“It’s not just, oh, you get bullied and the next year it gradually tapers off and you’re a normal person. It sticks with you your entire life. I still get these occasional feelings, like I’m not good enough. I never felt anything like that before the ninth grade.” Mike Nelson, now a successful ad agency producer, knows how devastating bullying can be. He brought his own experience to a video PSA, "Break Bullying," that shows how shockingly degrading and harmful bullying can look if seen it from the perspective of an adult. (See Nelson’s bullying story below.)
“Kids aren’t going to accept something that’s watered down,” said Nelson, head of production at MAKE. “Let’s get real about this.”
MAKE is based in Minneapolis, Minn. and does commercial work for companies such as McDonalds, Target, Burger King and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Two years ago, the team began creating PSAs pro bono around issues they were passionate about and donating the PSAs to organizations they supported, including the Salvation Army, Animal Humane Society, Second Harvest Food Bank and the National Fatherhood Initiative.
anti-bullying
With Not In Our School, move into action for a safe, accepting and inclusive school.
Six simple solutions:
If you are being bullied: tell them to stop, get away from the situation, and tell a trusted adult.
If you see someone being bullied, be an upstander: Tell the person to stop, get a trusted adult, reach out and be friends.
With your children: Listen and support your children. Work with the school to be sure your child is safe.
In Your School: Learn and help train all adults and youth on how to recognize and respond to bullying.
With Others Who Care: Start a Not In Our School Anti-bullying Club where youth lead in finding solutions.
In Your School and the Entire Community: Create an identity-safe climate where all people are respected.
Start today to address bullying and intolerance with these additional resources from Stopbullying.gov:
Stop It On the Spot — Respond — Prevent and Build a Safe Community
Scott Hannah and Tyler Gregory make up the NoBull Guys, national spokespeople for The Great American NO BULL Challenge. Photo.
Is it possible for two students to change the perspective that millions of youth have on bullying? We think so, in fact, we are doing everything it takes to be those two students.
We call ourselves The NoBull Guys, and we are on a mission to inspire bravery and make the world a kinder place. We embarked on our journey when we heard about the suicide of 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer. We realized that this could have been anyone in our community, one of our friends, or one of our siblings. We wanted suffering victims of bullying to realize that they have a reason to live and that they are worth something to somebody, no matter who they are.
Soledad High School students come together to pledge against bullying. Photo Courtesy of Monterey County Office of Education.Soledad High School Assistant Principal Laura Eras and Intervention Specialist Myra Chavez called us from Soledad, CA, a small farming community located 25 miles southeast of Salinas. Using Not In Our School materials, they launched a weeklong anti-bullying campaign.
Executive Producer Patrice O'Neill and film crew sit with local Marshalltownnewspaper, the Times-Republican, Wednesday, Aug. 29. Photo Courtesyof Times-Republican.
This week, we join Marshalltown, Iowa to celebrate the city’s Not In Our Town campaign.
Tomorrow at noon, Marshalltown’s Not In Our Town committee will host a rally on the Marshall County Courthouse lawn, where hundreds donned in orange Not In Our Town T-shirts will meet to support the efforts against bullying.
Our camera crews are in Marshalltown now to help support as well as document the movement. At the rally, Executive Producer Patrice O’Neill will send greetings from the Not In Our Town community, while Marshalltown Mayor pro-tem Bethany Wirin will present a proclamation supporting Not In Our Town. Meanwhile, participants can sign pledge cards against bullying.
When Susan Guess of Paducah, KY learned that her 8-year-old daughter was being bullied by a classmate, she was devastated.
“I’m a 37-year-old mom, with a very close and open relationship with my child, yet she kept that information private from me,” she said.
Guess asked her daughter Morgan what was going on and was finally told the truth about being bullied at school.
“This was an eye opening experience about how little I and the school knew about bullying,” Guess said. “There was so much ignorance.”
Guess became increasingly concerned about her child and other children who suffer in silence, so she and Morgan decided to open the conversation about bullying and share their story.
Guess met with school leaders to raise awareness about the growing problem of bullying at their school. She also launched an anti-bullying campaign that would raise money to bring the film Bully and Director Lee Hirsch to their town.
This article, written by Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas, originally appeared in the June/July 2012 California State PTA newsletter. Not In Our Town has partnered with CAPTA to work together to address bullying and intolerance in schools throughout California. Dr. Cohn-Vargas is the director of Not In Our School and an experienced educator.
We hear a lot about bullying, but do we ever stop to really think about what it is and the consequences of bullying? After all, isn't just kids being kids, a part of growing up? Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully among others may have serious, lasting problems.
Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. Bullying can affect people in many ways. Some may lose sleep or feel sick. Students may want to skip school. Some may even be thinking about suicide.
Are you an educator who wants to address bullying and motivate your entire community to create a safe, inclusive, and accepting school? NIOS workshops can help develop Not In our School anti-bullying campaigns, using our award-winning documentary films and lesson guides.Learn about our professional development models options, customized to your needs. Get in touch through the interest form below.
How can a NIOS workshop help my school?
NIOS workshops offer:
Schoolwide models for creating and implementing identity safe and inclusive environment on campus
Ideas for putting students in the driver’s seat to lead school-wide anti-bullying efforts
Tools for developing NIOS campaigns involving students, parents, civic leaders, and the community
Methods for teaching all students to move from bystanders to upstanders who speak up for themselves and others
Tips for supporting students who are bullied, as well as populations often targeted for their disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or perceived sexual identity
On Sunday, the citizens of Marshalltown, Iowa launched a united effort to help stop bullying before tragedy strikes.
The citywide Not In Our Town campaign is organized by an anti-bullying committee comprised of community, education, civic and law enforcement leaders. This core group of 25 were brought together by the Marshalltown Times-Republican. Through a series of film screenings, community events, and public speakers, the campaign aims to bring all forms of bullying to light to make Marshalltown a safe and inclusive city.
"We want to see if we can be ahead of the curve as a community in preventing bullying," said Mike Schlesinger, publisher of the Times-Republican, said in a June 3 article. "We want to look at ways to prevent school bullying, but also workplace bullying, domestic violence and other types of bullying among adults."
According to the Times-Republican, a youth survey showed that 41 percent of the city's students had been bullied in the last 30 days, and 11 percent of those students didn't go to school because they felt unsafe.
Watch the opening scenes to Class Actions by clicking on the image above.
"Bullying, racism, discrimination, hate. You know it's out there. It makes you cringe. But what are you gonna do about it?"
--MTV post on Not In Our Town: Class Actions
KQED will broadcast Not In Our Town: Class Actions on Monday, March 19 at 7:30 p.m. The broadcast is an opportunity to open the conversation about how to stop hate and bullying. Join us in getting a Bay Area discussion going in your schools and communities.