Middle School held our Olweus Anti-Bullying program kickoff event

On Friday, October 23rd, 2015 the SAS Middle School held our Olweus Anti-Bullying program kickoff event. This research based program has been utilized in many schools throughout the world to help address bullying and bring its devastation out of the shadows. Students participated in activities in the classroom as well as team-builders in the gymnasium.

A role-playing activity was the beginning of the kickoff in the classrooms. Each student had the chance to play roles such as the bully, the bullied, possible defenders, as well as others. The intent of the activity is to illustrate how students are often presented with the opportunity to stand up to bullying throughout their school careers. In addition to the role play, students were given the opportunity to write anti-bullying essays or create posters to illustrate the program and our focus on ending bullying in our building.

Students participated in team building activities around the gym designed to build skills in communication, problem solving, and listening. 

The first activity was called "Picture Pieces". This problem solving activity instructed students to recreate an exact copy of their piece of the puzzle. The participants put their pieces together to form one image. They were posed with the challenge of not knowing what their group members had and were able to see how one person contributes to an overall group result. 

The next activity focused on communication. Students worked in pairs to give verbal directions to a partner as they draw a simple image. The entire group shared their image to see which pair was able to communicate and recreate the image closest to the actual picture. 

The following two activities focused on trust, communication, and listening skills. Students work in pairs to guide their partner through a "mine field" while they are blind folded. Students had to get to the other side without hitting any of the items. A variation of this game required students to walk to a location blind folded and retrieve as many items as they could as their partner guided them verbally. The last station was a photo booth where students formed many group poses with props to help send a "No Bullying" message. 

The day brought fun and awareness to everyone in the middle school. We look forward to our class meetings that will supplement our efforts to address bullying.

Click here to view photos of Olweus Anti-Bullying program kickoff event.