Where She’s Been, and Where She’s Going

Jodee Blanco, author of the New York Times Best-Selling memoir, Please Stop Laughing at Me…, as well as the Creator and Executive Producer of the It’s NOT Just Joking Around!™ anti-bullying education program understands how it is to be the school outcast, and knows first-hand what it’s like to contemplate “retaliation.”

From 5th grade to the end of high school, she was shunned and tormented by her peers, simply for being different. As an adult, she decided to go public with her story, because she was frustrated with the nation’s perception of the true cause of the school tragedies in Columbine, San Diego, AZ, and dozens of other locations across America.

Since the release of her book, Jodee has committed her life full-time to turning her pain into purpose. Inspired by the thousands of letters and speaking requests she receives from students, parents, and teachers, Jodee travels from internationally sharing her story of survival and forgiveness in schools, communities, and organizations. In addition to her landmark strides in middle and high schools, she is taking her unprecedented approach to university campuses in an effort to help fraternities and sororities survive and prevent hazing incidents with her program, The Desperate Freshman™. One of the nation’s most sought-after keynote speakers and seminar presenters, Jodee’s anti-bullying initiatives redefine the scope of possibilities for curbing suffering in our schools from kindergarten through college world-wide.

Some of her most note-worthy accomplishments include:

• In the last year alone, she and her team successfully intervened on sixeen suicides, averted a school bombing, and dearmed a student with knife

• Her book Please Stop Laughing at Me…, released on the day war was declared in Iraq, shot straight to the New York Times Best-Seller list in less than 48 hours, on word-of-mouth alone

• The United States Department of Justice and the United States Department of Interior recently sponsored Jodee to speak at schools and conventions. The National Crime Prevention Council and the United States Department of Health and Human Services have also endorsed her anti-bullying program It’s NOT Just Joking Around!™

• Special Olympics named Jodee as the first regular columnist for SPIRIT magazine – the official international publication of the organization

• The National Catholic Educational Association reached out to Jodee to conduct an unprecedented series of seminars which generated standing-room crowds and marked a turning point for the organization and their approach to bullying. The April/May issue of the NCEA Momentum, the official journal of the organization, featured an article bylined by Jodee on using Compassionate Discipline™ as a method to curb school violence

• The “Anonymous” bullying-reporting function on the website www.jodeebanco.com is the first of its kind worldwide, and continues to redefine the role of technology in adolescent outreach.

• Jodee is regularly sought after as a crisis management expert and consultant by schools, families, legal professionals, government officials, and the national media including CNN, Newsweek, NBC, and FOX to help America understand the emotional reasons behind the behavior of American students

• Please Stop Laughing at Me… is required reading in hundreds of middle and high schools, colleges, and universities coast to coast

• Jodee was the inspiration behind, and served as the key consultant for “The Bully Project,” a combined effort of The Blanco Group, FOX6 Milwaukee, and the University of Wisconsin. The Bully Project included a landmark survey that was distributed to 20,000 students in the School District of Milwaukee and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee with results that dramatically emphasized just how desperate American students are to be understood by those who surround them.

• Jodee’s remarkable story has been featured in such influential media outlets as: CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, FOX News, Teen Newsweek, Parade magazine, Teen Guideposts, Hispanic, Teacher Magazine and Scholastic

• Jodee has presented It’s NOT Just Joking Around!™ to hundreds of thousands of students and teachers nationwide; including presenting the Texas FCCLA convention keynote address to over 3,000 enthusiastic student leaders enthusiastic at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, TX

• Please Stop Laughing at Me… has been published in Japanese, Arabic, French, Danish and Indonesian

• Jodee’s life story is part of a permanent exhibit at the Chicago National Historical Society. She was chosen as one of the most influential teens of her era

• Please Stop Laughing at Me…is nominated for the 2004-2005 Eliot Rosewater Award sponsored by the Association of Media Educators and the Indiana Library Association

• Please Stop Laughing at Me…was selected as a favorite by student members of Chicago’s Mayor Daley’s Book Club. The annual convention keynoted by Jodee brought a sustained standing ovation for both her and the book

• Dramatic interpretations of Please Stop Laughing at Me…are garnering state-winning awards in school competitions

