Using Digital Storytelling to understand the importance of diversity and the effects of social exclusion

5. Bullying and Anxiety

Overview of the module

Modules 5-6 provide insight from teachers and partners in the SOLIS project, from many different European countries, including causes and effects around exclusion. Module 5 looks at bullying and anxiety. These modules come after the digital storytelling process to provide background and discussion points on many areas that may have been revealed on a personal level in the digital stories.

Learning goals

The activities in the module are designed to:

Learn about bullying and what it can lead to
Learn what triggers anxiety

Video 1 – Different Types of Bullying

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What is bullying?

Well, a student is being bullied when another student or group of students, either say unpleasant things or make fun of someone or give anyone a bad or hurtful nickname, or is ignoring or excluding someone from friends or deliberately failed to include someone...

...in various activities intentionally. Or it could be beating, kicking, shoving...

...or threaten someone. In other words, being physical. Or bullying could be spreading lies, false rumours about someone. It could be sending nasty notes or trying to get other students to actually dislike someone else.

To define a particular behaviour as bullying, there must be at least three conditions applied.

First - an intent to harm the victim.

And 2nd, a repetition of the abusive behaviour over a certain period of time. And thirdly, an imbalance of power between the victim and the bully, or the bullies.

One case of abuse may be enough to be called bullying, if the case is serious enough, and especially if it serves to cause a continuing of the abuse, and this is very relevant when bullying occurs in digital platforms, often named cyber bullying.

Video 2 – What Bullying Leads To

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Forms of bullying and possible harmful effects of bullying.

Traditionally, bullying could be divided into 5 main forms, first one physical, second one verbal, third one gestures, 4th exclusion, and 5th blackmailing. Bullying can take place...

...in both physical and digital forms.

All types of bullying are linked to real risk of causing physiological harm. Impaired performance in education, and also lack of social achievements.

Possible effects of building can be for instance problems at school, anxiety, stress.

Loneliness, depression and even suicidal thoughts.

Video 3 – Defining Anxiety

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OK, we are the only creature on earth with the ability to wonder about our future. The path we are taking, worrying about ourselves and those around us. This can trigger a fight or flight response in different degrees...

What we can also call anxiety. This is when our body gets ready to fight off or flee from danger. A heightened state of stress when our heart rate and breathing rapidly and uncomfortably increase.

The fight or flight mechanism can be activated from just our thoughts or emotional history.

This is normal. Everyone gets stressed and feels anxious at times. It is a part of our makeup to help keep us...

...safe from danger. Nowadays we may not be overly worried about bears in the forest attacking us, but the modern world is full of constant triggers, especially for young people exposed to ever growing digital pressure while they go through immense developmental...

...changes in the way even their brain works. Everyone processes stress and change differently. Triggers can make us completely disabled by anxiety or unable to progress academically or socially. This is actually a form of exclusion.

Anxiety will likely not just disappear on its own, and students need to be given a safe and empathetic environment.

Video 4 – Skills Against Anxiety

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Anxiety is a natural response, however unnatural the trigger, to preserve ourselves when threatened. Anxiety is the anticipation of future threats when the stressor has passed or is not yet even present.

Symptoms can occur very suddenly and are disabling both mentally and physically. It helps to understand how our brain actually works: how and why we are feeling the way we do.

Then the greater our ability actually is to recognise when a fear response is not real and has been created by our brain.

The fear of what might happen - this can be seen as a false alarm - when we know the alarm, setting us off into fight or flight mode, is false...

Then we've begun to take control. We can begin to make steps forward, reducing and eliminating this fear response.

Many things can influence our fear response. It is actually unique to us. We can experience things throughout our lives...

...that we might not directly actually remember.

This can make us more sensitive to certain stimuli and be burdened by a false alarm hindering our ability to remain calm, to think logically and be effective.

Splitting seemingly impossible tasks into smaller steps over time is crucial in helping to take control of this false alarm, so the threats are reduced and positive emotions felt.

In at the deep end is not going to help at all.

The bravest students are not those who have no fear. Not at all. The bravest of those who are afraid, but nevertheless try a little, even if it seems scary.

Discussion questions

– Have you experienced any of the issues raised in the videos?

– What do you think the effects of exclusion are?

Important resources

Link to the SOLIS Digital Storytelling Handbook: https://solis-project.eu/resources/
Link to digital stories created by other students: https://www.youtube.com/@solisproject6042/playlists
The SOLIS resource library: https://solis-project.eu/biblioteca/

SECTION 1: COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITY (the digital storytelling process)

SECTION 2: EFFECTS OF EXCLUSION

SECTION 3: IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY

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