Elementary school students learn about cyber- bullying

Elementary school students learn about cyber- bullying
Elementary school students learn about cyber- bullying
Students attend The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment’s “Elementary School Student Conference on Cyber-bullying Prevention.”

Students from 14 different Miami-Dade elementary schools attended The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment’s “Elementary School Student Conference on Cyber-bullying Prevention” on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015 to learn about cyber-bullying and what can be done to stop it.

This year was the 13th bullying prevention conference since 2003 for 9- to 10-year-olds from Miami-Dade County Public Schools produced in partnership with Palmetto Feeder Pattern and invited schools.

Palmetto Elementary School counselor Julie Astuto, Med, and Melissa Institute education director Trish Ramsay, MA, facilitated the event with assistance from Dr. Alma Dean of Perrine Academy of Arts, Susan Sirota from Coral Reef Elementary School and Rosanna Timmons at Snapper Creek Elementary School.

The 160 fourth and fifth graders sat with their counselors around tables at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Pinecrest and spent the morning exploring ways to “Promote Relationships and Prevent Social Media Bullying.”

Following lunch and a question and answer session with their counselors, the students designed posters, put together cheers, and performed skits to demonstrate ways of handling electronic aggression.

Margot Palma, 10, a fifth-grader from Palmetto Elementary, participated in making a skit that she said was about “how not to bully.”

“If you put yourself in someone’s shoes, you wouldn’t like to be bullied, so we tried to act that out,” she said.

Margot and her peers define a bully as “someone who’s rude to you day after day, and not just once.”

Research shows that bullying is a major contributing factor in incidents of school violence. Ramsay and Astuto encouraged students and participating counselors to talk about positive strategies to deal with increasing problems in schools as children are exposed to vivid images of aggression in movies and video games as well as on television shows and websites.

“There’s physical bullying, cyber-bullying, a lot of things… things you can do all your life and not just when you’re little,” Margot said. “But when you tell a bunch of people, they pass it on. No bullying!”


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