• Please Stop Laughing at Me…has been selected as the One Book, One Community selection for the 2005-2006 school year in Grand Ledge, MI. Over two thousand students and staff will read the book throughout the school year, culminating with a keynote address in March, 2006 by Jodee

While Jodee Blanco doesn’t advocate violence, she understands its inspiration, because it held her in the grip of its temptation. It is her memory of this loneliness and anger, and her willingness to utilize it to reach kids who are hurting as she once did, that is changing the face of bullying prevention in the United States. Her efforts have ignited a grass-roots movement, one whose mission is to remind this nation that when it comes to school bullying, It’s NOT Just Joking Around!™

Finally, someone does understand. Jodee Blanco is honest, insightful, and one of the most perceptive experts on the subjects of peer abuse, hazing and school violence speaking out today. This survivor turned activist will provide a point
of view that will open your eyes to a whole new world of understanding about this subject.

Jodee Blanco is on the faculties of New York University and The University of Chicago.

Contact: The Blanco Group 708.478.5726 EST, or info@jodeeblanco.com

According to stats released by the National Crime Prevention Council, 6 out of every 10 teens witness school bullying at least once a day. A study in the April 2003 issue of the Archives of Pediatric Medicine suggests that bullying should not be considered a normal part of growing up, but as a risk factor for more extreme violence in the future. Jodee’s book is the first ever written from the victim’s perspective – a victim who may very well could have become violent.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know that none of your students ever feels this way?! Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Invite anti-bullying activist Jodee Blanco to speak at your school, or to your group. She understands first-hand the reality of being the school outcast. From fifth grade through senior year of high school, she was shunned, abused and tormented by her peers simply for being different and refusing to conform to the rules of the cool crowd.

Jodee’s story however has a happy ending. She not only survived those years of ostracism and pain, but she grew up to become a highly successful businesswoman. Her brave memoir PLEASE STOP LAUGHING AT ME… landed a spot on the New York Times Best-Seller list within 48 hours of its release, and climbed steadily for six straight weeks. Each day, she receives dozens of emails and letters from students, parents, teachers, professionals, and adult survivors across the country, thanking her for her courage, her advice, and the hope she’s offered to them.

Listen to how being the school outcast was the most valuable experience of her life.
Learn the most devastating failures of herself, her parents, teachers, school administration and bystanders.
Learn why zero tolerance equals zero effectiveness.
Listen and learn the ultimate meaning of forgiveness.
Listen as Jodee reveals her most important secrets.
Experience her rebirth, her triumphant return to her 20th high school reunion, and finally, the kiss she longed
for since the fifth grade.

Elected Government officials – Jodee will work with you on anti-bullying legislation and speak to your assembly on behalf of the bill.

Day Long Anti-Bullying Program for Students, Staff, and Parents/Community

Structure: The day is broken down into three parts. Two student presentations during the school day, a Faculty/Staff Workshop after school, and a Parent/Community Seminar followed by a book signing in the evening. This tri-phased day successfully incorporates all of the people involved in a child’s life – their peers, school personnel, and family/community.

Purpose (in Jodee’s words): Being an activist means motivating long-term change from the inside out. To achieve this, I need to first reach the students on a visceral level, inspire their trust, then encourage a shift in their behavior. Hence, the reasons why I open up and share the story of what happened to me. The kids feel an almost instantaneous emotional bond with me after our mutual catharsis, and accept me as a kindred spirit. I’m honest and vulnerable with them, and in return, they’re willing to be open-minded with me about how they treat each other. I specifically address the bullies, and draw climactic attention to the severe damage that they cause. Bystanders are encouraged to speak up without fearing retribution. Then, I then shift gears and focus on how to survive school bullying. I talk about how some of the most famous people in our culture were also bullied when they were kids, and how they survived. After that, I share some of my most memorable moments from my years as a celebrity publicist, revealing personal behind-the-scenes anecdotes about such people as Mel Gibson, Steven Spielberg, Styx, Mohammed Ali, Sean Penn, Jim Carrey and others. The kids are fascinated that I have worked with and socialized with many of their favorite celebrities, and even more surprised when they discover that so many famous figures suffered from peer rejection, too. I end this part of the presentation with the concept of moving forward, sharing the story of how I recently attended my 20th high school reunion and, despite absolute terror, managed to walk through the banquet doors. The responses I received changed my life and it is one of the reasons I’m at their school today. I then lead an open, honest discussion about bullying and the dynamic of a group of kids picking on an underdog. Following that, there are often lively and candid exchanges between the students. At the end of the discussion, I open up the floor to questions, followed by one-on-one time with students who need private attention.

