by Maya Metser
The anti-bullying lesson Thursday resulted in various reactions from students. Many commented on how their homeroom teachers taught the lesson—Some homeroom teachers took the lesson very seriously, while others were more lax. I asked students about how their teachers taught the lesson and how they think it should be taught.
My homeroom teacher took it a bit more seriously, but most of the kids weren’t taking it seriously. They were fooling around in class. In homeroom, you don’t get graded on how you do, so they don’t care about what they are doing. I think the lesson should be taken more seriously so kids pay more attention.
—freshman Thomas Stazesky
I don’t think my class had a very serious take on it. We didn’t watch the videos, but we did do group work. To get the message across, the teacher needs to talk directly to the students. If the kids work in groups, they tend to mess around more.
—sophomore Emily Lee
My homeroom teacher took it really seriously. We did a lot of group work where we discussed the articles that were given I feel like it should be less generic material because kids have heard about all the things before. They should show us more real-life situations so we can take it more seriously because bullying is such a big issue.
—sophomore Laurel Stanley
My homeroom teacher showed us a video about Richie Incognito, which was helpful because we all think of bullying as jocks shoving nerds into lockers. I think anti-bullying hasn’t done much to dispel the stereotypes. Not only do we need more real-world examples, we need to show kids that the empty threats and casual aggression is bullying. The first step to taking it seriously is being able to recognize what is and isn’t bullying.
—junior Camille Bowman
The prompts were not realistic. They should be more realistic so kids take it more seriously.
—junior Sando van Kuijck.
The lesson should be taught very seriously because bullying is a serious topic.
—junior Robert Pankov.
Every year it’s the same lesson, so kids can’t take it seriously.
—senior Larissa Cardoso.