Teacher uses two apples to show her students the effects of bullying

This is very clever.

The saying goes that 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me' , but it's just not true to life. Words definitely do hurt us and they can have long lasting effects especially when we are young children. One teacher wanted to demonstrate to her class how even though someone might seem fine on the outside, inside they are actually hurt. How do you do this though? This teacher decided to use a very simple method using two apples and it's very effective in getting the point across. The teacher,Veronica Delgadillo, explained in a post shared on social media that before the class she had repeatedly dropped one of the two apples she had on the floor. From the outside though, you couldn't tell that anything was wrong with it.

"I picked up the apple I'd dropped on the floor and started to tell the children how I disliked this apple, that I thought it was disgusting, it was a horrible colour and the stem was just too short. I told them that because I didn't like it, I didn't want them to like it either, so they should call it names too. Some children looked at me like I was insane, but we passed the apple around the circle calling it names, 'you're a smelly apple', 'I don't even know why you exist', 'you've probably got worms inside you' etc. We really pulled this poor apple apart. I actually started to feel sorry for the little guy. We then passed another apple around and started to say kind words to it, 'You're a lovely apple', 'Your skin is beautiful', 'What a beautiful colour you are' etc. I then held up both apples, and again, we talked about the similarities and differences, there was no change, both apples still looked the same."

The teacher then showed her class what the apples really looked like on the inside;

"I then cut the apples open. The apple we'd been kind to was clear, fresh and juicy inside. The apple we'd said unkind words to was bruised and all mushy inside. I think there was a lightbulb moment for the children immediately. They really got it, what we saw inside that apple, the bruises, the mush and the broken bits is what is happening inside every one of us when someone mistreats us with their words or actions."

Many of us have felt the sting of bullying and name calling at some point in our lives which is why it's so important that we teach the younger generation the consequences of words. It's time we put the old 'sticks and stones' adage to rest and realise that teasing comes at a price and it's usually the cost of some one else's self worth.

Musings: I don't want my children to dread school every day like I did