On the Panhellenic Day
against School Violence and Bullying, which is celebrated on 6th March,
a creative activity can be carried out in the English class of 5th
or 6th-graders in order to raise awareness against all forms of
bullying, be it physical, verbal, relational/social or cyberbullying.
The learners are provided with
a variety of anti-bullying slogans written in folded strips of paper and they
are asked to pick one each but not show it to their classmates. They have to
read it silently and illustrate it in the best way possible trying to convey
the essence of the message through their drawing. They are informed in advance
that they have to leave some space in order to write their message at a later
stage.
The teacher sets a time
limit for the illustrations during which he puts up the slogans on the
classroom walls. When the time limit is over he/she shuffles the drawings and
distributes them randomly among the learners, taking care not to leave any student
holding his/her own creation. The learners, having been given a piece of
blue-tack, have to walk around the classroom, read the slogans and stick the
drawing they are holding under the one they think it illustrates.
A whole-class discussion
follows to verify or disprove the learners’ hypotheses and finally the students
are given their own pictures again in order to write down their slogan.
At the end all these
drawings are put up on a school wall/noticeboard so as to draw attention to the
issue in an attempt to sensitise all the learners of the school community.