Successfully facilitating an attitude shift amongst students is wonderful, but it’s only a third of the battle. If the teachers don’t support the students’ new point of view in the classroom and institutionally, the students are unlikely to maintain their new compassionate perspective. Thus, the purpose of the teacher/staff workshop. The teacher workshop builds upon what I share with the students during the day. Furthering the story, I share with them what my teachers and counselors did that worked, and what they did that profoundly didn’t work. I include what a Principal said that scarred me for life, and the precise reason why he lost all professional and emotional credibility with me from that moment on. I teach them how to talk and interact with a peer abused student in a way that meets their needs; how some teachers inadvertently sacrifice the very students they are trying to save and how to avoid these well-intentioned but often dangerous mistakes; how to successfully intervene in a bullying situation in the classroom; what to say and what not to say to a peer-abused child in turmoil, and why the wrong words can often feel like betrayal to a child; the typical mistakes most educators make in how they address bullying and how to avoid those mistakes; why adult logic doesn’t work in a teen circumstance; specific scripted steps on how to help a bullied child; the difference between discipline and punishment and why one is effective and the other damaging; how do deal with bullying in your school one-on-one, in the classroom, and as an institution; recommended anti-bullying programs and curriculum enhancement initiatives; among many other empowering insights from the mind and heart of a survivor. The Teacher Forum should be mandatory, because there needs to be a consistency in the messages that adults send to the students, especially after they are empowered with a new compassion.

Then at night, I address the final audience in this tri-phased outreach - parents, families and the community. While students can be inspired to change, and teachers educated on how to support that change, parents must reinforce it in the home. I will provide several pointers for the parents such as how to tell if your child is a bully, a target, or a bystander; ways to relate to the child, and how to take action if necessary. I’ll also discuss the following points:

a. Why schools are often unable to prevent disaster.

b. How bullying has been misdiagnosed by the mental health community.

c. Why certain children become the most popular kids in their class, and others are picked on and tormented.

d. The surprising elements that school bullying and social prejudice have in common.

e. Why even children with smart, caring parents are not immune to the dangerous consequences of school bullying.

f. Why so many adults fail to recognize the trauma of peer abuse until it's too late.

g. How society at large pays a dear price in the broken spirits, revenge school killings, and the betrayal of our promise to protect and nurture our children.

h. The biggest mistakes parents unwittingly make and why it can cost their children's futures.

Then I’ll answer questions, and host a book signing.

Target Audience: 5th through 12th grades.
Note: A 1-4th grade program is available upon request for districts that wish to include the entire student body.
Variations of the Traditional Program are available.
Cost: Fixed cost, plus all travel expenses for Jodee and one member of her team.

                                                                                     OPTIONAL FOLLOW-UP

Aftercare Needs Assessment

Bullying takes on many different forms. Peer abuse patterns vary from school to school, district to district. Our aftercare program is tailor-designed to meet the specific needs of each school.

The Needs Assessment component of the program involves a day long visit to each school. We conduct a series of one-on-one and group interviews with students, faculty, administrators and parents. We also interview school support staff from lunch room
attendants and maintenance engineers to school nurses, librarians and bus drivers. Often, it’s the support staff that sees the most bullying because their presence is less obtrusive than faculty. They catch the abuse in the hallways, at the back of the cafeteria, in the locker rooms, and the parking lot. Our focus during these investigative sessions is to learn as much as we can about the specific peer relationship dynamic in each school. After we’ve completed the interviews, we go to back to our offices and spend one week analyzing the information.

