In line with Anti-bullying week, Debating Club considered a premise of ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’.
Responses were wide-ranging and thoughtful, producing a rigorous debate about all forms of bullying; from online, verbal, face-to-face, to physical.
Our discussion included: could verbal bullying be diffused by only giving credence to the views of people whom you admire? Can we ‘just shrug it off and not listen’ to verbal bullying? Can we simply ‘close the computer and walk away’ from online bullying? Should we try to understand that ‘people who bully us were probably bullied themselves’? Girls made a correlation between bullying and racism; both based on ignorance or fear. Could bullying words even cause others to take negative action, like the speeches of Hitler in WWII?
Following this discussion, Debating Club unanimously voted that both sticks and stones and words could “cause lasting damage”, and that “having unkind words said to you can create a cycle of bullying that we should try to break with kindness”. The whole club disagreed with the premise and, in a School where Love Always Leads Us, we universally agreed that kindness is the way forward.
Categories: Girls' Prep School