By Lou Ponsi

Where bullying is concerned, students at Ladera Ranch Middle School are learning to be part of the solution.

As defined by stopbullying.gov, bullying is “unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.”

Learning to recognize bullying in its many forms, along with ways to combat the harmful behavior, were the focus of a recent presentation for Ladera’s sixth, seventh and eighth graders.

Ladera counselors Teri Graffeo and Tom Bogiatzis facilitated the presentation titled “Bullying Prevention and Sexual Harassment,” and principal Cynthia Steinert provided input.

“It’s a tough time already, for all students,” Steinert said. “It’s just a tough time in middle school. Our mindset is to be as proactive as we can be. How can we educate all of our students with this information so they can hopefully do something good with it?”

Through a PowerPoint presentation, the students learned bullying can be verbal, social, and physical. Examples of verbal bullying include teasing and name calling.

Instances of social bullying could involve leaving someone out of a group on purpose or telling other kids not to be friends with someone. Hitting, kicking, punching, spitting, tripping and pushing are all examples of physical bullying.

All three types of bullying were depicted in an impactful video dramatization shown to the students, which centered around a middle school girl who was being mercilessly bullied by her classmates. In one scene, the girl is surrounded by her victimizers and on the verge of being beaten up when a fellow student who was a witness to the incident suddenly intervened to defend the girl, imploring the bullies to stop.

“She knew it wasn’t OK,” Graffeo said. “It takes a lot of courage to do that.”

The counselors referred to anyone who attempts to stop bullying as “upstanders,” rather than bystanders.

“We are not going to change bullying,” the principal said. “But if we can help people start to stand up to it and understand that this isn’t right and that they are uncomfortable so that maybe they will make a difference, then we are doing our job.”

Strategies to stop bullying can include changing the subject, interrupting, questioning the behavior, using humor, and reporting the problem.

When a bystander becomes an upstander, bullying stops within 10 seconds 57 percent of the time, the students were told.

“What I love about this presentation is that it gives you so many different ways to stop bullying,” Steinert said. “I don’t think that we are going to eliminate bullying in one day, but that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate it.”

The presentation was meant as a prelude to Kindness Month in February.

“Because we want all of our students to feel safe,” Steinert said. “We want them to be able to wake up and say, ‘I want to go to school this morning.’ I think it is just that proactive approach to do something about it rather than just react.”

All students participated in a group activity where they wrote inspirational affirmations on sticky notes. The notes were placed on a Kindness Board, which is intended to get students to start thinking about the power of words to promote kindness on campus as the school prepares for Kindness Month in February.

The anti-bullying presentation is among a series of student presentations taught by Ladera Ranch Middle School counselors nearly every month. Other presentations cover topics including substance abuse prevention and vaping prevention.

The counseling team at Ladera Ranch Middle School includes Tom Bogiatzis, Teri Graffeo, Susan Burke, and Sandra Seyedjafari.

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