'Standing Small'

Elm Street class Standing Small to bullying

S. Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

CAPTION: Dawson Drummond (left) and Alexis Richard (right) showing they will stand up to bullying at the Standing Small Arts Smarts Celebration in Elm Street School Thursday. Photo QUIGLEY/ JOURNAL PIONEER

Bullying is always a tough issue to deal with.

Rhonda Ellis wanted to get her grade six class at Elm Street Elementary involved with addressing the issue while working with the Arts Smarts program in P.E.I.

After talking to her friend, Maurice Bernard, about how they could combine teaching art and bullying awareness they came up with the idea of a graphic novel.

Named Standing Small, the project had the kids illustrate and tell stories of either their own experiences or fictional accounts of bullying. The project took the class three months to put together, including basic art lessons with Bernard.

The graphic novel, which was completely done by the kids, had each kid specifically design their own front cover for it.

The idea was easy to come up with because of the popularity of graphic novels and the attention bullying is getting, said Ellis.

“Bullying is a very hot topic and kids are dealing with it all the time. Graphic novels are also a hot thing right now, a lot of the books we used to read like the Babysitter’s Club and the Hardy Boys are coming out in graphic novels now.”

There has been a decline in bullying in her class, said Ellis.

“With my class I certainly see a decline in bullying than I’ve seen in recent years. I attribute a lot of it to the project.”

 The goal for the program is to have the kids live what they had written, said Ellis.

“We just want to make an impact with this class, sort of break the silence I guess. There’s a lot of different ways that people try to deal with bullying but it still seems to be a constant issue.”

Dawson Drummond, a student in the class, said he had lots of fun working on the project and also learned a lot.

“I learned that you have to respect everyone, but you don’t have to like them. You can just stay your distance and respect them. Also the words just aren’t on paper, you have to mean them.”

He knows what he’s going to do next time he gets bullied or witnesses someone getting bullied.

“I’m going to try to stop it by telling a teacher or trying to make the situation a little better by trying to talk with them about it.”

Alexis Richard, another one of the students, said she learned bullying is wrong.

“I learned that bully is not nice at all and it can hurt people up to the point where they might hurt themselves.”

Richard said she had been bullied herself before, but she now knows how she’d handle it.

“Just not listen to it.”