Teacher explains the effects of bullying perfectly using an unusual method
"Some children looked at me like I was insane!" she said.
Keen to show the 'invisible' effects of bullying a teacher at Relax Kids Tamworth decided to take an unusual approach to the subject.
In a post on the Relax Kids Tamworth Facebook page the teacher, Rosie Dutton, explained how she presented the class with two apples. The class were asked to compare both of the apples, see how similar they were in colour, size and shape.
Then picking one of the apples she passed it around the class and the children were told to say nasty things to the apple such as, 'you're a smelly apple', 'I don't even know why you exist', 'you've probably got worms inside you'.
Next she took the other apple and again passed it around, but this time they praised it, saying things like 'you're a lovely apple', 'your skin is beautiful'.
Rosie then held up the two apples again and asked the children to comment on the similarities and differences, before cutting open each of the apples.
When she cut open the one that had been 'bullied' she revealed a brown, mushy inside. Unbeknown to the children Rosie had earlier bruised the apple by tapping it on the floor, very gently so that it wasn't obvious on the skin.
By seeing the insides of both apples the children immediately understood how bullying can affect people on the inside without it showing on the outside.
"I think there was a lightbulb moment for the children immediately." Rosie said in her post, "When people are bullied, especially children, they feel horrible inside and sometimes don't show or tell others how they are feeling. If we hadn't have cut that apple open, we would never have known how much pain we had caused it."
Since posting the description and photos on Facebook on the 21st June the post has had 145,000 shares and 131,000 reactions. It has also attracted comments from all over the world supporting Rosie's innovative approach to teaching about bullying.
Two days after the initial post Rosie has taken to Facebook to thank everyone for all of their kind comments saying, "remember to be kind to unkind people, they need it the most."