BEATING BULLYING
A series of school-wide iniatives and events - Alessia V.
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ullying is an issue that is far too widespread, affecting almost one in three children in the world and one in ten in France. Ever since 2015, the first Thursday of November has been the “Journée nationale de lutte contre le harcèlement scolaire”, a day dedicated to raising awareness about the devastating effects of bullying, all while working on the ambitious task of eradicating it in educational environments. Last year, UNESCO decided to declare that same day the “International Day against Violence and Bullying at School including Cyberbullying”
with victims of different types of bullying had been handed out and posters had been hung up all around the school for students to share their thoughts on.
Behind the scenes, planning and coordinating all the events of November 5th, was the newly formed Anti-Bullying Committee. It is made up of 14 people from all parts of the school, administrators, teachers, students, and parents, each offering a different perspective on bullying. Of its members, Ms. Lemaire — also Head of Adaptation — kindly agreed to speak to Le Bilingue about the committee itself as well as its November 5th was thus both the national and goals and actions. international day against bullying, an occasion the school observed through a variety of actions and The committee, which was formed this year out of a initiatives including a live webinar, posters and colorful desire to address the problem that is bullying, started ribbons. This day was also a first glimpse into the meeting in September. “If we were there,” said Ms. work of the Anti-Bullying Committee, whose projects Lemaire, “it was because we felt really strongly about extend far beyond this single day of raising awareness, this issue, and we had a lot of things to say and a lot of its goal being to address the issue of bullying in the reactions to share”. long-term. As the committee gathered thoughts and ideas from students, one of the main sentiments was that efforts to raise awareness about bullying had been both scattered and irregular, and had varied greatly from class to class. Some classes whose homeroom teachers were particularly committed to addressing bullying might explore it in great detail, while others might opt for a more brief overview of the topic. The issue of definitions also came up: even with identical materials or resources, there might be subtle, yet significant differences in what students heard, and therefore in their understanding of the concrete definition of bullying. “Every year, at school, all through the Collège and Lycée,” Ms. Lemaire explained, “there are all these different things that happen, usually a homeroom At 1:45 pm on Thursday, November 5th, the entirety decides to do something, but then not everyone of the school stopped for a period to watch a live knows about it.” So while one class might decide to, webinar featuring all the main members of the school for example, put up posters related to bullying, the administration, as well as teachers and students. Earlier scope of their actions remained inevitably limited. in the day, colorful ribbons representing solidarity
one of the anti-bullying posters
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