— By Graciela Moreno
Kids these days can be so mean to each other—especially with the Internet and cyber bullying. Because it’s so difficult to police, teachers are having a hard time teaching kids about respect.
A reporter in Fresno, California, Graciela Moreno, shared this story about how one teacher used two apples to show her students the real price of bullying.
Yesterday, we were working on a story about a 9-year old boy being bullied at school for using a My Little Pony backpack. The school responded by telling the little boy to leave his bag at home… a move that seems to punish the little boy and not the bullies.
Many people complained that schools often ignore these issues or simply don’t know how to handle them… Among the comments, I came across the story of one teacher who struggled with how to teach kids about the harm caused by bullying. So she decided to use apples as visuals. If you have 3 minutes read this story and share with your teacher friends:
I decided to stop by the store this morning and buy a couple apples. During our morning meeting (where we sit in a circle and do spiral lessons), I told my class we were going to try something different and I showed them my two apples and asked them to list the differences and similarities between the two apples. They were both exactly the same color and shape…one was a little brighter and bigger, but that was literally the only difference.
I then held up the other apple that was only slightly discolored and smaller and I said, “Gross. This apple looks disgusting!” and dropped it on the ground. My kids all looked at me like I was INSANE! A couple laughed uncomfortably, but for the most part they thought I had lost my mind.
I then picked it up and passed it to the student sitting beside me and said, “isn’t this apple just stupid?! You should say something mean to it and do this!” Again I modeled dropping it in front of me. “Now pass it to the person next to you so they can say something mean to the apple, too!”
Long story short, my kids got very into saying mean and hurtful things to this apple and dropping it in front of them. “I hate your skin.” “You’re an ugly color of red” “Your stem isn’t very long” “You’re probably full of worms” on and on and on….
So by the time this little apple made it back to me everyone had had a chance to really rip this little guy apart. I seriously started feeling sympathetic towards an inanimate object… but moving on…
I then held both of the apples up for my kids to look at and asked them to now list the similarities and differences of the apples again… It came back the same… There really was no difference. Even after they had repeatedly dropped this apple you couldn’t really tell that it had any damage.
I then asked my students who wanted a piece of the apple… of course… FOOOOOOOD…. and ALL my students raised their hands because they wanted some.
I took out a cutting board, knife and proceeded to cut the shiny apple open. It was perfect. And all my kids “ooooohhh and ahhhh’ed”…
Then I cut open the second one and when I opened it, it was covered in mushy brown spots and bruised all inside from where we dropped it. When I held it up my kids were like, “EWWWWW. I don’t want to eat THAT apple!” “Yuck!” “That looks disgusting…”
That’s when I just looked at them and said, “But didn’t we all contribute to the apple looking this way?! We did this… why shouldn’t we eat it?” They all just kind of stopped and got really quiet and I was like, “See guys… this is what we do to other people when we say mean and hurtful things. When we gossip or call someone ugly or fat or tell them they aren’t good enough or that they can’t be friends with you… we are just dropping them and causing ONE MORE bruise… a bruise that while we can’t see on the outside is VERY REAL and very destructive inside of them! It doesn’t just go away, the bruises just keep getting worse and deeper… THIS!” I said as I held up the bruised apple, “is what we do to each other. We have to stop dropping each other.”
I’ve never seen my kids “get” something so fast before. It was so real to them… people cried and laughed and it was very emotional but absolutely amazing and they got to then journal about everything and some of the responses I got… well, I sobbed all the way through lunch. I had so many kids come up and hug me later and tell me that they were so happy that a teacher “got it”.