TEEN TRUTH in Montreal
March 29th, 2007
Erahm Christopher stood in front of 120 Grade 7 and 8 students at Selwyn House School in Westmount yesterday morning and asked a direct question. “How many of you have been punched, shoved, threatened, humiliated or otherwise bullied?” Stand up if you have, he said. One by one, the students did – each and every one of them. Christopher, an award-winning Montreal filmmaker, was making an anti-bullying multimedia presentation to the combined Selwyn House middle school.
He has brought his show to 10,000 schoolkids, but yesterday was the first time, he said, every student in the room had stood up when asked if they’d been bullied. “With MySpace.com and Facebook.com and all this other access to the Internet, it’s becoming a lot easier to bully,” said Christopher, who grew up in northern California, married a Canadian and settled in Montreal.
One of the newest forms of bullying is making up malicious nicknames for someone and posting them on the Internet for all to see, Christopher explained. That remark prompted a student of South Asian origin to put up his hand and say, “A lot of people make fun of my name.” Another student, whose first name is Dominique, said some kids have given him the nickname Dumb, for Dumbinique.” “And how does that make you feel?” Christopher asked. “Enraged,” Dominique said.
This exchange took place right after Christopher showed the students his 22- minute anti-bullying film titled Teen Truth, which he edited down from about 80 hours of footage taken by students. Until yesterday, the film and accompanying interactive presentation, lasting a total of 75 minutes, had been shown only to 10,000 students in Christopher’s native California.
Yesterday’s Canadian debut at Selwyn House, one of Montreal’s premier private schools, was a tremendous hit with students. Christopher is to visit St. George’s School on the Boulevard next month. A dozen other public and private English-language schools in Greater Montreal, including John Rennie High School in Pointe Claire, Lower Canada College in Notre Dame de Grace and Heritage Regional High School in St. Hubert, are making bookings with Christopher.
Heritage Regional graduate Joel Kornek, who was the first person shot by Kimveer Gill in September’s Dawson College shooting rampage, was on hand with Christopher yesterday to talk about his experience and explore the origins of the rage at the root of almost all bullying. “How many of you have come to school in the morning ticked off, but you don’t know why?” Christopher asked the Selwyn House crowd. Most students put up their hands, and great murmuring and laughter filled the lecture hall where Christopher and Kornek held court.
After Dominique had spoken, Christopher told the students, “The thing you need to realize (about bullying) is you never know how (people who have been bullied) are dealing with it.” Dominique was enraged, and although most children are likely to have similarly strong emotional reactions, they tend not to show them – not even to their parents, Christopher said. But, in general, he said, bullying creates anxiety, isolation and anger. One can mutate into the other, with Dawsonesque consequences.
“Have you noticed how it’s not Dawson College anymore, but just Dawson?” Christopher said. He left students with the message that they while they cannot control the actions or reactions of other kids, they do have control over their own personal conduct.
From there, Christopher introduced concepts of compassion and empathy and urged school boards to make a greater place in the curriculum for nourishing the heart as well as the brain. And he emphasized the need for victims of bullying to report abusive behaviour, rather than suffer in anguished silence.
Published by: The Gazette
Written by: David Johnston