Transforming School Culture
From the Inside Out
“Bullying causes depression, anxiety … and hatred toward self, friends, and family.“*
Bullying can create a nasty blight on schools that’s typically reflected in the school culture.
In a healthy culture, students and staff are intentionally coming together to create a positive and inclusive environment, one that’s safe for everyone. Unfortunately, that’s more rare than we all like to think.
If yours is like most schools there’s always work to be done, and developing a growth mindset can be a game-changer. We’ve created a highly effective project to do just that.
The Anti-Bullying Project anticipates and encourages growth of all school players: the students, teachers, and administration.
Mary Helen Rossi
Goals for a School Transformation
Consider how working towards these goals would transform your school:
- All students have the strength and resilience to deal with challenges;
- Students support each other, such as assisting those who are bullied;
- Teachers and staff are increasingly aware of and caring for their students including noticing bullying that’s occurring;
- All students experience a culture of no-tolerance of bullying;
- Students who want to cause harm to others understand what they’re doing and are supported to change;
- Reoccurring assemblies continue to reinforce the growth mindset.
The Growth Mindset
At its simplest, a growth mindset enables us to reframe perceived failures as opportunities to learn and grow. Our project takes it one step further by encouraging everyone to consciously dig in and access their inherent power. Doing this enlivens our creative spirit and empowers us to continue growing into more integrated, happy human beings. It’s a never-ending process.
The Anti-bullying Project is designed to catalyze this growth. The project is aligned with Social Emotional Learning and inculcates all five of CASEL’s core social-emotional learning competencies:
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
- Social awareness
- Relationship skills
- Responsible decision-making
The school culture changes when individuals actively develop their resilience and healthy identities.
About Us
Mary Helen Rossi is the Director at Merge Education, Inc., the parent company of The Anti-Bullying Project. Merge staff has been offering SEL-aligned programs and resources since 1986 – first as Youth Advancement through Music & Art, and as Merge Education since 2008 .
Mary Helen is a creative writer by education and trade. She spent decades writing and teaching for YATMA (Youth Advancement through Music & Art), a nonprofit that empowered over 2,500 challenged students through SEL-alligned arts education.
YATMA’s approach ignites students’ creative spirit, enabling them to discover their inherent power and turn their lives around. It is equally relevent to academic teachers. YATMA delivered its program before the consortium (CASEL) was created.
The Merge team is dedicated to empowering young people to discover their inherent strength and talents and change school cultures from the inside out.
Why Bullying
Bullying has become an epidemic in the U.S. that is seriously damaging our young people. Merge director Mary Helen knows this firsthand: stunted by the trauma of ongoing bullying in 5th grade, over the years her trauma compounded. She began to heal in her 30s as she began to get in touch with the inherent strength we all have. As she did, she discovered an effective method for change. She communicates this method in her presentations and book, Bullies, Blaze, & Bravery.
The Anti-Bullying Project focuses on personal growth. Writing and speaking from experience, Mary Helen is authentic and energized about offering young people a way to access their inherent power. From her experience, it’s the only way they can access and develop their unique talents to truly thrive.
The Method
The essence of the method is to use difficulty (such as bullying) as a springboard to turn inward, trust yourself, and find happiness, ultimately living from that strength. It’s a simple method and a clear path to resiliency.
The Anti-Bullying Project combines books for students and staff and videos or live speaking for project kick-off with the SEL-aligned project detailed here.
How the Staff Benefits
Many educators face high stress and overwhelming workloads today, resulting in a disconnect. This not only negatively impacts job satisfaction, it also directly impacts student well-being and sense of belonging.
Multiple large-scale studies reveal that a significant percentage of students feel a lack of care, emotional understanding, or strong connection from their teachers:
60% of students feel their teachers are unaware when something is actively upsetting them – [LinkedIn / Evidence Based Education].
This disconnect clearly impacts teachers’ ability to notice or deal with bullying:
60% of middle school students say they have been bullied while 16% of staff say they believe students have been bullied. – James Burns, Bullying in Schools
The Anti-Bullying Project is designed to instill a growth mindset that continues to energize students and staff long after the project is complete.
The Books
For Students: Bullies, Blaze, and Bravery is about a young girl who shuts down when bullies continue to harrass her. Her mom teaches her what she calls “the most important life skill of all” … how to “stand on her own legs.”
The story offers young people an uncomplicated method for finding their power to stand strong within themselves – in other words, finding the resilience within and discovering their authentic identity.
Students read the book prior to the Inner-Strength Workshop, which is followed by a 2-3 month individual, class, and all-school project.
For Staff: Venturing Together: Empowering Students to Succeed delivers educator William Rossi’s SEL-aligned, strengths-based teaching approach. Teachers learn practical orientations and tools they can use to better understand their students: who they are, how they learn, and what they need for success.
Using Rossi’s strengths-based teaching approach, teachers are better able to tune in to where students are. Not only do students benefit, teachers find greater satisfaction with their work.
Inner-Strength Workshop and Videos
In addition to the books, we also deliver videos and live presentations for middle-school assemblies and Professional Development sessions to support and reinforce the growth mindset message.
An overview of how this all comes together with a comprehensive 2-3 month project is here.
The Foundational Growth Mindset
In essence, our work empowers young people to discover their authentic identities – the best defense against being bullied or being a bully. It’s all about personal growth.
Contact us to discuss the complete project, bulk book purchasing, or standalone services.
*This quote and plenty of statistics to call a school to action can be found at napab.org/bullying-statistics