Photo Credit: Sharron Henley
Brielle Archellus, a sixth-grade honor roll student from Liberty City, Florida faced classroom bullying. Her parents encouraged her to share her experience in an interview to encourage others to stand against bullying. Archellus was determined to tell her side of the story and give advice to other school-aged children. She has improved her self-esteem and continues to help other students to stand up against bullying. For more details on the story, view “Should Miami-Dade County Public Schools include self defense instruction for K12 curriculum to stop bullying?”. Please scroll down to view the story below with United Teachers of Dade First Vice President, Antonio White. White shares his comments in support of the project.
Antonio White, First Vice President of United Teachers of Dade responds to the release of “Should Miami-Dade County Public Schools include self-defense instruction for K-12 curriculum to combat bullying? in an interview on Conversations with Charito Podcast. UTD is the largest teachers union in the southeast United States with more than 20,000 members serving as educators at Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
During the interview, White discussed the views and suggestions of the capstone project while offering support from the local union to convene a best practice workshop with members of UTD in support of controlling bullying within school settings.
“I think Miami-Dade County Public Schools absolutely should include bullying instruction for our K-12 curriculum to combat bullying. This is a topic that has become more and prevalent in our society today. Personally, I believe that self-defense instruction helps build self-esteem in children which is very important these days,” said White.
White also expressed support of the school wide positive behavior concept discussed in the the release of the capstone project:
“Providing evidence-based instruction that promotes preventive self-defense while incorporating character building, conflict resolution, and social-emotional skills, will decrease the number of victims affected by bullying and deter bullying in K-12 educational settings in Florida.” (Gage, Lee, et, al 2019) explained that utilizing the School Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports program solely may not have a long-term effect, but by integrating evidence-based bullying prevention and intervention programs has the probability of producing positive outcomes with anti-bullying and behavioral bullying. (Henley, 2022)
CWC News 