Object: To help students understand how damaging bullying is and how verbal bullying can affect people very deeply. This exercise can be used to deal with all aspects of bullying, including specific issues such as racist comments.
Time: 30 minutes
Materials: Several large cut-out figures of a child – can be done on A3 paper or on lining paper; copy of a story below or story of your own.
This exercise can be used to deal with all aspects of bullying, including specific issues such as racist comments.
Ask children or young people to work in pairs or small groups. Give each pair or group one of the cut-out dolls. Explain that the cut-out figure is a whole, happy person who is going to school one morning feeling good. But comments are made and things done during the day which destroy that whole and happy person. Ask the students to rip their cut-out every time they think the figure is hurt by something in the story you are going to read out. (N.B. You may find another story is more appropriate for younger/older pupils.)
I can’t wait to get to school. I know it’s going to be fun. Oh look, here come some other kids. I think they go to my school. They’re waiting for the school bus.
What are they looking at? Me? They seem to be sniggering and pointing at me. Why are they doing that? I didn’t do anything to them.
RIP RIP
What are they saying? Ugly? They’re saying I’m ugly. Why are they saying that – I didn’t do anything to them.
RIP RIP
Here come some other children. Maybe they will stop those kids making fun of me. What are they doing? Oh they are looking away and pretending not to hear. I wish they wouldn’t just stand there and do nothing. I guess they must feel the same way as my tormentors.
RIP RIP
I’ll just look at the ground and keep to myself. I’m too ashamed to meet anyone’s eyes. Oh, the bus has come, the driver is yelling at me to hurry up. Everyone is laughing.
RIP RIP
In Maths class I was daydreaming and the teacher drew a red line through my work. The kids giggled.
RIP RIP
In the playground, the kids from the bus surrounded me and shoved me back and forth. The playground supervisor thought we were all having fun. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t. But they told me to shut up or ‘you’ll get worse’.
RIP RIP
At lunch they told no one to sit with me. But…I never did anything to them – why are they doing this to me?
RIP RIP
I was washing my hands in the toilet when they came in. ‘Why are you washing your hands? You need to wash your whole body. You stink!’
RIP RIP
In Science class we studies primates. There were pictures of monkeys. When I left class, some of them were standing outside and they started making noises and gestures as I walked by. It was the last straw – I screamed at them, tears running down my face: ‘WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME? WHAT HAVE I DONE TO YOU?’
RIP RIP
The teacher heard me screaming. They said I’d been bothering them all day. I got into trouble. I feel like I’m in shreds.
RIP RIP
RIP RIP RIP
At this point the figure will be in shreds. Discuss with the children how it feels to be bullied and what could have happened differently in the story so that the child would not have been destroyed.:
· How could the other children at the bus stop have helped?
· How could the bus driver have acted differently?
· If you had been the Maths teacher, what would you have done?
· If you had been the playground supervisor, what would you
have done?
· If you had seen the child sitting alone at lunch, what would
you have done?
· If you had seen what happened in the toilets, how would you
have helped?
· If you had been in the hall when the others were tormenting
the child, what could you have done?
· What should the teacher who heard the child screaming have
done?
Ask the students to compile their ideas into a list, called ‘How to help Stop Bullying’ and post it up in the class. Remind students of how comments and actions can affect people and encourage them to not make any RIP statements or actions towards each other and to stop others doing so.
Reproduced with kind permission from Kidscape
Updated: 13 October 2003