Photo courtesy of Liz West and Flickr
WARNING: Includes strong language / swear words
“Life is like any other contact sport; you’re gonna get your knocks. But it’s not the knocks that count; it’s how you handle them.”
Sydney Banks
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the “bullying / crumpled paper” meme that’s been doing the rounds. Basically, the message is of a teacher who gets children to crumple up a piece of paper then smooth it out, and to observe how the scars (creases) stay forever, and that’s what happens when you bully someone so don’t be a bully. When I saw it, my first thought was, ‘great metaphor’. But my second thought was, “This is horrible; they’re teaching children to believe they’re fragile”.
While it’s a clever metaphor, it’s fundamentally untrue and unhelpful. So I devised my own version of the “bullying / crumpled paper” meme. I put it live on Sunday and it was shared over 100 times in the first 24 hours, so I thought I’d share it with you.
A teacher was teaching her class about bullying and had them do the following exercise. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to scrunch it up, stomp on it and really make a mess of it, but be careful not to tear it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty it was. Then, she told them to say they were sorry. She pointed out that even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, those scars would never go away, no matter how hard they tried to repair it. Then she said, “Fortunately, you’re not a fucking piece of paper. You’re a human being, with a beautiful, magnificent spirit. Who you really are is pure conscious awareness, and nothing anyone says or does can hurt or damage who you really are. You’re far more powerful and resilient than you may have realised until now. Your spirit cannot be crumpled, scarred or messed up. Who you really are cannot be a victim in any way. Bullies are suffering and filled with insecurity. Who they really are can’t be damaged either, but sometimes they don’t know that, and start acting like little pricks. You can forgive them and feel compassion for them, but you don’t have to take any of their shit.” And the children laughed and smiled, happy that their teacher didn’t try to make them think they were fragile and weak, like pieces of paper; happy that she was kind, wise and a bit sweary. The end.
Kids of all ages need to understand that we are not fragile victims; that we are all resilient and powerful. Please share this message with the people you’re connected to on Facebook; just go to my post here and hit the ‘Share’ button
Big Love, Jamie