An educational resource for Bullying Awareness Week. This guide is for teachers of grades 4, 5 and 6. It is meant to provide the teacher with quick and easy lesson plans that use several short Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to get kids thinking – from the point of view of the bystander – about how they interact with one another and how they can act differently to help reduce bullying. This is simply a guide. It is our hope that you will use it during the third annual national Bullying Awareness Week.
Not only will your students enjoy watching the PSAs, the lesson plans are simple and easy to incorporate into your existing curriculum. What is Bullying Awareness Week? Bullying Awareness Week is an annual campaign initiated in 2003 by Family Channel and Bullying.org Canada to show and tell kids that they have the power to do something about bullying. The message of Bullying Awareness Week is directed at the bystander – kids who witness bullying but may not do anything about it.
The decision to focus on the bystander was made in consultation with two of Canada’s leading experts in the field of bullying, Drs. Debra Pepler and Wendy Craig, whose research has shown that bullying stops within 10 seconds 57% of the time when peer bystanders intervene on behalf of children who are bullied.
The message of Bullying Awareness Week is, “When you see someone being bullied, let them know they’re not alone.” This message is delivered in a series of PSAs that encourage kids to reach out to peers who are bullied rather than standing by and doing nothing. The PSAs provide kids with examples of bystanders doing something to make a positive difference in the life of a peer who is bullied. A highly motivational PSA called The Pledge reinforces the “bystander” message by challenging kids to take a pledge to stick-up for kids who are picked on. This challenge resulted in 50,000 pledges taken in the first year of the campaign and 175,000 in the second. The goal for the third year is to have 250,000 Canadian children take the pledge at www.family.ca/takethepledge. (The “Take the Pledge” campaign launches at the outset of Bullying Awareness Week, November 14 to 20, 2005, and goes until the end of the 2005-2006 school year.)
Why is BAW important to teachers/administrators/parents? Kids need the support of the influential adults in their lives to gain the confidence to take a stand against bullying. Support should be consistent at school and at home, drawing on a common understanding of both the problems and solutions that have been shown to work. Knowing that bullying often stops when kids intervene on behalf of peers who are being bullied, adults can help kids think about their actions and identify how they could act differently to help reduce bullying. As educators, we have both an opportunity and an obligation to teach children how to deal with the issue of bullying. As a resource to supplement your school’s existing bullying program, the PSAs and suggested activities in this guide may help you to deal with this issue in your classroom/school.
Download full Teacher Guide
Download poster with pledge
Song Bullying Awareness Week 'Anyone but me' by Dandy Gemmil
Lyrics - download the lyrics
Anyone But Me by Sandy Gemmill If I knew that being the new girl, would leave me lonely in the corner of ridicule, You know I would have, if I could have, never walked the halls of this school. Text by text and friend by friend... I try, and I try, to be who they want me to be, but it seems, I can’t be Anyone But Me I waited for you at the mall downtown, my mistake to take you seriously. At my regret, one more text, LMAO, another joke's on me. Text by text and friend by friend... And I try, and I try, to be who they want me to be, but it seems, I can’t be Anyone But Me And I try, and I try, to be who they want me to be, but it seems, I can’t be Anyone But Me Pushed around on the schoolyard ground, my heart stays in the dust. Called me names, I won't complain...but I don't know who to trust. Can I be? Can I be? Anyone But Me And I try, and I try, to be who they want