I love Twitter - shocking, I know. But I do love it because I get so inspired by reading comments and blogs by other teachers I follow. One of my favorite posts lately is by Eric Johnson (@yourkidsteacher), from his website, called "Erasing Meanness." Read his blog post here. You need to read his before you read mine. His post inspired everything I'm about to say here. I'm working with another 5th grade teacher from Canada (@FlyontheCWall) on a shared blog for all of our fifth graders (see it here) for the months of April and May. Our topic for May has been bullying. So naturally, I started looking for things mid-April for our classes. I LOVED Mr. Johnson's "Erasing Meanness" idea. I felt like it was a message my students really needed to hear, plus it fit our blogging theme for the month. Mr. Johnson was nice enough to send me a link to the videos he used in his classroom. I'm going to post pictures and videos below for you to use if you would like. At the end of this week, my students made our own music video. Here's what's cool about this - I found the song "Perfect" by AHMIR (it's a cover of Pink's original) on YouTube. These guys have such beautiful voices, and I love that the video for their song is about bullying. If you buy their version on iTunes, part of the proceeds benefit the Trevor Project. My students loved the video and song, so I tweeted the guys (@AHMIR) on Twitter. I told them the kiddos loved their song and asked if I could use it. They told us that we could use the song, so we proceeded to make the video. (There aren't many that are very appropriate for elementary, I don't think, so we tried to make our own to add to the options out there.) After I tweeted out a link to the video, they responded back! How cool! They wrote: @ACommaQueen so awesome! We're honored and proud to support anti-bullying with you and your students! They even left us a comment on our YouTube video! What cool guys! (This is my not-so-subliminal message for you to check them out.) Here's my students' video: Here's my Erasing Meanness Timeline Day 1 I cleaned the board really well, removed everything else from the board, and wrote "mean" in the middle in big letters. (No picture, sorry!) I showed "Anti-Bullying PSA: The Price of Silence" (then discussed for a minute or two). Day 2 Before the kids came in, I had written several synonyms for mean, hate, bullying, etc. Yes, I know abhorrence is misspelled. I wrote it about half a billion times before I noticed it. My apologies. And yes, lots of the words repeat. Then I showed the "Stand Up, Stand Out: No Checking, No Capping, No Bullying" video. My kiddos really responded to this, especially when students said they didn't feel like teasing sometimes, and it really hurt their feelings. Day 3 Before the kids came in, I had written "How do you want to be remembered?" on the board. It took forever and it looks kinda bad. Whoops. Then I showed 3 videos: "Being a Friend," "Stop Bullying PSA," and Mark Wills' "Don't Laugh at Me" music video. The kids and I talked a lot about how, perhaps more important than standing up to a bully, it is very critical to make others feel wanted and important. We talked about how easy it is to walk up to someone after they've been bullied or if they are lonely and talk to them. Just having a friend can make a huge difference in someone's life. Day 4 The kids noticed the board hadn't changed. They wondered what was different. I told them that they were going to change the board; they had the opportunity to erase some of the meanness and spread love instead. Before they erased the words, we watched Ahmir's "Perfect" video. The kids lined up to wait on their turn to "change the world." the line to change the world finished Again, be sure to read Mr. Johnson's "Erasing Meanness" post. It's a great way to start an anti-bullying campaign. And you never know - it might help save a life one day.