The life class on the 16th of September was about bullying, why it happens, and what can be done by the victims or bystanders to prevent it. Vagisha ma’am asked us to think of ways in which we can promote anti-bullying and have a positive space in our school, which we could include in the life class. We came with two ideas:

1. Making a graffiti of a butterfly and two arms flexing their biceps. These would act as places where students could go when they’re feeling sad or depressed because of being bullied by peers. A butterfly is a symbol of confidence and freedom, and the biceps are a symbol of strength and perseverance, and these are feelings that can help motivate the student.
2. Making a pledge poster. We wanted a way for students to reflect upon the life class and we came up with the idea of making pledge posters. The pledge posters, as the name suggests, were a way for the students pledge to stand against bullying. There were four corridors of classes which were part of the life class, so we came up with four different ideas, and in each, we wrote ‘I stand against bullying’ in the center. The ways the students will pledge:
   1. G7 – Thumbprint
   2. G8 – Handprint
   3. G9/10 – Stamps
   4. G11/12 – A message written on a post-it stating what they’ve learned about bullying after the life class.

This was a project taken up by a bunch of students, and we were divided into two groups. One which would make the graffiti, and one which would make the pledge poster. I was part of a group of 4 students who were working on the pledge poster.

LO1 and LO3: We had somewhat of a rocky start to our project, and a primary reason for that was the lack of willingness to actually work. Having a strength in leadership, and seeing the lack of initiative, I took up the responsibility of scheduling meetings to come early so that we could begin working on the project. However, more often than not, some of the other excuses blocked our progress. Eventually, I managed to schedule a meeting. We brainstormed ideas for the project, came up with a plan and ordered the resources we would require to make the posters. During the course of the project I realised that everyone will not be able to meet together to work on the posters so I decided that those who’ll be able to come will have to come, and those who’re not able to come will have to make up for their lost work by giving up their free slot working on this. The reason I did this was to maintain a sense of equality in the group so that no one felt that they’re doing way more than the other. I also tried to assign work as per the skill set of the members. I was able to write properly so I wrote the text on the graphs while some other member who’s good with a brush would paint.

LO2: This project required a lot of art and craft work, and I am very weak on that front. Due to the constraint of time, it was essential that all four of us contributed properly to this task, so I took up this challenge and gave it my best. Often I made some errors. To overcome this challenge I took up the writing work on the chart as it would be possible to erase any mistakes I made, which eventually reduced as I wrote more and more. We also collaborated with the graffiti group, who had some really artistic members. When they were helping us with our charts I observed the way they painted and tried to imitate their style and precision, and I could see a vast visible improvement in my painting skills. Having close to no practice in painting, I wasn’t very good at it. But after some mistakes and some errors, I was able to learn the skill of painting and improve in it.

Despite a lot of last-minute work, we were able to complete our task properly and I was able to learn a lot about leadership and artwork.

LO3: Having been part of this project from the start, I was able to contribute and suggest ideas to what we could do. The few of us who were there from the start actually planned out how and when we will manage to do all the work, which person would do what work, what resources we’ll need etc. We even took advice from our art teacher, Pankti Ma’am, who advised us on various aspects of our project. Throughout the time we were working on our project we could see our plan unfold into reality and when it was all over it felt amazing as all of our planning and hard work had paid off.

LO4: Time was a challenge. The only time where we could work was by coming early to school because resource transportation and a lack of matching free-slot timings prevented us doing the work at home or during our free-slots. And even coming early was not possible every day due to a football competition and Maths classes. Some of the other group members weren’t able to come early for some reasons. However, after giving an ultimatum to the group and setting consequences of making them work during their free-slots, we were able to get a lot of work done. This way we were able to overcome our problem of the lack of commitment.

LO5: Despite the fact that our group did not work as efficiently as we planned, there were a lot of times when the benefits of multiple perspectives and a bigger workforce were visible. When brainstorming ideas for the pledge poster we were able to collect a lot of good ideas and we narrowed them down to the four best ones. Alone, I’m sure none of us would have been able to think of the same ideas (at least in the same time frame). As a group, we were a diverse set of people with different strengths, which also helped us with the division of work, as I previously mentioned.

LO6: We tackled the issue of bullying, and students in schools and colleges around the world face ragging and bullying, which can have many psychological effects. By promoting anti-bullying, we are contributing to the awareness of the consequences of bullying such as depression and, in worse cases, suicide. Through this project, we were able to understand what those being bullied feel and how having no outlet to the problem could be extremely stressful.

Overall, through this activity, we were able to learn, grow, understand, overcome, and promote.