The Art of InclusionPicture this: You are back in elementary school, sitting alone on a bench as you watch a group of classmates have fun and talk together. You feel left out, but you're too embarrassed to say so. And because no one in that group invites you to join, you spend the rest of the free-time by yourself.
This is a common occurence in all adolescents. In fact, 33% of elementary school students report having been bullied (Together Against Bullying 2025). That number is 36% too many. The more prevalent this issue becomes, the more prone younger students are likely to experience mental health issues and negative thoughts. Therefore, my Girl Scout troop banded together to craft an anti-bullying campaign, geared specifically towards fellow Girl Scouts in elementary school.
This campaign was done in the format of a Girl Scout Journey, an interactive multi-step lesson that teaches about a significant moral. We divided our journey into four sections, focusing on differences, similarities, inclusion, and exclusion.
Everybody on this earth is unique. No two people have the same fingerprint, the same DNA, or the same attributes. We thought it was important for kids to recognize that from a young age. In our Differences section, we focus on activities that point out the unique quality of each individual through games where people shared fun facts about themselves and made flower petals with various, interesting information that the girls learned about each other. In the end, the petals all came together to form one, united, beautiful flower. This symbolized the transition into the syncretism of everyone's individuality.
Our next section was focused on everyone's similarities. An activity we had fun with was having everyone stand in a circle, and my troop members and I would shout out a widely relatable statement (Ex: 'I like to eat ice cream.'). The girls that related to this statement would then take a step into the circle, and they could then see how many others also related to this opinion statement.
Eventually, we moved into talking about the art of inclusion. We put forth our best effort to stress the importance of making everyone feel included, regardless of the setting that they are put in. We showed the numbers of how many people are affected by bullying by putting 144 beads into a jar per the statistic for an average school of 400 students. The girls could then really visualize how many people are really affected by this issue.
Lastly, we talked about exclusion. The feeling of being excluded was an emotion that everyone could relate to, and we asked the girls to close their eyes while we read out loud a scenario that is happening every single day. The scenario entailed a group of girls that left out one of their classmates for having a different type of food for lunch. We talked about why this was not okay, touching base on how it violates so many of people's moral compasses.
Ultimately, our end goal was to make everyone who came more aware of this increasing issue, especially now that social media plays a major role. My troop and I felt that we had accomplished exactly that, seeing as the girls all left in a state of being better informed and increased motivation to be the best version of themselves when it comes to kindness.
YouthCause
