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“OMG! Did u get that pic? LOL!” Have you ever sent or received a message like this? If, so it was probably just in good fun, but too often messages like this are part of cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is any time you use Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, blogs, You Tube, pictures, videos, cell phones, text messages, instant message, or any other type of social media to hate on or spread negativity about other people (Mr. Mojo, 2011).
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The topic of bullying is hard to ignore these days. In fact, a lot of us are probably tired of hearing about it, but if you don’t want to hear about it, then it’s time to join in and put a stop to it. Many of us read or listen to some of the news on bullying, but since we do not think it involves us we do not put a lot of time or thought into the problem. The reality is, some of us are more a part of it than we think. In fact, some of us are the bullies!
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What I learned at ASCA!
I have spent most of the summer preparing for my upcoming anti-bullying tour that will include approximately 200 schools in 75 days from August through November. As I am sure all of you love what you do and the impact you make everyday I too am extremely passionate about my opportunity to impact the lives of almost 400,000 students per year with my powerful message: "MOJO UP- Leaders Taking A Stand Against Bullying"!
So what does that have to do with ASCA? Although, bullying is a heavily talked about topic in schools and in the media, it appears that many people only talk about it! At the ASCA conference it was talked about a great deal as well, however after having hundreds of conversations, attending workshops and small group chat sessions I realized that counselors do more than just talk about it. You are in the heat of the battle everyday working with students to make a real positive difference with students in many ways including bullying! So it was refreshing to walk away from this conference and realize that I have thousands of counselors all over this country on the same mission I am, "to change the world one student at a time". I learned that the counselors care, and are trying to find ways to open up the hearts and minds of students to show them all that they can be and the opportunities they have in life.
My anti-bullying tour is committed to do the same exact things. Yes, I do talk about what bullying is and the impact it has on all of us, however the main focus is getting all students to understand they are good enough, valuable enough and the have abilities to help make a positive difference in this world. MOJO UP - is the term I use to inspire each student to take a stand for themselves, their classmates and do something big everyday! I feel blessed to know that every school I go to this year has a great counselor in it, and I will not be alone in this fight! That you will be their to reinforce this positive message and help these students everyday!
THANK YOU for doing what you do, and THANK YOU for helping me on my mission to change the world one student at a time!
Mr. MOJO- America's Youth Leadership & Anti-Bullying Coach
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What Would Your Child Do?
On Sunday June 12, 2011 Dateline NBC aired a special on bullying. Students were unknowingly put in situations where someone around them was being bullied as there parents sat in another room and watched via hidden cameras. All parents were hopeful that their children would respond in an appropriate way, but had to anxiously await the reality of how their child would respond, impromptu, in a bullying scenario.
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Join Mr MOJO on his journey to change the world one teenager at a time. His Fall Anti-Bullying tour will begin on August 4th and run through November 21st!
BookMrMojo@NoBullyingTour.com
"Leaders Taking A Stand Against Bullying will change the culture in your school forever! Mr. MOJO's inspiring message will reveal the untold truth about about how often most of us bully or allow bullying to happen around us each day.
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Can They Count on You?
Research has found that bullying is most likely to occur in schools where there is a lack of adult supervision during breaks, where teachers and students are indifferent to or accept bullying behavior, and where rules against bullying are not consistently enforced. (Olweus, Limber, & Mihalic, 1999) This begs the question: Can your students count on you?
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Anxiety and depression are two mental health disorders that are being diagnosed more and more in children these days. Mental health concerns in children have become so prominent that the NYU Child Study Center is promoting “Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week.” The goal is to increase awareness and develop more resources to help children suffering from these disorders.
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Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), a cornerstone of the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act used to evaluate the success of schools nation wide, has school personnel around the country on edge. If a school continually fails to meet AYP standards, it can be deemed a failing school and eventually be shut down completely. As many of us know, when a school fails, a community fails, and the children that live in that community are bound to fail as well.
So how does this tie into bullying you ask? It is a very straight forward correlation. AYP is measured by English/Reading, and Mathematics proficiency and graduation rates. Therefore, students must reach a certain skill level in both Math and English. To learn these facts they must be taught. In order to be taught they must be exposed to educational opportunities in their local public schools. In turn, students must attend school to be exposed to the information to reach the proficiency level, which will be measured by a standardized test given during the school day. Simple, right? Not so fast.
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Just teasing, taunting, all in good humor? Not so fast. For the critics out there that think bullying is just a normal childhood experience; take at look at this: Every half an hour, there is a youth suicidal death that has resulted from bullying (Marr & Field, 2001). I’m not sure about you, but I’ve never considered suicide a normal part of childhood. As a matter of fact, it pains me to know that there are even more children out there who have considered suicide, attempted and not completed it, or have gone unreported in the statistics.
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As an anti-bullying speaker it is hard to come up with data driven statistics, without schools providing things like the number of fights before and after my talk, the number of social networking incidents before and after my talk, but I have been fortunate to have students give their own personal testimony on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/mojoup .
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