Whitby teen develops bullying program

WHITBY -- From bullied to bully, Julisa Stuart knew what she was talking about when she took on the task of teaching kids about the subject.

In her final year as an Anderson Collegiate Vocational Institute student, Ms. Stuart created and delivered a four-lesson resource on bullying and cyber bullying to kids at C.E. Broughton Public School. For the project, she drew on her experiences to relate to students.

"I always thought I was tough, I was like proud of it," said Ms. Stuart.

Before high school, she lived in Scarborough and acted like a bodyguard to her friends, beating up people who picked on her or them.

"I look back, I was very mean, I didn't have to take it to that extent," said Ms. Stuart. As a bully, she started to feel alienated, like people were nice to her out of fear.

With tomboy roots, Ms. Stuart found the desire to physically protect her friends came easy. Those same roots caused her to be bullied by some girls when she was younger.

While attending Anderson CVI, she took the opportunity to make personal changes.

Ms. Stuart is a member of the school's Culture of Peace and did the bully project through a one-credit co-op program. The resource will be available online this September, with a hard copy book and CD available to every Whitby school.

While teaching the bully program, she'd ask students how many would think of her as a bully, and they didn't. Ms. Stuart said the kids wanted to know about her personal experiences.

For her first lesson, she focused on inclusion and exclusion of people.

"Just making kids aware of the things they say or do," said Ms. Stuart.

The second lesson was human rights and how the media affects them; the third addressed the bully, the bullied, and the bystander; and the fourth tackled cyber bullying. She included activities to show students they've all been bullies, bystanders, and bullied at some point in their lives, maybe just by talking behind someone's back. They also discussed bullying myths, such as that most bullies are boys who are big and tall, and less intelligent.

She also showed news clips of kids discussing bullying and, for the older crowd, on a girl who was bullied, beaten to death, and dumped into a river.

A resident in the C.E. Broughton school area, Ms. Stuart would see kids in or around their school and they'd tell her about bullying incidents and be proud of how they solved them. Her goal was to befriend the younger students and give advice.

Anderson CVI principal John Morrison said it was amazing to watch Ms. Stuart present the lessons and connect with the kids.

The co-op program to develop the resource began about a year ago at Anderson CVI and is intended to address a human rights issue. Last year, another student did a similar project but for diversity. The program was downloaded by schools throughout the province, said Mr. Morrison.

"To me it shows the power of students and the influence students have... they're making changes in young lives," he added.

The resource development program will continue in the future and will be part of Anderson's global leadership program.