Patch Foxborough, MA --The message was simple yet clear in the anti-bullying videos made by members of the Ahern Middle School Climate Task Force, never is bullying or doing nothing to prevent bullying acceptable.
Presenting a collection of anti-bullying PSAs made by students at the Ahern School to the Foxborough School Committee, eighth graders Alexis Hill-Cook and Ryan McCormack both showed passion for promoting not only an anti-bullying message but to stand up and say something if one witnesses bullying.
Students in grades five through eight were challenged to create a 30-80 second long PSA video as part of a contest to promote one of three actions: Stop Meanness, Be Kind and Stand Up, Speak Out (against bullying or meanness).
The three action statements resulted from the analysis of student survey data collected by the Student School Climate Task Force. In an effort to promote the three actions, the Task Force came up with the idea of the video contest. Fifth through eighth grade students competed for the winning prize of a Patriot Place Gift Card.
“Kids can relate to those types of situation. Once people see that it touches their heart and make people realize that this is an important type of thing,” said Hill-Cook.
The two students explained that the idea stemmed from watching the Daily Two student news broadcast that takes place each morning on the Ahern's closed circuit TV.
"Every morning students are engaged by the school's Daily Two broadcast club's message and this seemed a great way to engage students in a message from students to students," McCormack said.
In his video, McCormack plays a boy that gets made fun of while the taunts appear on his face. The visibility of the insults is meant to be a metaphor to the lasting effect that words can have on a person.
“Once somebody says something to you, even in the future if you become friends, the mean thing that they said stays in your mind. It just doesn't go away,” McCormick said.
McCormack, one of the winners for eighth grade, pointed out that the messages portrayed in the two winning eighth grade videos were very different, explaining that one was directed toward the victim and the other toward the bully.
In agreement, Alexis emphasized the importance of the messages presented in each of the videos emphasizing that students can relate to the types of situations portrayed in the videos.
The winning videos were shown on the Ahern Middle School’s broadcasting system for a week and will be shown to the town though Foxborough Cable Access in the near future.
The PSA winners included:
Grade five - Emme Ricci, Jamie DeVellis and Jyla Sulham
Grade 6 - Andrew Prevett, Shapel Feaster, Sam DeMilia, Jean Luma, Ahmed Mohamed, Spencer San Bento
Grade 7 - Jaci Anderson, Olivia Balabanis, Emily Bubencik, Faith Perry
Grade 8 - PSA 1 - Molly Crocker, Alexis Hill-Cook, Geena Holdcraft, Samantha Johnston, Georgia Munroe and Alyssa Relyea; PSA 2 -Ryan McCormack, Jack Lovely, and Olivia Manson. Reported by Patch 18 hours ago.