October 14, 2011
Lessons on bullying
Good Shepherd students learn bullying doesn’t have to happen
Payton Roberts, center, leans forward to hear a presentation by Adam Willis on bullying at Good Shepherd School in Evansville. (Message photo by Mary Ann Hughes) Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
Adam Willis knows first hand about the damage, even the devastation, caused by bullying. He knows that it can lead to death.
And that’s what he shared with students at Good Shepherd School — his own story. And he reminded them that if they turn to Jesus, their lives can be different.
Willis is the youth minister at St. Mary Church in Evansville. He’s also working on his doctorate in education with an emphasis on “faith and its effects on bullying.”
His presentation was part of a day-long retreat for third, fourth and fifth graders at the Evansville school. He began by telling the students that he was bullied when he was in school. “People called me names,” he said, recalling that in middle school “I had one friend. His name was Kevin, and he was bullied too.” (Related: See the thoughts of third, fourth and fifth graders at Good Shepherd School on bullying)
After Christmas break, Kevin didn’t return to school. When Willis asked about him, he was told that Kevin was so sad about being bullied, he decided to take his own life.
Willis said that what helped him through those years of being bullied and losing his friend was going to youth group and learning about Jesus.
“I’m telling you the most important thing,” he said. “Jesus loves you.”
He told the students, “God made you exactly the way he wanted you,” adding that the “number of pieces of sand on the beach is the number of times God thinks about you every day — and he loves you because he sent his son to die for you.”
When he asked the students if they thought Jesus ever bullied people, they answered in unison, “No.”
Then he asked them each to point to the person next to them and say, “Christ is in you.” Then they were asked to point to themselves and say, “Christ is in me.”
Seventy-seven percent of all students have been bullied, he said, adding, “If anyone has ever been mean to you, you are not alone.
“But,” he reminded them, “if Jesus is inside of all of us, and you push someone down, you are pushing down Jesus. How many of you want to push down Jesus? How many think that’s a really bad idea?”
Some times people bully other people because it makes them feel good, he said, remembering a fellow classmate. “He was short and funny looking, and he was the only guy I knew I could bully. Sadly, it made me feel good about myself because I wasn’t the one being bullied. Then I realized that I wasn’t the guy I wanted to be.”
He asked the students if they had ever had someone say something “super nice” to them. “That makes you feel good,” he said, adding “when someone says something mean, does that make you feel super sad? Is Jesus proud of us when we do that?”
Bullying doesn’t have to happen. It’s not a rite of passage.
And when it does happen, he encouraged the students to “tell an adult. It’s not tattling.”
“If I had told the teachers that people were being mean to Kevin, maybe Kevin would still be here. Tell someone. That’s the only way things will get better.”
After the presentation by Willis, the students were divided into groups, and then they ate lunch together. In the afternoon there were sessions on noticing the actions of bullying, noticing strengths in others and working together.
The retreat ended with a prayer service with their pastor, Father Zach Etienne.
The prayer service included a litany of the saints. Courtney Wahl, third grade teacher, said the litany included saints that the students learned about during the retreat, saints “who followed God’s call and helped any people in need.”