ARTIFACTS: DRAMA LESSON PLAN ON BULLYING and PINK SHIRT IMAGES

**Please note that images of students have been blurred for identity security.

I see myself as a social justice activist who teaches. Yes, perhaps a backwards definition of a person who wants to teach, but why should we not broadcast ourselves in the light through which we want others to see us? Including our students…

Though I was aware of Pink Shirt Day as the day that had been decided upon to represent the need to stop bullying in schools by wearing a pink shirt, on February 27, 2009, I showed up to school dressed in blue. I walked into an onslaught of fuschia-flashing girls, “Ms. Wolfmaaaan, where’s your pink shirt!?” My response was honest, “I forgot” (which was true to a degree, I did remember to wear pink, but failed to remember the one pink shirt I owned was in the wash). A few boys walked into class, smacked their forgetful heads, and carried on with their morning. When I glanced around after the morning bell rang, all the girls were in pink, none of the boys were. This seemed to target the issue I had with the Pink Shirt Day concept from the event the previous year that spawned it. A boy in eastern Canada had come to school wearing a pink shirt and schoolmates of his proceeded to tease him with anti-gay slurs for wearing that colour.  The following day, several students in the school wore pink shirts to support the need to stop bullying in the schools, but it did not address what was at the heart of the issue – homophobia.

To join in the cause, I created “anti-bullying” badges out of construction paper and handed them out like…well….like cotton candy. Upon asking one of my male students if he wanted one, he responded with, “Why? Nobody bullies in this class.” “You’d be surprised,” I sang back. He shrugged and offered, “Whatever, what does pink have to do with it anyway?” At that moment, just as I was about to tell him why, we were interrupted by the PA system announcing that assembly was about to begin. I lost my chance. Not only had I missed a teachable moment, but the day was so fully packed with observations, meeting, and planning for my longer practicum that I didn’t even return to the issue. To this day, I regret having not shared the reason why Pink Shirt Day was so important – and not only because of bullying.

In my long practicum, I was hoping for another teachable moment to address the homophobia issue around Pink Shirt Day, or even during another lesson, but it never came. When I mentioned the idea of teaching about bullying in my drama class, my school advisor jumped at the idea – so I taught about bullying. In class, we used images to explore the oppression of bullying and discussed ways of dealing with it (please click here to see the lesson). I justified only addressing bullying rather than homophobia because 1.) my plate was full and 2.) it was bound to come up again. Everything would work out fine.

The 14 weeks flew by, my bullying lesson went over very well with the students, and I had established myself as a social justice activist to my students. So why was I so unhappy with my lesson? I had tackled an issue of social justice head on and I had gotten through to my kids. I should have been proud of my efforts and pleased with the outcome, but I was not fully satisfied. It was because of the sinking feeling that I had let that one moment go by that I should have taken to teach.

In hindsight, I am proud of the work I did around social justice issues. Having learned a lot from my participation in Anita Robert’s 4-week SafeTeen workshop that taught anti-bullying methods to teachers proved very helpful in this realm: “Bullying [is a] systemic and endemic problem which exists to one degree or another in all schools.  The deeply entrenched attitudes, […] gender stereotypes, and social pecking orders make ripe ground for these behaviours to flourish.  It’s time for an effective and comprehensive violence prevention solution for our schools.”*  I believe that by being an ethical role model for my students, I will help them to be ethical, active beings themselves. However, because I expect my students to be clad in pink, spreading and believing in acceptance and tolerance of all people, I accept the challenge as an educator to never miss that one moment again. It is my job.

*Roberts, A.  (2001).  SafeTeen: Powerful alternatives to violence. Vancouver, BC: Polestar Book Publishers