Student play teaches that bullying is not OK

Danette Goulet

CORONA DEL MAR -- Being a bully is much more than beating someone up

for their lunch money. You can be a bully by saying nothing at all.

That is the message sixth-grade students from Andersen Elementary

School tried to get across to Harbor View Elementary School students

Friday with a play they wrote on the subject.

When the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board passed a revision

to the district’s student conduct policy last month -- adding bullying

and intimidation to the things that would not be tolerated -- the

principal at Andersen, Mary Manos, went to her students for help.

She asked sixth-graders, as the oldest and therefore role models for

the rest of the school, what they could do about the problem.

“One of the little girls came forward and said, ‘We all know when

someone steals your lunch money -- that’s bullying. But it’s the subtle

stuff that really hurts,”’ Manos said.

So the sixth-grade teachers and their students put together a play.

It so inspired Andersen students that they took the show on the road.

They have since performed the musical for their neighboring schools.

“I think it’s really good because it really gets the point across,”

said Kate Gritsch, 11, who plays a fairy who sets a bully straight, one

of the play’s lead roles. “It’s a musical, so it gets a point across in a

way that’s still fun.

“I think it’s a great idea because some people will be in here and you

say [in the play] if you are with someone who is being a bully then you

are bullying,” she added. “You can look around at some kids’ faces and

see that they have. They still look kind of innocent because they didn’t

realize.”

In the play a fairy convinces a bully to change his ways by showing

the bully that what he may have thought was funny really hurt other

children’s feelings.

The play got students at Harbor View thinking.

“It’s good because people will think of it now as bullying and not

think of it as kidding around,” said Kevin Corrigan, 9.

“Sometimes people do it because they’re kidding and they don’t know

how soft the other people’s feeling are,” agreed his classmate Nicholas

Gushue.