INTRODUCTION

About the performer

Bully No More, presented by Dave Rojahn, magician, comedian, sociologist. Mr. Rojahn holds a degree in Sociology from Lebanon Valley College and over 17 years of experience as a professional entertainer. Over the last 6 years Mr. Rojahn has performed for over 75,000 children in over 350 schools, 300 libraries, and 50 preschools.  He performs in Colleges, Comedy Clubs and has worked with major corporations developing programs for sales meetings, trade shows, and conventions. He has appeared for Fox-TV, Nickelodeon,  Walt Disney World, and Carnival Cruise Lines.

About the Performance

Bully No More is an entertaining and age appropriate educational assembly program based upon  Dr. Dan Olweus' anti-Bullying  program. It is designed to give students a memorable and instructive assembly program designed to help recognize, cope with and prevent 'Bullying' by using comedy and magic to emphasize the theme.

Bullying occurs throughout the school, though teachers and parents are generally unaware of its extent. Making the situation worse, adults often believe that bullying is "part of growing up" and that they should not intervene. In one study, 71 percent of students reported that adults in the classroom ignored bullying. When asked, students uniformly said that they wanted teachers to intervene to stop bullying and teasing. Faced with adult indifference, children are either reluctant to get involved or do not know how to obtain help. Adults in schools must intervene to stop bullies.

Bullying must be fought throughout the school community, using a "whole-school" approach. Effective interventions focus on more than the perpetrators and victims. Schoolwide bullying policies need to include curricular measures such as teaching conflict resolution and assertiveness training, peer and professional counseling, and improvement of the physical school environment, allowing easier adult supervision. Schools that have implemented anti-bullying programs have reported a 50 percent reduction in bullying, according to Dan Olweus, a professor at the University of Bergen who pioneered research on bullying. Olweus suggests intervening simultaneously at the school, class, and individual levels. His recommendations have been blended with those from the National Association of School Psychologists below:

• Use a questionnaire for students and adults to assess the extent of the problem and make the school community aware of bullying.


• Prepare an information campaign directed at parents to increase their awareness of bullying and the importance of their involvement in prevention.


• Promote facts, not myths about bullying and aggression.


• Teachers and students should jointly develop rules against bullying.


• Increase adult supervision at times when victims are especially vulnerable, such as recess or lunch.

From: www.safetyzone.org/publications/fact4_article3.html

GRADE LEVEL

Educational programs can be tailored to any grade level, K through 8.

GOALS

• To give students a memorable instructive assembly program designed to help recognize, cope with and prevent 'Bullying.'


• To increase awareness of bullying and it's consequences.


• To increase awareness of the often overlooked impact that student involvement can have upon bullying in schools.

OBJECTIVES

• Students will understand that bullying is unacceptable.


• Students will understand that Children who are not bullies or victims have a powerful role to play in shaping the behavior of other children.


• Students will learn to make it a point to include students who become easily left out.


• Students will learn alternative responses to bullies.

ON THE DAY OF THE PERFORMANCE

• Tell the students that there will be audience participation and that if there are any questions during the show, Dave Rojahn will have a question/answer period.


• Students should look for the following during the program:

AFTER THE PERFORMANCE

• Discuss how bullying affects all of us and how it influences our lives.


• Reinforce the concept that we are all more alike than different, and that differences do not reflect either superiority or inferiority.


• Throughout the year, when dealing with occurrences of bullying, remind students of what they learned during the performance and have them apply this knowledge accordingly.


• Obviously, there are a number of activities which teachers could use to reinforce the concepts of the performance, including but not limited to role playing, listening exercises, word searches, jeopardy games.

EVALUATION

Do the students remember the following after the performance:

• What is a bully?


• If you see bullying happening, what do should you do?


• If you were being bullied now, who would you tell?


• Do the students remember that telling a teacher or parent is not being a "Tattle-Tale"


• Do students exhibit a desire to stop bullying ?


• Do students show an increased interest and/or respect for students who become easily left out?

RELATED RESOURCES
Sources from Teacher magazine:

• Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do,
  by Dan Olweus, 1993; $19.95. Contact: Blackwell Publishers, P.O. Box 20, Williston, VT 05495; (800) 216-2522.


• Bully-Proofing Your School, by Carla Garrity, Kathryn Jens, William Porter, Nancy Sager, and Cam Short-Camilli, 1996; $29.95. Contact: Sopris West, 1140 Boston Ave., Longmont, CO; 80501; (303) 651-2829.


• The Bullying Prevention Handbook: A Guide for Principals, Teachers, and Counselors, by John Hoover and Ronald Oliver, 1996; $21.95. Contact: National Education Service, 1252 Loesch Rd., Bloomington, IN 47402; (812) 336-7700 or (800) 733-6786.


• Bullyproof: A Teacher's Guide on Teasing and Bullying for Use With Fourth and Fifth Grade Students, by Nan Stein, Lisa Sjostrom, and Emily Gaberman, 1996; $19.95, plus $5 shipping and handling. Contact: Centers for Women, Publications, Wellesley College, 106 Central St., Wellesley, MA 02181; (617) 283-2532.

From the National PTA:

• Safe at School: Awareness and Action for Parents of Kids K-12, by Carol Silverman; Saunders Free Spirit Publishing Inc. 400 First Ave. N., Suite 616 Minneapolis, MN 55401-1730 (612) 338-2068. The tips in this book help parents deal with bullying, gangs, sexual harassment, and other school safety issues.