Acting out the bullying drama

THE number of children affected by bullying in Ireland would fill the Aviva Stadium three times over.

So says Patricia Kennedy, founder of Sticks & Stones, the internationally-recognised Irish anti-bullying initiative. Kennedy was bullied by a teacher when she was in fifth class and knows well “that stomach-churning, gut-wrenching feeling of just not wanting to go to school”.

Kennedy and Sticks & Stones have been short-listed for the 2014 Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Awards. She has strong views on how children are perceived in relation to bullying. “There’s a real need to stop regarding schoolchildren just as victims and empower them to see how they can play a positive, pro-active role. If we don’t involve kids in the solution, we won’t really maximise our efforts to eradicate school bullying.”

Sticks & Stones has delivered workshops to 60,000 young people (aged eight to 18) in schools nationwide and uses drama to address bullying because it has a “transformational effect, boosts confidence and enables young people to raise sensitive issues”.

Pupils are invited to do the drama and not just watch it. “The children come up with the scenes. We don’t direct — we just get them to set it in a particular area of the school that they identify as the place most likely for bullying to happen. ”

Through discussion, children are given an understanding of what bullying is — the different types — and the language to describe it. “You have to have the language to identify bullying.” The class is divided into groups, each of which comes up with a role-play of a bullying scenario.

Kennedy points out the majority of children aren’t bullies and are not bullied. “But the majority determines whether there’s bullying in a class or not. In schools, it’s rare to find someone bullying alone. You find there’s either back-up — two to four friends of the child who’s leading the bullying — or an audience, which could be a group, or the whole class. “Very often, children don’t realise the impact they have by providing the back-up or the audience.”

A typical role-play to get children to realise the part they’re playing in the bullying could involve one child teasing another. The teaser has three friends beside them. The rest of the class watches as the role-play evolves. The Sticks & Stones team draws class attention to what is happening. This, says Kennedy, inspires children to be active change-makers in their own peer group.

* Visit www.sticksandstones.ie.