Letter to Teachers about "I am an Upstander" activity

by Lisa Catania, LCSW

Here is a letter we have sent to area schools with the hope that schools/classrooms will participate in our Bully Free Beverly - Bully Prevention Month activity:  "I AM AN UPSTANDER".  Please direct your child's classroom teacher to our website, blog and facebook for resources to participate in this project.

"September 25, 2013

Dear School Administrators, Teachers and Staff,

We are writing you today to ask you to join us in a community wide initiative to boost social and personal awareness about bullying and to promote a positive culture of kindness, compassion, and action in its’ place.  We know you are already working in this capacity, and hope that we can support each other.

 

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and the beginning of a new school year.  We felt this is a perfect time to create some community momentum to be proactive about bullying issues. 
 
Most bullying happens in environments that are outside of adult supervision, and most commonly, in cyberspace arenas of Twitter, Facebook, texting, and other new-upcoming-cyber-environments-that –we-adults-know-nothing-about.  We want to address bullying at these roots where the “bystanders” can be empowered to stop, help, tell, and support immediately when incidents are happening.  In the last few years a new term has emerged to label the bystanders who can help and rescue: “UPSTANDERS”.  According to Laura Hampton from EdNews Parent: “An upstander is a person who goes against the tide and will protect a victim from injustice.  The word is contrasted with bystander, which describes a person who does nothing to help when someone is being mistreated.  In the case of bullying this doesn’t necessarily mean a child needs to “take on the bully” in order to be an upstander.  There are other ways students can stand up for their peers who are being bullied, such as telling a teacher or parent or reaching out in friendship to the victim.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a common term and vision to address bullying issues between schools and in the broader community?

Our vision is for conversations about bullying - and a positive, empowered way – to happen simultaneously in classrooms and homes throughout our community.  Here’s how:  We have enclosed a simple activity to be completed at the classroom level:  create a picture under the title:  “I AM AN UPSTANDER”.  The picture can be the child’s or teen’s idea about how s/he can or has stood up in the face of wrong-doing (particularly in power-imbalanced, aggressive interactions which are the core interaction of bullying).  S/he could add at the bottom, “BULLY FREE ZONE”. 

Around this activity, you can have conversations about:

·         the dynamics of bullying;
·         what it means to be an “upstander”;
·         why can upstanding be daring?;
·         what kind of rules can your classroom have to prevent bullying?;
·         how might you notice and award upstanding behavior? (great activity – make a post-it tree and when there is a reported act of kindness, compassion, or bravery - note that with a post it comment on your tree)

To support you in this activity, we have enclosed resources in this packet/email.  (see next post for these resources)  We have included some good primers on bullying and upstanding, and web-based resources for classroom aids.  Please access our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BullyFreeBeverly or our webpage at www.BeverlyTherapists.com for more information and easy access to quality resources.

After you complete this activity, please hang the children’s posters around the school.  Please send the pictures home with the child with the enclosed note from us attached to it; ask your students to discuss the project with their family, hang the poster in their home or in a window, and to connect to our Facebook page for ongoing ideas and support.  We hope parents and children will choose to submit their child’s artwork to us.  Our vision is to create posters to hang around the community – in store windows, at the local library, at local parks.  We also would love to post children’s images daily on our Facebook page.

 We hope to have an ongoing relationship with you.  Please let us know how we can support you. Feel free to contact any of us for more information.  Please let us know about any successes or other projects you are doing to battle bullying or promote upstanding.  We will keep you informed of any other community incentives we have developed.

Thank you for your consideration, and hopefully your participation!

With gratitude and peace,

The Bully Free Beverly Team @ Beverly Therapists

Lisa Catania, LCSW            Jennifer Lara, LCPC                  Michelle Wood, LCSW

773-719-1751                      773-251-8016                           773-307-8365"