Wednesday, February 29th – Pink Shirt Day

A little history about the day….
Pink might seem like an odd color when trying to get people to take a stand against bullying. The colour is completely based on a stand that was taken in the fall of 2007 at Central Kings High School, in Cambridge, Nova Scotia.

A freshmen student was making his first appearance in a new high school. The boy showed up in the morning wearing a pink polo shirt. Some school bullies verbally abused him for his choice of color. They used some vulgar words, and made him feel very upset. Two senior students heard about the bullying taking place, and decided to take a stand against it.

The seniors were Travis Price and David (DJ) Shepherd. Travis and DJ went to a local department store and bought every pink tank top they could find. They spread the word on the social networking site “Facebook” to try to get all of the seniors to wear pink the next day. When they got to school the next day, they handed the shirts out to all of the seniors. They eventually had to go back and purchase more tank tops due to such a showing of support for the student! The rest is history!

The bullies were not happy about the stand, and started throwing chairs around. Everyone else thought it was a heroic, creative way to take a stand against bullying. The Canadian media picked up the story, and eventually it spread to the United States media. The boys have since been featured on MTV, Dateline NBC, CBC news and many other television programs. The Nova Scotia Premier (equivalent to a Governer) declared a special day in Nova Scotia schools to honor the stand.

Tomorrow, we at Tall Pines School, and across Canada will do our part to help raise awareness of Bullying issues, by inviting all staff and students to wear Pink to school on Wednesday, February 29th.  Demonstrate your support, wear pink and do your part to make our school a better place for all.

Anti Bullying Week at Tall Pines School

From Barbara Coloroso – The Bully, The Bullied, and the Bystander

“Bullying is not about anger, it’s about contempt-a powerful feeling of dislike toward somebody considered to be worthless, inferior, and undeserving of respect. Rabbi Lerner calls it ‘desanctification, not being able to see the divine in the other.’”Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called it “dehumanization,” not being able to see the humanity in the other “ “Terrorizing, intimidating, shunning, tormenting and ridiculing are not sibling rivalry or
peer conflicts. They are acts of bullying.” (p.102)

“The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference; indifference creates evil. Hatred is evil itself. Indifference is what allows evil to be strong, what gives it power.”

Help your child to develop an inner “moral voice” that guides them to do what is right. Show, model and teach your child to share, care, help and serve. Teach them to reflect on the impact of their actions on others and be able to see things from another person’s point of view.

Willing good involves taking a stand and taking an action.

Teach your child that he is responsible for the consequences of his actions.

Build your child’s confidence in his ability to make good decisions (thus be less likely to be manipulated by others and not be afraid to act and think independently).

Teach your child how to evaluate reasons on his own.

A holocaust survivor listed three actions to change a bystander into a witness – “Pay attention, get involved and never ever look away”.

If your child has been courageous enough to stand up for someone else, don’t reward them, thank them and talk to them about what they did, how they think the victim felt, how theyfelt themselves and what more they can do.

4 Markers of Bullying:
1. imbalance of power
2. intent to harm
3. threat of further aggression
4. terror

Characteristics of the bully
1. attitude of entitlement of control, dominate, subjugate or otherwise abuse another person
2. intolerance toward differences
3. assumption that he has the liberty to exclude someone deemed unworthy of respect or care
4. no empathy, compassion or shame

How to change a bully
1. intervene immediately with discipline
2. create opportunities to “do good”
3. nurture empathy
4. teach friendship skills – assertive, respectful and peaceful ways to relate to others
5. closely monitor y9ou child’s TV viewing, video game playing computer activities and music
6. engage in more constructive, entertaining and engaging activities
7. teach your child to “will good”

Last year, in honour of International Anti-Bullying Day, two schools came together to create a message about Acceptance and challenge others to use social media as a positive tool.

Toddler and Casa Concert

What a delightful time everyone had on Friday evening!  All of our Toddler and Casa students sang at Lester B. Pearson Theatre.  The Toddlers sang I Love You and the Casa classes sang songs about Friendship.  The songs were lengthy and the students did a great job of combining song and actions.  Much better than i could do.  Some children participate fully and some stand entranced by the darkness before them.  It makes the evening very special and the memory lasts for a very long time.

From the Grade 8 Class…

This week has been a fantastic week; my classmates and I were skiing and snowboarding for the last time this year. Also, the Tall Pines School Basketball team made the playoffs and had a sweet victory on 22^nd February, 2012. We won the game with 56 to 28 while playing TCMPS. We are reading a really interesting novel called The Hitchhiker`s Guide to the Galaxy. It is an great book about space and it is funny too.