12 April 2013 - In today's health class we continued with our bullying prevention lessons. We've been focusing lately on celebrating uniqueness and recognizing what makes us special.
A while back, the students each made personal postcards with thier pictures on them. Each student filled the background of the postcard with images that represent them in some way. This could have been anything from the logo of a favourite sports team to a picture of a favourite food. The students did an awesome job of this, and most had between 20 and 30 different images surrounding them. It was cool to see them being so reflective in this process and realizing that, as individuals, they are not all that easy to define. Even at 10 or 11 years old, they were starting to see that they are pretty complex people after all!
We completed this lesson today by doing a "similarities tour" of our classroom. Each student laid their postcards out at their seats and we rotated from group to group looking at each other's images. The challenge was for each student to find at least one commonality with as many classmates as possible. The students had a great time doing this, and were writing feverishly throughout the tour. In the end, I asked the students to share some of the similarities that surprised them. It was funny to hear about how shocked some of the students were to realize that they had stumbled upon a potential addition to their social circles! Comments like, "I had no idea that H. played golf!" or "I can't believe that A. like fishing!" were common.
The best part of the lesson was the realization on the part of the students that even though none of us are the same, we have much more in common than we realize. Building mutual respect in this way is an important step in preventing instances of bullying in the future!
