Pink Shirt Day Part #2 the Aftermath
Good Morning Parents! Another Pink Shirt Day has come and gone in Canada. A day filled with wonderful intentions, great costume's and lot's of fun, especially at our Elementry School's.
Bake sale's, video's being made to be uploaded to youTube.com, obscure poets and musicians making video's at schools through out Canada. Politicians no one has heard of making speech's. Balloons, pins and t-shirts being sold. Hot Dog's and rallies, pink flags flying in the wind.
Now it's the "day after" and what has really changed?
Nothing! Same as it was. Same as it ever will be unless we change the way we look at BULLYING in our schools. We need to make real concrete changes within our schools and how they treat and react to Bullying. We need to educate parents and how they react to Bullying. We need to educate politicians and the media about how they treat and react to BULLYING.
Talking to our schools about Bullying is quite educational. Administrators and Teachers all agree, through out Canada, February is the WRONG month to have a Anti Bullying Day. Look to any other country and you will discover they hold Anti Bullying days at the start of the school year.
They do this because they realize that in the first 6 weeks, our children decide who are geeks, who are cool, who are leaders and who are prey. Talk about BULLYING early when it will have a impact on the students.September or October at the latest.
Student suicide's in Canada happen at the start of the year. In fact, 74.1% happen before November 30th! The Australians, British, French, Americans, Belgians and so on realize this and responded appropriately. Yet we, Canadians, haven't gotten the message yet. Our Teachers know this as fact. Our School Administrators know this as fact.
David and Travis stood up on September 18th, which changed a entire school year. Talk to either one of them. Ask if there would have been the same impact on their school if they reacted on the last Wednesday in February.
Which brings us to our politicians.
We have a politician in B.C. who goes out of her way to claim she invented Every One Wear Pink Day. This is absolutely false! She worked at a B.C. radio station as a online personality when she heard about the two young men in Nova Scotia who made a stand against BULLYING. She brought the cause to the West Coast and her radio station www.cknw.com which picked up the cause and have produced amazing awareness for this cause. But despite her claims, she didn't invent "Everyone Wear Pink". Her radio station backed the cause, and must be commended for their dedication to it.
www.cknw.com believed so much in this cause, they created a wonderful website called pinkshirtday.ca which monthly updates visitors with everything BULLYING related in the United States and other parts of the world. Hopefully in the future they will include much more Canadian content on this great website.
The BC politician we have written about deserves a waterfall of appreciation for bringing this topic forward and made parents realize we have a plague on our hands. For that, all Canadians should be thankful. Thankful for helping create pinkshirtday.ca and putting this cause on the Canadian map. As well as her employeers at the time, www.cknw.com , who continue on with this cause.
Which brings us to the Canadian parents. Where did we go so wrong? A Burnaby BC parents group demanded a video done by grade 4 students, doing a dance to a Lady GaGa song be banned and NOT released because Lady GaGa has, and I quote, " anti religion, anti social" themes in her music, and "promotes GAY themes" in her video's.
A group of grade 4 students doing a Anti-BULLYING Dance, badly, but having too much fun doing it, with pure innocence on their faces, dancing to a song about TOLERENCE for different sexual orientation! The song made by a Superstar because a GAY student in Ottawa took his own life.
Really? You know how ridiculous this is? South Park, The Simpsons and heaven help us, The Family Guy are going to trash Canada because of this idiocy and I hope they do! If Street Smart Kidz of Canada can help, just ask.
We have made many strides forward. We have also taken just as many backwards. When will we learn tolerance is the answer to BULLYING!
SB