Yates Elementary School, Chicago
Teacher: Genaye Parodi, 8th Grade
The Problem
When starting this project, our class found many problems in the Richard Yates community. Our 8th grade class narrowed the problem down to bullying and the need to raise self-esteem. A large amount of students at Yates are affected by bullying every day, which can lead to emotional problems such as: depression, suicide, and anger issues. We don't want anybody, locally or globally, to go through that kind of experience. We want them to be proud, proud of who they are and for them to be able to say, "I'm proud to be me." This is why we, Yates students, are taking a stand to beautify everyone from the inside out.
Our Proposal
The purpose of the "Beautification from the Inside Out" project is to help build up students' self-esteem. Bullying has always been a problem at our school. Students from our 8th grade class decided to make murals to "Stomp-Out Bullying" and build up students' self-esteem. Our school collected monetary donations and materials so we could create murals. We also plan to have programs at least once a week for a half an hour to an hour. The programs will educate students for their own social emotional learning and teach them the difference between bullying and drama. Teaching students at a young age about social emotional learning will decrease the chance of them being the victim or even the bully with an emphasis on resilience. We want to stop bullying before its starts. Our plan is to make kids "proud to be themselves."
What We Did
We students from Room 312, with the help of Ms. Parodi, have created an anti-bullying project named "Beautification from the Inside Out." At first our class brainstormed what we were going to do for our project. Two of our classmates Adolfo and Leslie made announcements of our project. Then half of us created surveys for K-8th grade. We also made flyers to pass out and posters to hang up. Two of our creative artists drew out ideas for us to do a mural in our school walls. We have three walls to paint on. One wall will have many quotes to make students feel better about themselves when they walk in. Another will have our motto, "Proud to Be Me" with many different flags. Of course, we will also do one for children at a young age to teach them bullying is wrong. We have received donations that are needed for our painters such as paint, brushes, rollers and even cash. The best part of this project is that we are finding out how people are actually trying to help us and support what we do.
Reflection
Making a difference with our peers and our teacher was a great experience. We learned that we can make more changes than we actually thought. Our school helped us raise a lot of money in less than an hour. Most of the students in my class and people in our school donated paint and paint brushes. We let the whole school know that we were doing a project to make a difference in our school. The students in our school took a survey about bullying. By looking at the survey results we learned that there is a lot of bullying going on in our school. This beautification project helped us learn how to deal with bullying. Being yourself is the best side of you to show people. Just be happy and say, "Proud To Be Me!"
