YATW Blog Post #3

For the final post of this year, not only did I have to research my issue on Bullying, but I had to go out into the world an address the issue to someone, or a group of people this was called an Agent of Change. I knew from the beginning I would teach a younger group of kids about the affects of bullying, when the time came I just needed to find the right group of kids. I had been in regular contact with my former principal at AIM Academy and when I told him about the project and my idea he replied saying that it could be possible for me to teach there. He gave the email of the lower school principal and told her about my idea. I didn’t have a backup plan so when I had no response I began to worry and try to think up new ideas, luckily I got a response a few days later saying I would be presenting the the fourth grade class.

The next activity was called Wrinkled Wanda, the students drew “Wanda” onto paper and wrote mean things to say to someone, after they were done I told them to crumple up their paper. After about five minutes of some serious crumpling, they were done and I told them to open up the paper and put it to the side. Then they took another piece of paper, and drew another “Wanda” however on this paper they wrote nice and sweet things to say to someone, mainly the opposite of the mean things they wrote before. Now they had two “Wanda’s” one nice and the other mean, now they thought that they were done and began goofing off I asked them what the difference was between the two, some said they were opposite categories but one girl, Jamie from my toothpaste activity said that one was wrinkled and the other wasn’t so, I told the students to try and get the wrinkles out to make it look like the nice one. They tried very hard but they couldn’t get the wrinkles out and the lesson was pretty self explanatory, you can try but every mean thing you say to someone or mean thing you do to someone, leaves a wrinkle and you can try to smooth them out, but it never goes away until you say you’re sorry.

The final activity wasn’t a drawing activity it was a writing activity but I thought it would be a good way to end the class. The students got a small survey with simple instructions, you had to write examples of times you were a good friend, or a time when you were brave. The second part was to give examples of people who loved you or a time when you made a good decision. I worked with to kids, Jamie first she was having trouble thinking of examples and also writing her answers down. Since the school is a place for children with learning disabilities including dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADD, and ADHD, teachers and guest teachers are allowed to write for them. So I wrote down Jamie’s answers for her, when she was done she was very eager to show her teacher and I began working with the boy who sits next to her Christopher, he was having a lot of trouble thinking up ideas so I worked with him and he came up with his answers, all of them.