Get students thinking critically about bullying – through comics
By Shahan Panth January 9, 2012 10:25 am
Bullying prevention has been generating lots of discussion lately, but one group that we don’t hear from enough is kids. It would be nice if we could ‘solve’ the problem for them, but top-down directives and zero tolerance policies alone probably won’t do. Kids need to have a voice in the matter. A new book called Join the Club looks at the power of peer pressure to drive positive social changes. One instance the author cites is a funny anti-smoking ad campaign created by teens that helped make a serious dent in teen smoking rates – after decades of failed attempts through traditional ‘smoking is bad’ campaigns. The idea is that if a message comes from your own peers, you’re much more likely to respond to it positively.
That’s the thinking behind the Stop Bullying: Speak Up Comic Challenge, a free classroom resource that puts students center stage and gives them a creative way to share their perspectives on how best to deal with bullying. The Comic Challenge lets teachers assign students activities that present a variety of hypothetical bullying situations – it’s then up to students to show how they would resolve these situations by making their own comics. The activities are all web-based and include tools that enable any student to create great looking comics.
Finished comics can be shared in a classroom gallery, where they can be read by other students, parents and the whole community. Over 30,000 comics have been created so far, and despite the seriousness of the subject, some of them are quite entertaining.
The Comic Challenge is completely free and accessible year-round. The best comics will be published in an anthology that school libraries will be able to download and print – a bullying prevention comic book, for students and by students. Bullying isn’t a topic that kids jump at the chance to talk about, but the Comic Challenge provides a fun and engaging opening to get the conversation started.
Shahan Panth is on the team at Bitstrips for Schools, a web tool that enables students to make comic strips without having to draw.
- Comments
- 2
Phil - Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 01:42 pm GMT -4
This is a nice initiative, however the country as a whole uses the “bullying” model both domestically and internationally. Look at the wars of aggression, the aggressive tactics to squelch peaceful protest and the policing and political model overall and you have some very persuasive arguments of why bullying is okay and in fact beneficial and fully supported by society.
cdraper - Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 10:51 pm GMT -4
Change has to start somewhere!