“Violence does not have a zip code.”
So began a stirring speech on combating bullying in today’s society by Rick Phillips, executive director of Community Matters, a California-based organization dedicated to empowering young people to put a stop to bullying in schools across America.
After a stirring introduction by Jonathan Ernst, a victim of bullying who eventually became a part of Community Matters’ Safe School Ambassador program, Phillips spoke to a Clinton School crowd about ways that a school can be made a place where a child can feel welcome, safe and be included.
Phillips spoke of moving to Los Angeles from Montreal at the tender age of 10 and, along with his younger brother, being bullied in school for being from a different country, for living in a hotel with their single mother and for speaking a different language. At the time, Phillips said he was afraid to speak up and began to wonder if he had brought the violence on himself, eventually adopting an attack-first coping mechanism to deal with bullies.
Phillips mentioned the ever-changing dynamics of bullies. Where they were once seen as being outcasts, loners, older kids who stole your lunch money, today’s bullies are much more difficult to pinpoint, blending more easily into groups and cliques at school. He touched on the difficulties of pinpointing instances of bullying, as nearly 900,000 students are victims of cyber-bullying, a much more difficult issue to combat.
Phillips said he recognizes that children are the best way to prevent violence and bullying, and he encouraged everyone in the audience to encourage children to be “upstanders rather than bystanders.”
Community Matters is helping to promote this idea with their Safe School Ambassador program, which identifies students within a school who can be change agents and gives them the training and encouragement to go into their schools and stand up to their peers when they see an instance of bullying. Of the more than 70,000 students in the last 10 years who have been invited to participate in the Ambassador program, over 97 per cent have agreed to take on the responsibility.
Phillips said the Safe School Ambassador program is just one example of the numerous ways communities can help stop bullying in schools throughout the country. He noted that every citizen has the power to protect kids if only we encourage them to be courageous in the face of bullying.
Video of Phillips’ lecture will be posted soon at www.clintonschoolspeakers.com.
This post was written by Clinton School student Veena Rangaswami (’13).