Anti-Bullying Stories

I am so excited! Communities In Schools (CIS) of Brunswick County here in North Carolina has received a Grassroots Arts grant from the NC and Brunswick Arts Council for the Arts to have me work on an anti-bullying program (using story performance) in two of their seven after-school programs.

We are still ironing out some of the details, but essentially the program will provide the students with story-based models of good behavior and a creative outlet for energy that are designed replace the tendency to bully and the fear of being bullied. By offering the students a creative outlet through drama and storytelling, we hope to open doors to interests and talents they might not have realized in themselves.

The stories that I will tell are some of the ones in my repertoire that I have seen “stick” with children over the years. Almost a quarter century after I have started to tell the story of the rattlesnake young people who heard it in K- Grade 6 still tell me how it affected them and that they recall it clearly (when they see me!).

Even though my time in the classroom will be limited to two hours for three and possibly four days, each part of what I do is carefully targeted to build on what teachers are already doing and backed by materials by those who have extensively studied bullying in schools.

Last week I met with Kathy Smith, the CIS After-School Director, to lay out how we would approach each element. I hope to use this blog to chronicle the story of how we are putting the program together so that others may benefit from what we are doing.