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Bullying prevention lessons in class 6a.
We are visiting the Finkenwerder grammar school in Hamburg.
School social worker Holger Hülsemann uses the little time after the corona-related school closure in the first three months of the year for a role play.
In this case, the children should write down hate messages.
Classmate Melina plays the recipient of the news.
- Schoolgirl reads: "How you look, just disgusting."
- Holger Hülsemann: "How does the person concerned feel?"
- Schoolgirl: »She feels very, very sad. Your heart is broken. You could see that on her face. "
With the game, the children should learn to empathize with the person concerned.
- Pupil: »You can now get all of this news not only as a game on a note in class, but also over the Internet. Be it via Instagram, Twitter or WhatsApp or something. «
Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp - social media have not only played a major role for children since the pandemic, but they have become even more important.
According to the Alliance against Cyberbullying, 40% of six to twelve-year-olds are regularly active in social networks.
These are difficult prerequisites for Holger Hülsemann's work - especially when it comes to combating bullying among schoolchildren.
Holger Hülsemann, school social worker:
“If bullying was an issue when digital media didn't exist, then you went home. Then it was the end of the day. See you next day of school. Now with digital media it can move around the clock and you can't get out of the spiral at all. "
School closings for months and contact restrictions exacerbate the problem.
According to the Jugend-Information-Multimedia study, children and young people spent almost an hour more per day online in 2020 than in the previous year.
In 2020, almost 2 million schoolchildren in Germany were affected by cyberbullying.
That number has increased by 36% since 2017.
Another side effect of the pandemic: In addition to a large part of the lessons, social contacts have increasingly shifted to the Internet.
Even the 6a has not seen itself completely and personally for months.
Today, at the request of their parents, three students stay at home in homeschooling.
They follow what is happening in the classroom on the computer.
For many children in homeschooling, for example, it is stressful that everyone else can look into their private environment.
- Student: »When you are doing video conferences and you are the only one to turn on the camera because someone is asking you something. Then everyone will look at you and see your room. For example, I have HSV pictures in there and they are St. Pauli fans. And then they write: Eee, HSV fans. "
But it's not just about football clubs.
A look into the apartment makes social differences visible - and could be a cause of bullying.
Holger Hülsemann, school social worker:
»There are students who grow up differently. And it's not embarrassing for one of them. And for the other, it's embarrassing: because he's in the same room with four siblings. Because he doesn't even have a room of his own. Because he may have to sleep in the living room due to the cramped living space. "
- Schoolgirl: "Getting help is not sneaking, it's justice."
With his work, Holger Hülsemann wants to encourage children to confidently intervene when they observe incidents of bullying.
It is part of the anti-bullying project "To be class together", which has been offered in several federal states since 2018.
Children's trust is crucial - but building or maintaining that has become more difficult in the pandemic.
Holger Hülsemann:
“So the problem is currently that you can't really get to the students. What is going on within the student body, even if you do a video conference with them, whether they are in the week when you may not have seen them as a social worker. You don't have daily contact with every student. That's not possible. You just don't notice what happened then. "
According to the Alliance for Cyberbullying, more schoolchildren across Germany want their schools to provide greater support in the event of cyberbullying.
However, due to corona-related school closings and distance lessons, such prevention offers rarely take place on a regular basis.
The 6a is currently more of an exception.
