Students and teachers tackle bullying

Feb 8, 2017 | 3:05 PM

Grade 6 student Kiersten Ryder-Cyer says being bullied made her feel like she didn’t belong at school.

“I felt like I was different from everyone else,” she said. “I had no friends at the time. Whenever I [would] go on Facebook and change my profile picture, I would sometimes get rude comments.”

That’s no longer the case as Kiersten said she hasn’t been bullied for roughly a year.

She wasn’t the only one either. Fellow classmate Zaydin Ryder-halkett said he’s seeing people being bullied over the Internet, physically bullied and teased.

He said he was bullied earlier this year.

“It made me feel bad,” he said. “It made me like I should run and not come to school anymore. I didn’t want to get up.”

Kiersten and Zaydin’s class at Riverside Community School are taking steps to stop bullying by talking about it, doing craft projects and watching videos on the subject. Schools across the province are placing more emphasis on anti-bullying in anticipation of Pink Day on Feb. 22.

Zaydin said talking about it helped and advised other students to speak to someone they really trust.

Teacher Tanya Vancoughnett said her class isn’t just focusing on bullying but also being kind.

“Instead of putting all these thoughts in their head about how to bully and what a bully is, let’s just focus on being kind to each other,” she said. “Studies have shown bullying causes anxiety and depression in a lot of students. So if we can focus on something positive and make a safe environment for students, maybe they will have better attendance and less anxiety.”

She said the activities help provide students with a safe place to talk. She suggested discussions should happen more than once a year.

Another way Riverside is trying to make the school more positive is through a series of books called Fill the Bucket. The buckets are imaginary and are filled when someone does something positive for someone else. The opposite happens when someone does something negative to someone else. These people are called bucket dippers.

Grade 1 student Leonarda Cook said she doesn’t want someone taking from her bucket and focuses on being a ‘bucket filler.’

“Today my partner he just knocked my book down and that made me so mad,” she said. “I said ‘I don’t want someone to do that’. It [emptied my bucket] a little bit. If someone dips someone’s bucket they will feel sad.”

Shawna Sinclair, who teaches another Grade 1 class at the school, said Fill the Bucket helps provide students with a way to better communicate their emotional state.

“To be able to say what you are feeling is really big for kids,” Sinclair said. “A lot of times in Grade 1 all they know is happy and mad. We also get the kids to vocalize to the other person how they feel. You made me feel sad when you did this. It is really effective.”

 

Email: Jeff.Labine@jpbg.ca.
On Twitter: @labinereporter.