Yeah… so last night’s (although it didn’t post till this morning, I wrote it last night) blog post was very emotional to write – I don’t know how it was to read – and I hope no-one is angry at me for posting it, but as you could probably tell, I am sick of this idea that the victims of bullying should hide away and be ashamed to talk about it, and the same goes for people who’ve self-harmed in the past – it shouldn’t be the taboo subject it is today; that’s why it happens to so many people – they’re scared to get the help they need before it’s too late because it IS such a taboo subject and it isn’t spoken about, and it should be.
Which is what’s got me thinking. We aren’t taught about self-harm or depression at school – it just doesn’t happen. It’s hidden away and, yet again, treated as something to be ashamed of. In many schools, the victims of bullying aren’t encouraged to speak out – many schools don’t even have bullying policies; as far as the teachers are concerned, “there is no bullying”, even though so many people have experienced it. It’s this “out of sight, out of mind” culture that’s made it socially acceptable to bully. We’re getting to the stage where aduls are saying “it’s character building”, “it’s just a bit of fun” – maybe for the bully, but for the victim it’s life-destroying, it’s the furthest possible thing away from fun you’ll ever find.
We study theatre in education as part of my course, and apparently we’re encouraged to come up with our own ideas and possibly even start small companies as we progress through the course. I’ve only been on the course for two weeks now, but I already know what I want to do. I want to start a very small TIE-type group, just three or four people who go around local schools and hold workshops encouraging kids to look at the way they treat others. When I was at school, we had a couple of TIE groups who just came, preached to us under the guise of acting, and left, and I don’t want mine to be like that – I want to involve the kids, I want to get them role-playing – I want people to see things through the eyes of the bully and see how small-minded they are, and I want people to see things through the eyes of the victim, and maybe we can change a few attitudes.
I want to create action packs for schools and campaign for a law, to ensure that all schools – be they nursery, primary, secondary, sixth form, college, whatever – have a rigorous bullying policy, and that this is enforced. There should be penalties for schools that don’t enforce punishments for bullying, and we need PSHE lessons in every school from primary onwards, introducing children to the notion of everyone respecting each other. I don’t expect everyone to be friends with everyone else and never argue – arguments happen, but bullying is too far.
It’s going to take a lot of hard work, and a lot of planning and possibly a fair bit of money, but I’m determined that I’m going to make it happen. Bullying needs to be stamped out. I’ve seen the power that just a little bit of local campaigning – some letter-writing, a few messages to newspapers and councils – can do. We reached people in Australia and Denmark with the campaign for the plaque for Harold Lowe. I don’t care whether this one goes local, or nationwide, or international, or only works in one tiny school – if we can change one child’s life, that’s good enough for me.
the life of a moomin 