Bullying prevention through interactive activities

General

Nobody likes to be made to feel bad, yet bullying still happens in the classroom and outside of it. In this lesson, students will learn about why they shouldn't bully others or allow it to happen around them. To help them do this, they will also learn strategies they can use to stand up to bullying if they see it happening.

Learning objective

Students will learn why and how they should say "no" to bullying.

Introduction

This lesson begins with an activity to show how bullying affects us. The teacher (or students in groups if you prefer) will create a paper heart. Students will then share examples of words or actions that hurt their feelings, and create a fold or wrinkle in the heart for each of these hurtful words or actions.

Once the heart is folded up, students will share examples of other peoples’ words or actions that made them feel good. For each example, the heart will be unfolded until it is back to normal.

At the end of the activity, we will notice that the heart now has creases that remain even after we’ve tried to flatten it out. This is a representation of how mean words or actions can hurt us in ways that are hard to fully fix or forget about, even if somebody apologies for what they did to us.

Instruction

The lesson will then discuss what it means to be a friend or bully to somebody else. Multiple examples from a classroom setting are presented to help students recognize bullying when they see it, and to recognize what it means to be a good friend to somebody else.

Once students have practiced recognizing the difference between a buddy and a bully, they are asked to reflect on their own actions and words and think of times when they have made somebody else feel bad. By actively reflecting on how our words and actions affect other people, we can do a better job of making sure we don’t make other people feel bad in the future.

Students also review ways that they can stand up to bullying when they see it happening. Some strategies mentioned include:

- Say positive things about others
- Tell the person doing the bullying, “that’s not something a friend would do”
- Don’t spread rumors or gossip
- Stand up for someone who is being made fun of
- Report bullying to a teacher, parent, or other trusted adult