Beating bullying: school-wide initatives

BEATING BULLYING A series of school-wide iniatives and events - Alessia V.

Bullying 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”

November 5th was thus both the national and international day against bullying, an occasion the school observed through a variety of actions and initiatives including a live webinar, posters and colorful ribbons. This day was also a first glimpse into the work of the Anti-Bullying Committee, whose projects extend far beyond this single day of raising awareness, its goal being to address the issue of bullying in the long-term. one of the anti-bullying posters At 1:45 pm on Thursday, November 5th, the entirety of the school stopped for a period to watch a live webinar featuring all the main members of the school administration, as well as teachers and students. Earlier in the day, colorful ribbons representing solidarity 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 goals and actions.

The committee, which was formed this year out of a desire to address the problem that is bullying, started meeting in September. “If we were there,” said Ms. Lemaire, “it was because we felt really strongly about this issue, and we had a lot of things to say and a lot of reactions to share”.

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 decides to do something, but then not everyone knows about it.” So while one class might decide to, for example, put up posters related to bullying, the scope of their actions remained inevitably limited.

“We wanted to get organized this year,” said Ms. Lemaire. Nothing had ever been done on a schoolwide scale, an issue the committee sought to address through a coordinated day of actions.

The webinar was an attempt to remedy the lack of uniformity and consistency by delivering a strong and clear message to the entire school community. “We want people to understand. We want to get everyone on the same page. We want everyone to be really clear as to what the definition is,” Ms. Lemaire explained.

The 25 minute webinar, which was shown live to most classes in collège and lycée (a couple classes, especially older students in the T-building had technical difficulties viewing it live), featured most of the school administration as well as a number of teachers. “It was important that all the key people we would want you to come talk to were all in the webinar,” explained Ms. Lemaire “so you could see who we were and you could hear that we’re all giving you the same message, that we’re all on the same page and that we all agree on what needs to be done.”

Together, they delivered a message on the importance of addressing the far too common issue of bullying, and provided a clear definition of bullying while also reiterating the school’s stance on the matter.

This message of unity was one of the key aspects of the November 5th day against bullying, and also manifested itself through the colorful ribbons which were handed out throughout the day.

The idea for this grew out of anti-bullying t-shirts that had been sold by certain schools in Canada which then donated the profits to associations that work to address bullying in schools. However, this idea had a few issues, namely what to do with the proceeds — much of the work around bullying in France is done by the government — and the fact that not everyone would buy a t-shirt, let alone wear it once the event ended.

This inspired the idea of colorful ribbons which would each represent a different form of bullying; thus wearing one would show solidarity with its victims as well as a commitment to fighting it. This however raised the question of distribution: should each person pick the ribbons they felt were personally relevant, or should everyone wear the same ribbons? students handing out ribbons on november 5th

The answer to that question was, as is frequently the case in multi-cultural environments, deeply rooted in different cultural mindsets. “The Anglo-American perspective is more about your individual identity,” Ms. Lemaire explained, while “the French side is more about universality, solidarity and community”. So while the idea of students picking the ribbons that felt personally relevant appealed to some as a way of creating dialogue around the issue of bullying, to others, it seemed to erroneously suggest that one could not demonstrate solidarity or empathy for others’ experiences.

“The way to reconcile those two perspectives was to have all the different ribbons but to knot them and to give them as a package,” Ms. Lemaire explained, “so even if your personal issue, or what you’ve witnessed, is cyber bullying, it doesn’t mean that you can’t also be sympathetic with someone who has been pushed around in the playground.”

Another idea that grew out of the planning for the anti-bullying day was that of ‘expression boards’ which would feature rotating prompts for students to share their thoughts on. While a permanent form of these seemed complicated to maintain, they were used in the days and weeks following November 5th to gather students’ opinions. “We were hearing that students wanted more avenues to express themselves” said Ms. Lemaire, and these boards were thought up as a way to open constructive dialogue.

students writing on the library expression board

The posters that were put up throughout the school — in the courtyard, hallways, library and T-building — received a mixed response. Participation seemed to come mainly from the younger students, the boards in the library and in front of the cantine filling up with various thoughts and ideas. There was however not much on the Lycée side, as the poster in the T-building remained mostly blank.

The November 5th anti-bullying day was the first step of a broader initiative to address bullying at school. While the webinar focused on the “what” of bullying, the December 17th event will be centered on the “how”, i.e. tools and methods to deal with bullying.

On that day, a period will again be reserved, the same one as in November (Thursday at 1:45 pm is the only moment when every student in collège and lycée is in class) but this time will be more discussionbased than the first one. The period will start with a 5-minute student announcement, after which studentrun workshops aimed at providing tools to deal with bullying will be carried out in each class. These will be highly interactive, providing “time for students to discuss, interact and maybe try out the tools using skits” said Ms. Lemaire.

The workshops on December 17th will also, according to Ms. Lemaire, help answer certain lingering questions, most importantly “what do I say and what do I do to stop hurtful behavior, and to create positive relationships and a more welcoming environment?”

In this context, students and staff will be provided with multiple resources, all aimed at preventing and addressing bullying in and outside school.

“We’re going to send out an FAQ that will answer many of the questions students asked in the survey,” Ms. Lemaire explained. “Some students still weren't quite sure about certain things so we want to clarify those, and answer student questions”.

And while a second, more in-depth survey will also be sent out, an abbreviated version of the results of the first survey - carried out after the events on November 5th - will be published, as well as a French version of the ‘We Care’ statement which was initially put out in September.

There are also plans for a new mural to be painted in the courtyard soon after the end of the compos. Designed and created by an artistic team of 2nde students led by Mme Lacrosnière, the mural will be “a reminder of the kind of place we want to be”, as Ms. Lemaire put it. She also explained that “it will be colorful and positive and joyful, with this idea of unity and appreciating differences”.

While the mural is still in its planning phase, part of it might be something that everyone can contribute to, maybe through a fingerprint, handprint or brushstroke, “a way”, according to Ms. Lemaire, “for people to walk by and say ‘I’m part of this, I want to be part of this vision’”.