Doniphan West Seventh Graders Take a Stand

Group Info

Denton, KS and surrounding areas

May 13, 2007

Cyndi Geisen

education

empowerment

The seventh grade class from Doniphan West Middle School decided that enough was enough. It was time for kids in their community to take a stand against cyber bullying, a new kind of bullying which takes place over the Internet or some other form of technology (such as text messages), but can be just as emotionally devastating to a child as the classic form of bullying. So, the small town class of 32 students came together to organize an informational carnival for the members of their school and neighboring Highland Elementary, as well as a meeting for what parents and teachers can do to prevent such a thing from happening to their children, and what signs to look for should their child be bullied in cyberspace.

While organizing this carnival, which catered to students in grades K-8, the students decided that it would be a great idea to have a guest speaker come and talk to their classmates about how to avoid being bullied. They invited Miss Kansas 2007, Alyssa George, to speak to them, as she ran on a platform set against bullying in all its forms. In order to reach out to the community at large and gain their support, the students decided on a few ideas. They organized a t-shirt contest for the community to participate in, as well as had various facts and statistics about cyber bullying placed in the weekly bulletin of the area churches to help further inform the members of a growing problem in America.

Ultimately, their goals were quite simple: To help students grades K-8 and their parents understand the dangers of cyber bullying; to present information about cyber bullying to K-8 students and their parents; to offer age appropriate strategies to students who may become victims of cyber bullying; to help parents recognize the warning signs that their child may be a victim of cyber bullying. They accomplished several of these goals in a simple, relatively inexpensive manner. Not only did they hold the carnival and have guest speakers, but they also created posters to be put up around the area schools. There was even an attempt to hold a dance following all the events to celebrate the success of the carnival, in which admission would be based on how much knowledge the attendees had about cyber bullying prevention. Unfortunately, the students ran out of time in the school year to implement this.

Through all of the planning and implementation of the various programs, the students learned a variety of life skills that will help them as the move on into adulthood, including how to budget money for expenses, negotiation and compromise, communication skills, listening skills, how to accept ideas that are different from their own, respect, and time management, as well as the various facts about cyber bullying that they were teaching to their peers.

This project was funded by a Jump Starters grant from Heartland Foundation, and was sponsored by Learn and Serve America.

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