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No Sticks, No Stones: Albion Middle School Students Learn About the Dangers of Name Calling

January 22, 2007
by Miranda Vagg

Bullying is frequently thought of as physical violence — such as pushing another person, or threats — according to Lisa Swindon, 21st Community Learning Center Grant Program Coordinator at Albion Central School.

“There’s a misconception about bullying,” she said.

Being a bully also encompasses verbal attacks and, in order to make students aware of the effects that name-calling can have on others, Albion is participating in no name-calling week, a national initiative that hundreds of schools across the country are also participating in, Middle School Social Worker Brenda McQuillan said.

“It was launched from a book, The Misfits by James Howe, about a group of five kids who were picked on and ran for student council under the ballot ‘no name-calling’,” she said.

Though the book is fictional, no name-calling week was brought into action to increase awareness of what happens when someone is verbally abusive.

Kicking the week off with an assembly Monday morning, students will see skits and hear poems read by their peers, according to Swindon.

“The assembly is very much student driven,” McQuillan said. “A lot of the teachers will be following up with the assembly with small lessons,”

Since students relate better with their peers than they do with adults, being active in the assembly is a way for the kids to reach out to one another, according to McQuillan. Students in Albion have been learning how to prevent bullying through the Safe School Ambassador program for the last few years, giving them the power to help, but still 15 percent of students are either a bully or a victim of bullying, she said.

As part of a service learning project, sixth grade Team 600 has made recycled paper and pressed it into buttons for their classmates to wear, McQuillan said. The buttons will represent the school initiative to stop name-calling.

To help stop students from picking on one another, McQuillan and Swindon have been looking into other programs besides the Safe School Ambassador program that focuses on teaching children how to recognize the signs of bullying.

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program was formed in 1983 in Norway. McQuillan and Swindon have been taking small steps toward implementing it long term, which could take a couple of years, McQuillan said.

The program has components on four different levels, according to McQuillan, such as school-wide elements that involve training all staff members and developing rules against bullying that will work in conjunction with the ambassador program, classroom elements, individual interventions and community efforts.

“It’s not like we’re replacing one program with another,” McQuillan said. “They compliment each other.”

By taking steps to implement the program and having the Safe School Ambassador program in place as well, all the bases are being covered, according to Swindon.

“Everyone will have a role at some point,” she said.

Though no name-calling week is only a five day initiative, a newsletter that was sent home gave parents an idea of what the week is for and how various activities will compliment the ways that students can use kind words rather than mean ones.

“Maybe as a result of this, parents will use this an opportunity to get the lines of communication open,” Swindon said.