École Secondaire Sainte Marguerite d’Youville students plan to stop bullying this February by lighting it on fire.
About 23 grade 7 and 8 students in ESSMY’s English Language Enhanced Academic Program took part in a nationwide videoconference on bullying Wednesday organized by the RCMP.
The conference saw students at ESSMY and seven other schools in Manitoba, New Brunswick, and the Yukon hear a talk from Pink Shirt Day co-founder Travis Price (who was at ESSMY) and come up with anti-bullying initiatives as part of National Bullying Awareness Week.
While some schools made posters or planned talks or fundraisers on bullying, the ESSMY students had something more incendiary in mind.
“Everyone has insecurities about themselves,” said Stephanie Blouin, who presented the group’s plans at the conference, and insecurities are a huge part of bullying.
“We want everyone to get rid of those insecurities and stop making fun of people for them, because everyone has them.”
While Blouin said her class initially thought about squishing insecurities by gluing them to a board, one classmate said they should burn something, and teacher Louise Shervey suggested flash paper – something the school had used at assemblies before.
The class now plans to have students write something they’re insecure or have been bullied about on pieces of flash paper in February that will be collected in pink boxes and ignited en masse at an assembly Feb. 26 to mark the anti-bullying event Pink Shirt Day, Blouin said.
“The flash paper will be lit on fire and vanish in front of the school,” Blouin said, symbolically cleansing everyone of these insecurities and creating a memorable image.
In what may be a stamp of divine approval, school principal Cathy Giesbrecht noted this event would coincidentally fall on Ash Wednesday.
Blouin said her class hopes this process will help people recognize they are not alone, as everyone has flaws and insecurities that can be mocked. This would hopefully change their views on bullying and raise their self-confidence.
“They’ll feel they’re not alone and feel supported if they do get bullied.”
Price said this was an incredible idea and that he hoped to come back to the school to see it happen.
“I think it will really bring the school together.”
Stand up to bullying
Price said bullying is something all kids have to face. It can be social, verbal or physical, and very often nowadays happens online.
“I was bullied, too, as a kid,” he told the students, and he would often come home with black eyes and bloody noses.
“I don’t want to see another kid go through the things I went through.”
Price spoke on how he and David Shepherd started Pink Shirt Day back in high school when they heard of a Grade 9 boy who had been bullied for wearing a pink shirt. The two of them bought 75 pink tank tops to distribute at school and rallied students to wear pink the next day to show their support.
“We just wanted to show him that he wasn’t alone.”
Something like 850 of the school’s 1,000 students ended up wearing pink, Price said. The idea caught fire so easily because it turned out almost everyone knew what it was like to be bullied.
“I thought I was that weird different kid and that was why I got picked on, but the captain of our cheerleading team wore pink that day because she knew that pressure,” he said, as did the football, debate and chess team leads.
It’s been 12 years since that day, and Pink Shirt Day is now celebrated around the world by 10 million people in 132 countries, Price said – all from one decision to stand up for someone else.
Price encouraged students to create a “culture of heroes” at their school by standing up against bullying when they see it happen.
“This (pink) shirt doesn’t stop bullying, but you do.”
