On Thursday March 3rd, the Freehold Township SADD students headed over to Barkalow Middle School to spread awareness on a common issue faced within the school, cyberbullying.

Students Against Destructive Decisions (also known as SADD) went into sixth grade classes fully prepared to educate and inform the younger students about the difference between conflict and bullying in a fun manner.

One member of  each of the twelve groups that were to take on classes were instructed to demonstrate the long lasting effect of bullying. To teach the students in a fun way, papers were passed out to every student in the room and they were told to crumple the paper. Once the children had gotten extremely into the activity, stomping on the paper, having their friends stomp on it and then throwing it across the room one of the group leaders would hone in on the more serious matter. The leaders would have the children uncrumple the paper and then apologize to it.

When asked what the activity meant, Wiley, age 11 of group 6, answered “It means that even when you say something mean and then try to apologize it doesn’t make it better. The paper didn’t get fixed because we said sorry, and someone wouldn’t be less sad because someone else said sorry.”

To lighten the mood after a serious moment Liz Acque, one of the Group 6 leaders,went around her classroom with a recycling bin and the kids played a quick game of hoops trying to see who could shoot from the furthest distance.

Everyone was back to business. The four group leaders broke into their own miniature groups and discussed real life issues that some of the students faced, including being picked on for their race, gender and even the way they spoke.

SADD members passed around pieces of a puzzle for the kids to sign and at the end of the day the puzzle pieces were put together to create and amazing poster that read ‘NO BULLY ZONE” signed by all of the sixth grade students of Barkalow middle school.

The experience was amazing for the not only the Barkalow kids but also the SADD students. Once the lesson was over, SADD had a debriefing at the raintree plaza over food and everyone shared their experiences and thoughts.

“The kids were really getting into it. They had a lot of fun interacting and learning the concepts we were throwing at them. We showed them ways they could respond to bullying situations civilly and they were happy to learn,” said Brigitte Perin, grade eleven.

Junior Dylan Schaffer said “The kids were very intrigued into the lesson and very active. They seemed to love all of the activities, especially the ice breaker”.

The trip to Barkalow middle school wasn’t only a positive experience for the sixth graders, the members of SADD definitely learned something as well. We learned about how much kids are affected by bullying, online and offline. You’d think that with all of the bullying awareness we have in the Freehold Regional High School District that kids would realize not to be so harsh, because words hurt, but that sadly wasn’t the case. Sixth graders were being subjected to online abuse from their anonymous peers, and that was a shocking discovery for most of the SADD members.

These children are growing up in an era where having iPhone at eleven is the norm and teachers tell students to “Take out their chromebooks” the way they used to tell students to take out their textbooks. With the change in the world, it’s understandable that schools are trying to keep up, but the easy access to technology is negatively impacting the students because they’re becoming more susceptible to cyber bullying,

Although online bullying is a big deal, the SADD leaders are confident that they taught the middle schoolers the harms and consequences of bullying without scaring them off. Hopefully this will lead to a brighter future for all of them, and more trips to the middle schools!