Students take to the stage to combat bullies

By Ashley Livingston

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 | midnight

"Fight! Fight!" the students on the stage chanted as rows and rows of kindergarten, first and second graders looked on.

As the kick-off assembly to this year's bully free campaign, fifth-grade students at John C. Bass Elementary School put on skits to demonstrate to their peers and all the lower grades how to properly handle situations involving bullying.

The group of students from fifth-grade teacher Sarah Hartle's class who were playing bystanders to a fight between a victim and a bully showed that when people egg on a fight, they're part of the problem and will get in trouble too.

Fifth grader Robbie Hahn, who played the announcer in the first skit, explained that the bystanders got sent to the office along with the two who were fighting because they could've helped or gotten an adult instead of watching and encouraging the fight.

A second set of skits about what to do when caught in a tricky situation involving bullying was put on by Carla Scott's fifth-grade class.

Complete with VCR sound effects, students from her class did three "rewind skits'' in which they demonstrated situations in which students encouraged their peers to cheat and friends fought.

After demonstrating the wrong way to go about things, they "rewound'' to show how the situation could've been handled better.

"Take a few breaths, take your time and think about what you will say or do because then you won't need a rewind," one fifth-grade actor said at the culmination of the skits.

The assembly also featured words of wisdom from Charles Silvestri Junior High's group, Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE).

"We're here to teach you guys how to deal with bullies and how to talk back with words and not be violent," Silvestri's Student President Nick Paris told the younger students.

Group member Robyn Buckhheight, a Silvestri sixth grader, said she decided to join SAVE because of her experience with bullying.

"When I was a kid I was bullied a lot," she said, "I wanted to help other kids learn how to stand up for themselves."

Bass Principal Sheila Jones-Mosley said the bully free program is something the teachers and students focus on throughout the school year.

"This is something you have to address so that children learn ... to treat others the way they want to be treated," she said.

Ashley Livingston can be reached at 990-8925 or [email protected].