This past week, I have had my annual school wide assemblies on the topic of Hurtfull Behaviors in School (Anti-Bullying Program). This is my second go around at these assemblies and I must admit, my approach this time has been much more smooth in its execution.
Last year, I basically had my assemblies be delivered aggressively with not much room for students to have a profound understanding of why our School District is doing this. Although things went well with the 10 and 11 graders, it did not go too well with our grade 12 and 9 students. Last year I had two seperate assemblies. One for grade 10 and 11 while the other was for our grade 12 and 9. My rationale was to have our freshmen be among our seniors in order for our seniors to model recieving the message. What I did not consider before deciding these pairings were the dynamics. Last year, we had a graduating group of students (generally speaking) that flat out did not understand the difference between bullying behavior and a position of authority. So what happened was the graduating class decided to make a point about how some teachers bully students all the time (by telling them to go to detention, stop being late for class, etc). So here are my grade 9 kids hearing this message: "Nobody can tell anybody what to do. If they do, then they are bullying." Of course, this is absolutely rediculous however, there is a point to be made about the delivery of the message from the authority figure. Now I can respect that argument. But then again, the graduating class did not verbalize that argument. They just complained that teachers are always telling students what to do. Um....ya! That's their job! Anyway....
This year, I made sure that the grade 10 class (which were the 9s of last year) were alone as well as my grade 9. My grade 12 and 11 were together. All three assemblies had a totally different approach in its delivery and things went much much better. Only one hiccup happened during the grade 10 group when I was talking about the difference between being a "snitch" or "rat" and being a responsible citizen. Criminals that tell on each other are "rats" or "snitches". Citizens that tell about illegal behavior are responsible. It is a civic duty to report. Anyway, one little punk yelled out "snitches get stiches".....I'll be dealing with that student at a later date :)
All in all, I think the message has been well recieved by all. I made sure the students understood why everyone comes to school, what it means to feel safe at school and the difference between bullying bahavior and authority. Now it's a question of following up in the next few days.
