UMPS Students Have Buckets of Fun Learning Anti-Bullying Lessons

Throughout this year, the (UMPS) guidance program has focused on a unit that teaches students the importance of solving problems peacefully.

As part of the school’s continued use of the ProSocial Skills Model, a school-wide discipline model, the topic of bullying and anti-bullying strategies were addressed, specifically during November, a month also known as “Anti-Bullying Month”.

In early October a UMPS assembly, led by Judy Brunner, the school’s guidance counselor was held to talk about bullying. In the next month, Brunner said she visited the school’s approximately 600 students in kindergarten, first-and second-grades.

“We want to create awareness at this young age, and define what bullying is,” Brunner said. “It’s about showing respect and listening.”

At the assembly and in the classrooms, Brunner identified different ways that students could be bullied at the primary-school age, including verbal bullying ( i.e, name-calling) or muscle bullying (i.e. pinching).

Through the ProSocial Skills Model, the anti-bullying strategies were already in place, but now purposed with an anti-bullying focus.

According to Brunner, such strategies have simple yet powerful staying abilities, of which 85-percent of the students bring with them to the immediate higher grades; and have included such names as the “Stop and Think Program,” “Give 5,” and the “I Care Message.”

Another strategy reveals why Brunner carries a “smiley-face” pail wherever she goes throughout the school, as the pail reminds students of the giant paper bucket posted in the main hallway. The bucket, according to Brunner, provides a primary school-view understanding of the “golden rule,” in which students who are kind and giving to one another, may have their own buckets filled. 

“It’s a huge bucket, and that’s visual, that’s something the kids can understand,” Brunner said, adding that the paper bucket mural has stars and hearts shooting out of it. “It’s very Primary.”

Brunner said, in order to keep such concepts new and interactive, a committee was formed years ago, called the Support Services Committee.

This committee, whose members include Brunner, the principal, other administration and teachers, had long wanted to bring the message of anti-bullying from the classroom to the living room.

Brunner further explained that the committee put a focus on bullying due to extensive media coverage of bullying stories throughout the country, as early as 2005.

By 2010, the committee came up with a poster contest to help drive home the anti-bullying concepts.

“They get excited with the participation,” Kerry Butterworth, UMPS intern and master’s student at Gwynedd Mercy College, explained.

She said that the students who participate often inspire other students to want to create their own posters.

UMPS students were asked immediately after the assembly to create a poster that reflected the anti-bullying concepts explained by Brunner.

The students were only limited by their creativity, and with their parents helping to create the posters, over 100 students participated last year, Brunner said.

And, while not as many students again participated this year, the creativity and understanding of the project was present.

“You can see the parental help. It’s nice,” Brunner said. “The students can walk the walk, because their parents are behind them.”

Some students used the common language discussed in the anti-bullying lessons, such as “Be a Buddy, not a Bully.” While others had computer-generated graphics illustrating scenes of bullying, some where hand drawn, and even featured a familiar character who was ostracized just for having a bright, glowing, red nose.

“If they’re thinking it, writing it, then they’re living it,” Brunner said.

She added that the poster illustrations now decorate highly visible areas of the school, with the intent of reminding the students of their anti-bullying lessons long after they move onto the Intermediate School.

“There are wonderful kids in our building,” Brunner said with her ever-present smile. “I feel that there is a lot of hope for them.”