Kids at the St. Albans Town Educational Center are acting out against bullying. A pilot program with Theatre-in-Action uses traditional theater games to put students into a bully’s shoes — or a bystander’s mind. Kids draw from their own experiences to create a scene, perform it for classmates, deconstruct the action and then perform it again. “They’re putting solutions into their bodies,” Theatre-in-Action’s Kim Jordan says of the one-hour weekly session for fifth graders. She draws on her skills — and passion for bullying prevention — to draw middle schoolers into the action, unleashing what they’re wondering as well as what they know. “Just because they’re young doesn’t mean their voices aren’t important,” Jordan says.
Theatre-in-Action Pilot Program: Wednesdays, 8:10-9:10 a.m. through mid-June. St. Albans Town Educational Center. Info, theatreinactionvt@yahoo.com, theatreinaction.org.
This article was originally published in Seven Days’ monthly parenting magazine, Kids VT.
This article appears in The Baby & Maternity Issue 2012.
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