As a Camp Program volunteer, one of the most common questions I receive is, “What do you do during the school year?” During the school year, members of this program go into schools within three counties to teach enriching curriculum. This year, our curriculum is on bullying. I am so excited that I get to be one of the people who works with thousands of students on what it means to be a kind person.
Another question I am often asked is, “Do kids really need to be taught about bullying? Don’t they already know what it is?” I can tell you that as I created the curriculum and even as I am teaching it, there are plenty of things that I am learning about this topic. This generation is faced with things that I never had to deal with at their age.
Finally, I am always asked, “What does a typical day look like for you?” This question always makes me giggle, because I could not think of the last day that I had that was typical. Each day is different, and that is what makes this program thrilling. Right now, we are covering six different schools. On Mondays, myself and the three others split up and go into three seventh-grade classrooms, where we each see four different groups of students. Therefore, on Monday alone, we are teaching 12 classes, serving a total of 250 students. On Tuesdays, we are teachers’ aides in two fourth-grade classrooms. We work with small groups and help in any way we can. On Thursdays, we visit a school and teach grades 4–8, serving a total of 150 students. On Fridays, we split up and go to three different schools.
We discuss what bullying is, the four types of bullying, and we go into detail with our examples of cyber and social bullying.
Also, we discuss self-esteem and cooperation. We relate those subjects to the overall topic of bullying. I believe our program is making a difference. I have had students approach me with their own experiences with bullying, students will thank us for being there and talking to them about this, and many of them will tell us that some of what we covered, they had never heard of before or didn’t completely comprehend it prior to our class.
Anger is my favorite lesson to teach. We discuss the four common inappropriate responses to anger, and then we discuss the positive ways to deal with our anger. I always ask my kids if they think it’s okay to be angry. A lot of students tell me it is not okay to feel that emotion, which breaks my heart because denying yourself from feeling certain emotions tends to have negative consequences. Feeling emotions should be encouraged along with learning how to cope with those emotions. If people deal with anger in a negative way, then it becomes a bad thing, but dealing with it positively allows that emotion to be acceptable.
I am so appreciative of the gift I have been given, to serve kids by teaching them how to live positive lives full of kindness and love. I believe in CAP and this program.
