CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM D. Trinidad Hunt goes through a series of exercises involving bullying in school at Wahiawa Middle School.

Wahiawa kids stand
against bullying

A program teaches intermediate
school students to refuse to fight
when taunted

The schoolyard fight can start with just a look that lasts seconds too long. The other guy glares back and usually goes, "What?" followed by a more forceful, "What?!"

Soon, the two are circling each other like fighting cocks, and punches are thrown. Such encounters are regarded as bullying, starting with taunts and escalating into violence. In this case, students at Wahiawa Middle School would say no to bullying by refusing to fight back.

After an intense three-day workshop by the World Youth Network this month, the Wahiawa students have committed themselves to putting an end to bullying on campus.

Teasing and snubbing might not seem like bullying, but that's how it all starts, says Jocelyn Pratt, WYN's school liaison.

The nonprofit international program, being used in about 150 schools in Hawaii, is relevant because of the increasing number of mainland school shootings in which the assailants felt bullied by others, she said.

Wahiawa is the second school in the Leilehua district complex to receive training from World Youth Network; the first was Wheeler Middle last year. The entire district complex, which includes 10 schools, is scheduled to learn the program under a $28,000 grant, she said.

As a rule, people want to feel they are right, and the other person wrong, Pratt said. They engage in behavior that makes the other person feel invalidated or intimidated. Behavior patterns are passed down from one generation to the next, and that is why the program is called "Breaking Out of the World Game," she said.

"In a sense we are all bullies," said Pratt, adding that the worst example of bullying is violence and on a world level, war.

Sally Omalza, who teaches 15 students in Wahiawa's Special Motivation Program, said it is "hard for teens and even adults to know when they have gone too far" in teasing someone.

Program cited for safer Farrington High Farrington High School was the first to use the anti-bullying program entitled "Breaking Out of the World Game" two years ago, and the campus is "physically, emotionally and socially safer for the students," says Principal Catherine Payne. Payne gave her "full endorsement to this exceptional curriculum" in an Oct. 13 letter to World Youth Network, also known as Elan Enterprises LLC. Hawaii residents Lynne Truair and D. Trinidad Hunt co-founded the World Youth Network state chapter three years ago in response to the growing problem of violence in schools. Farrington has about 2,500 students who come from a variety of backgrounds and cultures and who experience adjustment problems when they are "not fully quipped with their peers and teachers in a positive way," Payne said. "Students are now more considerate, more supportive and more empathetic to the feelings and needs of their peers and teachers." When the program started in February 2002, with only the senior class receiving training in the program, there were 146 referrals for behavioral problems in the final four months of school. In the following school year, 2003, the ninth- and 11th-graders were trained, and "we had 93 referrals, reflecting a 37 percent decrease," she said. During the first quarter of 2004, "we have had 11 suspensions, down 77 percent from 2002," Payne said.

Some "kids are so addicted to behaving a certain way -- teasing, put-downs, slamming someone before they can slam them," Omalza said. "This program reminds them of how and when they should stop, and that the other person feels just as bad as they do" when they are teased.

About three-fourths of the 30 students who attended the workshops April 4-6 had records of behavior problems. After the initial workshop in February, the number of disruptive incidents decreased noticeably in the following month, according to Omalza and Priscilla Magallanes, who teaches Wahiawa's "most severe kids."

Two of their students, who are looked up to by their peers, have shown a remarkable change in attitude, the teachers said. (The students' names are being withheld for privacy.)

The seventh-grader said, "I snap pretty quick" and that his temper has gotten him into fights and a lot of trouble. He does not want to end up as a homeless alcoholic or in jail, so he realizes he has to change old habits.

"I have to wise up," he said. "I learned I can open up to people and express my feelings. ... This is really helping me," he said.

The eighth-grader said, "I felt kinda different from the first day (in February)" and realized that his behavior had been hurting people. He later apologized to his girlfriend and teacher for showing disrespect.

Both resolved to refuse to fight even though peer pressure and being labeled "wimps" make it hard. "We just gotta stick with it, and if we put our heart and mind to it, we can do it," the eighth-grader said.