Kids Talk About Bullying When You See It and You Matter

2023 Kids Top Winner in "Students with Solutions" contest. About the group and why they participated Although this competition lasted from January 2024 to April 2024, both of Dr. Yuvraj Verma’s 5th Grade classes are predicated on care and respect. In order to create a video on bullying prevention as well as to speak passionately about it, it needs to happen in reality. While academics are important in a school setting, President Theodore Roosevelt correctly stated that “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. Similarly, Aristotle is quoted saying that “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all”. Both quotes highlight the significance of educating the whole-child. As a matter of fact, many competitions focus on academics, but the benefit of the 2023 PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center’s “Students with Solutions” competition was that we were able to have discussions about social-emotional learning, which is a very important topic for children to engage in. It was refreshing and impressive to hear the students openly, vulnerably, and honestly talking about bullying, including being bullied, the need to be upstanders as opposed to bystanders, and the importance of working collaboratively to become anti-bullies. On May 9, 2023, Birmingham City Councilman Clinton Woods celebrated the students’ victory at a City Council Meeting. Nonetheless, the students’ victory was celebrated on multiple local news channels as well: CBS42 News, WVTM13 News, and ABC33/40.