Anti-Bullying
“Bullying Hurts Everyone.” That is the title of an activity book that Northern Community Mediation created for distribution to the elementary school students in the Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District service area. The focus of the activity book is to draw attention to how a person that is being bullied feels and then to sensitize young people with tools that they can use to stop the bullying.
Each page has a question or suggestion:
- What is bullying?
- Have you ever seen someone being bullied?
- How do you think that person felt? Angry, joyful,sad,happy, hopeless, calm, liked, shocked, concerned
- When you see someone being bullied, you can be a Bystander by
- Walking away
- Standing & watching
- Or you can be an Upstander by
- Trying to stop it
- Telling an adult
- Being kind to the person being bullied
- Which do you want to be
- Bullying hurts. List the way you can prevent bullying
- Out of 56.6 million students in the United State, 7 in 10 have seen bullying in their schools
- Color in the number of students who have witnessed bullying.
On the last page of the coloring book, the student signs an agreement that he/she will not be a bully and will be an Upstander.
NCM received funding from four, local Kiwanis clubs to fund the design, production and printing of the activity books: Kiwanis Club of Charlevoix, Kiwanis Club of Harbor Springs, Kiwanis Club of Petoskey, and the Kiwanis Club of Little Traverse Bay in Petoskey. Executive Director Jane Millar has been distributing the activity books by meeting with the teachers and administrators in each elementary school and explaining how the books can be optimally used. To date, the activity books are in the hands of approximately half the K-5 grade students in the Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District service area. Once the schools re-open following the COVID-19 pandemic, she will continue to distribute the activity books.