Jamshedpur, June 19: With the increase in age of students in the school, various issues crop up from time to time, the latest being a trend for some students to dominate over others, or bully them.
Realising the need to combat this trend, with a focus on personal safety of the students, the Tarapore School authorities have taken up this initiative to spread awareness of the harmful effects of bullying in the school, to compare it with situations in other schools in Jamshedpur, as well as in other countries and to arrive at some conclusion to this prevalent problem.
COUNSELLING-The anti-bullying campaign, HAPPY HEARTS, taken up by the school, is the brain child of the Vice Principal, Ms. Ishita Dey and the Counsellor, Ms. Malini P.S., who attended a year long course Basic Counselling Skills conducted by Ms. Salony Priya from Kolkata, spread out over several weekends, strengthening them to address behavioural problems in the school.
WORLD CAFE-The first step in this endeavour was to conduct a World Cafe amongst the teachers, followed by another similar activity for students. A World Cafe is a unique methodology for a large number of people to discuss two or three issues at the same time. It involves movement in groups from one centre to another, each group of people discussing an issue at each centre, before moving on to the next. All the comments made by the participants are recorded and presented to the entire group to conclude the session.
The above activity was conducted on three separate occasions – for teachers, students of Std. IX and then for students of Std. X, with stunning results. Each group of discussions brought to light various issues of bullying, along with the reasons why they take place and solutions to prevent them.
PANEL DISCUSSION � CONFLUENCE-Taking this initiative forward, they have decided to spread this awareness amongst the students of Std. IX and X of 7 schools of Jamshedpur together, under a common forum, CONFLUENCE, a panel discussion in the school auditorium on June 26, 2015, for teachers and students, aimed at understanding the extent to which bullying takes place in schools and coming to some solution for the same. In order to understand the world-wide nature of the problem, the situation in other countries will also be deliberated upon.
QUESTIONNAIRE-The students will also answer a questionnaire aimed at understanding the extent to which they feel safe or unsafe in the school.
POSTER MAKING-A final activity would be to conduct a Poster making competition on the anti-bullying campaign, HAPPY HEARTS.
Some selected posters would be sent to the various schools in Jamshedpur to be put up on the notice boards, thereby creating more awareness about the topic.