Anti-bullying ad sends
gut-wrenching message to a different audience - adults
By Donna Krache, CNN
Editor’s Note: Not In Our School offers resources to help adults empower
students against bullying. You may also want to check out The Stop Bullying Speak Up campaign, sponsored by Cartoon Network,
CNN and Time Warner, a student-centered approach that also offers educator and
parent materials.
(CNN) - It’s an
anti-bullying message designed to hit home with a different audience - adults.
And it hits hard.
The
set is an office breakroom. The office bully calls a coworker names, then
pushes and threatens him, even as horrified colleagues pretend not to notice.
One gets up from his table and scurries away. The victim is humiliated. The
bully revels in the power.
In the
end, the boss intervenes, but not to bring justice - just to tell the bully and
the victim to "get back to work."
Anyone
who watches the public service announcement, “Break Bullying,” would see no
office would allow the scene to play out that way. In reality, it didn't: It
was based on actual experiences from the producer's middle school years.
And
that’s the point, according to the organization Not in Our School and Mike Nelson, the producer of the spot: If we wouldn’t
stand for bullying as adults, why do we allow it to happen in our schools?
When
Nelson’s boss at production house MAKE told him to do a piece on bullying, he
jumped at it. Nelson was bullied in middle school and fell back on that
experience to create a story that would resonate with adults who saw it.
He
decided to use real images and real language. Even "bleeped out," the
expletives are obvious and stinging. Nelson says that’s the reality of
bullying.
“This
is how it happens,” he told CNN.
The Not in Our School program focuses on what adults can do to help
kids address bullying and make schools safe for everyone. Its site offers a
guide to start a Not in Our School campaign as well as a video kit and links to
anti-bully supports. It also features anti-bullying lesson plans for
elementary, middle and high school classrooms.
Nelson’s
anti-bullying message had a strong impact on Cohn-Vargas. An educator and
daughter of a family that escaped the Holocaust, she notes, “Many adults have
taken action from personal experience.”
Now
that he's an adult, Nelson said, he's taking his own action against bullying.
“I
basically played out my own experience in school,” he said. “I wrote that
exactly as it was.
“That
hurtful behavior sticks with kids for the rest of their lives."
Newspaper Reading:
Preparation for Group Discussion
Student: __Elinton Jeronimo__________________________________
1) Select one magazine or newspaper article to bring to class. This article can also come from an online newspaper such as The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times.
2) Gather three words you did not understand, liked, and/or found interesting in the article you selected, look them up in the dictionary, and complete the table below.
WORD
|
PART OF
SPEECH (Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, etc.)
|
SYNONYM
OR DEFINITION
|
Bulling
|
Verb
|
Use superior strength or influence
to intimidate someone, typically to force him or her to do what one wants.
|
Gut-wrenching
|
Adjective
|
Informal causing great distress or suffering.
|
Stinging
|
Verb
|
Feel or cause to feel a sharp
tingling or burning pain or sensation.
|
3) To help with the context for the words you selected, highlight or underline the sentences that contain the three words you gathered.
4) In one sentence, explain what the article is about. You can use the following sentence starters to help you: “This article is about…” “The main idea in this article is…”
5) Bring this sheet and a hard or digital copy of your article to class. Be prepared to share this information with a group of peers next class.
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