The Toronto Argonauts Visited to tell us some important messages about bullying…. “Support, Report and Defend”

On Wednesday, February 4 a couple Toronto Argonauts could be found not on a football field. Instead they were at Hazel McCallion Senior Public School, where they joined us students at McCallion in our fight against bullying.  Toronto Argonauts, Orlando Steinauer, number 21 and Michael Fletcher, number 2, along with Jason, the Argos Public relations director,  shared their stories of bullying with the students, with hopes that they could give students a look through the eyes of the bullied.

 Jason shared his personal story of being bullied. Back in his high school days Jason recalled to us that he was small for his age and wanted to play football.  He told the students about how two of his teammates in high school made his life miserable by bullying him endlessly just for fun.  He spoke of teamwork and determination to overcome the bullying, but he really wanted us to walk away with a new found knowledge on the life of the people that are bullied.  He wanted to demonstrate the pain that bullies inflict upon the individuals that they pick on for being “different”. 

 Michael Fletcher’s story, of his 2 childhood best friends from L.A., demonstrated a different aspect of bullying, the result.  He explained how they were left in the custody of their older brother after their mother passed away and how their older brother hadn’t been the best citizen, being constantly in and out of jail.  He then went on to explain how they were bullied into doing things for their brother, like selling drugs for example.  One night he told us that the older brother went so far as to bringing his two younger brothers (Fletcher’s friends)  along with him while he committed an armed robbery.  That night he was shot to death after endangering the life of a cop and the brothers were sent to jail where they continue to live out the remaining 5 years of their sentence.  The consequences to this particular act of bullying had a very unlikely end, but Michael wanted to send the message to students that the consequences of bullying are never easy.  If someone had done something, if the brothers had sought help, their lives may not have been wasted in jail.

The message Jason, Michael and Orlando wanted to get through to the students, was that to tell somebody that you’re being picked on or that someone else is being picked on, does not make you a tattle tale. You could in fact, save a life. Along with their stories, they shared an emotional letter written by a fourteen year old who was plagued by bullying. They shared with us the fact that this was the letter he wrote before committing suicide. This shocked the audience and helped make their point a lot clearer.

The theme of their discussion with us was that Bullying never has good effects. Jason also made a demonstration on how bullying affects a person mentally. He emphasized that the hurt from bullying is not always physical. Kids that are bullied have bruises that may not be visible. Many of their bruises are under the skin.  To show us what he emant, Jason took two pieces of wood, oak and pine, and a hammer.  The hammer was representing the bully and the nails were the symbolizing the insults and shunning a bully receives.  Jason hammered a nail into the pine board because it was weak, and to show that it was not as strong as the oak board.  This would continue until the hammer (bully), realized his mistakes and apologized.  All the nails that had been placed inside were then removed.  The only visible sign of the bullying that had once occurred, were small holes in the wood left by the nails that unless you looked carefully would never even know were there.

The three finished off the presentation by summarizing their message in three simple words, “Support, report and defend.”  They left the school hoping that they had made an impact on the lives of Hazel McCallion students and that the school, and maybe even the country, was one step closer to being bully free