Crumpled Paper and Bullying Revisited...

It appears that my post about crumpled paper and bullying has been a hit... I went from an average of 100 hits a day to over 300 hits in a matter of days... Here is the story one more time:

I was watching Regis and Kelly the other morning. Kelly was talking about being on a panel at Rutgers University (the night before) as a part of an AC360 (Anderson Cooper) special about bullying.

After she explained what it was all about, she added that her kids go to a very "progressive" school and recounted a lesson by one of the teachers at that school. The following is paraphrased based on my limited recollection and does contain a little artistic license:

"The teacher gave each student a clean crisp sheet of paper. She then instructed the class to crumble up the piece of paper, toss it around, get angry with it, and stomp on it.

After which, she told the students to return to their seats (with their piece of paper), flatten it out on the top of their desks, making it as flat and perfect as they can, and finally, apologize to the paper.

When all the students had done their best to iron out the paper and apologize to it, the teacher picked up the paper on the first classmates desk, held it up so the entire class could see it and said:

If this piece of paper had been another person, and you had done all those things to him or her, by making them feel less than perfect (through your words or actions), these are the scars you would leave. That person would never be the same, no matter how many times you tell them you are sorry, no matter how many times you try to smooth things out..."

What a great way to make a point. While I am a firm believer in the "It gets Better" campaign, wouldn't it be so much better if we all learned this lesson beforehand? I think even most of out politicians can learn from this too... 

Thank you to all the bloggers, parents, and concerned citizens for linking back to my page for the original story... And thank you Kelly Rippa for sharing it with all of us...  IT CAN GET BETTER!!!

Over and "Out" from Portsmouth, VA USA