January 25th, 2014
Q&A with Elicia Welch – MAP’s VISTA
Q: What is the most recent playwriting adventure happening at MAP?
EW: The kids are taking a serious approach to a difficult subject as they prepare to write Be My Ally: the Upstander play! The 5th graders at MAP are teaming up to come up with an amazing, persuasive and informative play on the different types of bullying, why it happens, what it’s consequences can be, and how you can help prevent it! We sadly are not unfamiliar with the idea of a person shoving someone around or taking their lunch money at school – and bullying has grown into something even more invasive with the internet. These young people have been learning all about it in workshops with guests who have been targets of bullying and have found ways to transform their lives by helping others.
The over arching question that was thrown out on the table… What is bullying? Not only did the students speak on the issue, they also demonstrated in small skits/plays about what bullying is. For example: one student said, “Bullying is when a classmate is picking on another classmate”. With that, the kids took the stage and gave great performance examples.
Q: Who has come to visit?
EW: We were graced with the presence of guest artist Courtney Walsh. Courtney helped the kids break down the emotion behind bullying. What causes a person to become a bully? Are bullies really bad people? No! Bullies have an emotional reason for their actions. A person can exhibit bad behavior and change over a course of time. It was extremely important that the students learned that and understood those differences. Courtney also introduced the idea of loving yourself –understanding that you are an amazing person and as long as you believe in the positive, the negative affects of words cannot budge your strong knowledge of self! The students played a few games that helped them exhibit how to keep positive thoughts in negative atmosphere.
And on Monday, Jan 20th, in honor of Dr. MLK Jr. day, we hosted a bully prevention day at the Clubhouse with our friends from Talk Works and Elizabeth Keiser who does great work in Central Falls. The students outlined where bullying could take place: Online, in the classroom, at recess, in the lunchroom and other places where there might be unsupervised activity. The students discussed two important roles: bystanders and “upstanders”. A bystander is someone who watches bullying take place and does nothing to help, usually out of fear or insecurity. An upstander is someone who sees a bullying situation and takes action in helping to stop the bully. That insight led us to start brainstorming. Why do bystanders stand by? How can someone stop another person from being bullied? The kids said, “ talk to a teacher” if your in a school situation. “Talk to your parents”, if it is happening at home, on a computer or in your neighborhood. These answers seem very simple yet they are the hardest things to do if you’re in the situation. Witnessing someone being bullied and helping them by getting authorities attention could potentially save someone’s life!
In our discussions we also learned that sometimes one upstander is not enough. Sometimes it takes multiple people to stop a bully. A whole community needs to make a stand and help the target/victim and also help the bully by getting to the root of the bully’s reasoning behind the misbehavior. The magic that flowed in the clubhouse from these answers was breath taking.
With all of these workshops under their belts, the MAP kids in the Tag Team class will be working together to craft what will surely be an awesome play and I can’t wait to see what they come up with!