Drama teacher tackles sideline bullies

A Northcross teacher is using drama to help kids learn to deal with sideline bullies.

Mark Jensen teaches at Northcross Intermediate School, and this term his year 8 drama students, all 500 of them, are talking about concerning behaviours adults display on the side of the sports field.

Jensen, who also coaches a hockey team for the school, said the idea came as he thought about the unheeded advice parents gave to their children.

‘‘Adults, especially in a school situation, are always telling kids about bullying but, hang on a minute, it happens in the adult world too,’’ Jensen said.

He said parents often go to rugby games at Eden Park and get caught up in the booing, cheering and jeering, then go to their kids’ games at the weekend and replicate the behaviour without thinking.

Anecdotally, the majority of the kids Jensen teaches said they had seen verbal abuse on the Saturday sports field, whether that was from a parent on the sidelines, a coach or even a referee.

And the kids unanimously agreed - the behaviour is not on.

Jensen has been getting the students to workshop different scenarios around adult bullying, playing out scenes on sports fields, as well as in the workplace and at home.

The kids are then asked to reset the scene and change the bullying behaviours to lead to a

‘‘The student voice can be quite strong, kids can influence adults quite a bit.’’ Mark Jensen

more positive outcome.

One student, Lara Johns, said sideline bullies were ‘‘annoying’’, but that the lessons with Jensen had given her new perspective.

‘‘If it does happen, then we can try to find a way to stop it,’’ she said.

Classmate Ally Vincent-Tait said she hadn’t initially realised sideline jeers were instances of verbal abuse.

‘‘[Adults] always say to us to not be bullies but, when you think about it, there are things they do that are technically bullying.’’

Both girls said their behaviour had changed as a result of the class, and that they would report adult bullying if they saw it.

‘‘The student voice can be quite strong, kids can influence adults quite a bit,’’ Jensen said.

‘‘It’s quite powerful for kids to be at a game on Saturday and say ‘Why are you talking like that?’ and not just think that’s acceptable, because it isn’t.’’

KASHKA TUNSTALL Ally Vincent-Tait and Lara Johns play out a scene of sideline abuse in their Northcote Intermediate School drama class.