Edgewood M.S. Play Educates 6th-Graders About Cyber-Bullying
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
It used to be that a student could go home from school and escape bullying. That’s not the case anymore with the Internet and social networking, according to Edgewood Middle School teacher Veronica Helser. To help prevent bullying, and specifically cyber-bullying, at the Warsaw school next year, students in the Edgewood Dream Council and Edgewood Cares presented the one-act play “Cyber-Mare” this past week to sixth-graders who will be funneling into the middle school. “It basically gives scenarios of cyber-bullying. It gives advice to those who have been bullied and some general advice on what it is, how to deal with it and how to report it,” Helser said. The Dream Council is a group of students chosen by teachers with the purpose to help other students follow their dreams. They do events throughout the year like the play. Edgewood Cares is a humanitarian group of students. Helser said, “As most school systems are seeing, we’ve had an increase in bullying primarily because of the increase in technology, like through Facebook and other social networking.” With the play, she said, “Our hope is threefold: It will prevent bullying, encourage acts of kindness and set the tone for the next year.” The play was presented to all sixth-graders feeding into Edgewood, which includes students from Eisenhower, Washington, Claypool, Madison, Sacred Heart and Lincoln elementary schools. Madison students saw the play Wednesday, with the final presentation to be given Friday. At the end of each presentation, EMS Student Body President Hannah Rice shared her personal story of bullying and how she overcame it. The bullying made her so depressed she had to get professional help, but is now able to talk about it to others. Eighth-graders Skyler Lampkin and Abigail Federico both acted in “Cyber-Mare.” Asked how bad bullying is at school, Lampkin said, “It’s bad. I walk down the halls and I see people pushing kids into the lockers, saying things.” He said he knows for the most part he can’t stop all bullying himself, but he hopes the play will show next year’s seventh-graders that bullying is not a good thing to do. “I feel like it will change the sixth-graders who come into the middle school. They might think it’s fun to bully, but the play may change that. I think it’s changed some of the students in the play.” Federico said she had a bad experience with bullying when she was in the sixth grade. Most of it was verbal and about her sister which would draw her into it, she said. “A lot of emotional abuse,” she recalled. Once she got into seventh grade, she said the bullying stopped. Federico said she hopes the play would make the students think about what they are doing, realize that bullying is wrong and help others who are being bullied. She said bullying at the middle school compared to her sixth-grade experience hasn’t been bad, but she’s heard stories. “I guess it depends on the environment you were in, in the sixth grade. It kind of follows you,” she said. JoElla Smyth, Edgewood principal, said when you look at the issues kids face today, what makes the play cool is that it addresses the new ways kids face bullying. The cyber component of bullying is much harsher, easier and can reach a bigger audience, she said. “I hope here we can make kids aware of the damage that can be done,” she said. Smyth said bullying is pervasive, and the school is doing a survey to find out how prevalent it is. If they can reach the incoming students, she said they can set a new tone in the school and prevent bullying. “Here we’d like to think it’s a big city problem, but it can happen here. Parents can jump in on the issue, too. We all need to get this to stop. These kids (in the play) have decided it will stop with them and are doing something about it,” she concluded.
