible as well.

“I feel kind of more like stepping into a role model kind of situation now. And being more of, like, a leader and kind of showing kids, ‘it’s not cool to do this.’ And feeling that you’re the role model, and you need to show them because they look up to you,” Bear said.

In addition, teens are more aware of what’s really happening with bullying.

“The hard part about bullying is a lot of bullying goes underground. So, as a teacher, you are aware, obviously, if there is a physical situation, but oftentimes it’s the name-calling. Things like that you can hear as a teacher. But I think the great danger in our community is cyberbullying. And that, [as] a teacher you cannot see,” said Zulkoskey.

The changing face of bullying

Zulkoskey has been a teacher for 28 years. He has seen major changes over the years.

“When I was a student, and when I first started teaching, the bully was often like the character Biff on Back to the Future. Guy in a white t-shirt, muscle-bound, cigarette pack up on his shoulder. That’s not the stereotype of the bully anymore,” he said.

The ability to manipulate people from behind a computer screen, or even a cell phone, has made it very difficult to spot bullies.

Harassing messages on Facebook, text messages and other social media are more common.

However, it’s moved far beyond just texts. Bolay has seen pictures edited and posted on the Internet.

For example, a picture of someone at the beach can be edited to remove the background. It is then sent in an inappropriate message to start rumours about that individual.

Both Bolay and Bear said this is common. Although this type of bullying is virtual, it becomes very real once word gets around and follows kids to school.

The effects of bullying in all forms are something Bolay has seen first-hand.

His friends have had suicidal thoughts and self-harmed.
“A lot of my friends that have been bullied fairly badly also have, like, family problems. When you mix the bullies at school with family problems, it just makes things worse… So basically, the bullies just try to find anything to target them.”

But with anti-bullying sessions like the Red Cross’, Bolay said the skills they’ve learned can help stop things before they start “so that less people will be lost.”

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk