schools

Mixing it up at YCQ

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Yeshiva of Central Queens opened its anti-bullying program with its first Mix It Up Club lunch program. The entire junior high school body had a Mix It Up lunch run and organized by the club.

The students sat at different tables than the ones they usually sit at. Candy was handed out, and each student at a special table according to the candy received. This enabled the students to “mix up” their usual seating arrangements, so they could make new friends from other grades. Once students were seated and had lunch, they all participated in an icebreaker to get to know each other.

“This program is about anti-bullying, and it’s very important because people can get very hurt by words,” said Grade 7 ELA teacher Melisa Maisel, adviser of the Mix It Up Club. She showed the students a video about a boy who gets cyber-bullied. As a result, the boy wanted to stop attending school. Later on in the video, the boy learns that the bullies want to be his friends.

After the lunch was over, the junior high students signed a No Place for Hate pledge and agreeded that when they see bullying, they should make the right choices to not join in and to try to stop it or get help from an adult. Everyone learned that bulling is unacceptable and that YCQ is an anti-bully zone and a No Place for Hate school, where no one should be scared or uncomfortable in their school environment because of bullying.