The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Violence Prevention announced that between 21 and 49% of children have reported being bullied in the past year. What’s worse is that this disregards cases that aren’t reported. Almost 71% of children have been bystanders to bullying.
Sometimes, bullying can feel like there’s no escape—like you can’t even breathe. Sadly, there have been many reports of bullying being the reason for students taking their own lives.
Bullying exists in every school, and sadly, Norwin is no exception. To combat this, Norwin’s Olweus program has been planning ways to get through to its students. On September 20, the No Hate Tour’s highly anticipated BMX show was held in the main gym to teach students about the dangers of bullying.
“The Olweus bullying prevention program was implemented at Norwin last school year,” said Mrs Kristin Sweeney. “It’s just a program to help prevent bullying in our school, so promoting positive relationships between students and staff and making sure we try to eliminate the possibilities of bullying.”
Norwin’s Olweus program is run by a committee of faculty members at the high school, one of whom is the Guidance Secretary, Mrs. Jennifer Fiegel.
“I feel the program focuses on empowerment of the student body in eliminating bullying,” Fiegel said. “I am a firm believer that kindness matters and having the courage to say something when someone is being unkind to a peer is what being a Noble Knight is all about.”
One of the ways the school district has tried to carry out the program is by holding assemblies such as the No Hate Tour’s BMX show.
The No Hate Tour describes itself as an “incredibly impactful educational program that uses the energy and excitement of action sports to deliver critical bullying prevention tools, techniques, and information to students in a relatable, peer-to-peer manner.”
Basically, that is just a fancy way of saying they do flips and tricks on BMX bikes while teaching students how to stand up to bullying. The assembly was planned and coordinated by Norwin’s assistant principal, Mr. Nicholas Falone, and it was met with very positive reactions from students and faculty.
“The No Hate Tour actually reached out to us,” said Falone. “Their message of promoting positive relationships aligned with our anti-bullying campaign so we thought it would be a great opportunity to partner with them”
Students from all backgrounds and age groups felt the message of this assembly. Whether they have been a victim of bullying, bullied someone else, or witness bullying, every student benefitted from the No Hate Tour.
“The show was really cool,” said a Norwin senior. “I liked how they were able to entertain us while still getting their message across.”
Future plans for the Olweus program include various assemblies and class meetings that will take place over the course of the school year.
“We will continue to look for ways to engage the student body by using different modes and mediums of communication,” said Fiegel.