Ten days later, schools receive our Needs Assessment Analysis and Recommended Plan of Action. The Plan of Action includes three phases:

1. Faculty and District Support Staff One Day Intensive Training Camp
This landmark one day training camp teaches participants about peer abuse from a survivor’s vista, exploring and explaining the real reason why kids reject and abuse other kids. Participants will be given concrete step-by-step advice (incorporating insights from the district’s Assessment Interviews) on how to: address a bullying situation in the classroom that prevents victim embarrassment and bully retaliation; understand the difference between adult authority and emotional credibility and establish the latter with at-risk students; individually support and empower both the bullied and the bully one-on-one; work effectively and efficiently with parents of bullies and victims; address typical bureaucratic obstacles within the local school system that can often impede anti-bullying efforts; identify “empathy deficit disorder” and reverse its socially and emotionally debilitating effects; recognize “rejection junkie syndrome” and help afflicted students escape this frustrating phenomenon; harness the student body’s most powerful untapped resource and use it to inspire peer tolerance and acceptance and shift the social dynamic in your own district.

Participants will also learn the different types of peer abuse and why some are harmless, and others potentially fatal. They will be provided scripts featuring suggested verbiage for handling the above situations as well as other peer abuse related crises. In addition, they will be given comprehensive strategies for enlisting community support towards anti-bullying initiatives, ranging from logistical and informational assistance, transportation facilitation to mental health outreach and neighborhood sponsored organized activities for outcasted youths.

2. In-School Student Programs Set Up and Training
Once students are inspired to think in a new way about how they treat each other, and teachers are taught how to support that shift, programs must be implemented that reinforce it on a cultural level within the school.

Our programs redefine the paradigm of anti-bullying intervention. Our approach is “inside out,” rather than the traditional “outside-in.” What does that mean? When adults try to influence the behavior of kids, telling them what to do and how to do it, that’s “outside-in.” It’s adults on the outside trying to get inside the kids’ world and force their adult thinking onto them. That’s how the kids perceive it, and typically will resent or ignore the message. The “inside-out” method utilizes the kids themselves as the catalysts for change. It’s peer on peer inspiration, and it works.

Think about it this way. Who decides what movies are cool? Who determines what color eye shadow is all the rage? Who says what music is hot, and what’s not? Who makes the rules the cliques abide by? Is it we the adults? No, it’s the kids themselves, more specifically, the popular students. Rather than burying our heads in the sand, and denying that reality, why not embrace it and use it to everyone’s advantage?

Not all members of the “cool crowd” at school are mean. Many are warm, wonderful, caring, natural born leaders. Let’s enlist their strength, leadership ability, and compassion to shift the social dynamic in our schools at the ground level. Hence, the “It’s NOT Just Joking Around! Hero of the Week Program” and the “It’s NOT Just Joking Around! Encouragement Club.”

It’s NOT Just Joking Around! Hero of the Week Program™
This program honors and celebrates bystanders who stand up against bullies from the cool crowd in defense of an underdog. While many schools have community service awards, this program is much different in that its sole purpose is to not only recognize a specific form of courage, but to make it cool in the eyes of other students.

Here’s how the program works. Each week, there’s a presentation. This can be done by grade, class or even at lunch. The Blanco Group works with each school to design the format. Four or five students are chosen as recipients. The voting process can be done via email or drop box. But rather than having the Principal or a teacher hand out the awards, several of the most popular students give them out. Imagine the implications. What’s the one reason most kids say they’re afraid to stick up for someone who’s getting picked on? It’s because they’re worried their cool friends will turn on them. But if it’s the popular people themselves who are rewarding these heroes, suddenly it makes standing up for the underdog a cool act. In addition, it provides a very visible platform where socially accepted students interact in a positive way with outcasted classmates, while
simultaneously communicating a powerful peer on peer message that standing up for others is not only morally right, but it’s uber cool. That’s what we mean by shifting the social dynamic of a school from the inside out. Socially active, popular kids have power in their peer group. It’s time we utilize that influence.

It’s NOT Just Joking Around! Encouragement Club™
So many students cry themselves to sleep at night because they have nowhere to go for positive reinforcement from their peers without judgment, a place to commiserate, a venue where they can meet kindred spirits. At the same time, they need an environment where the sadness they’re experiencing is gradually replaced with hope and understanding. This is the purpose of the Encouragement Club. Here’s how it works.

It meets once weekly. The core leadership team for the club consists of peer abused students as well as some of the more popular kids at the school. This achieves a dual objective. First, it creates a non-judgmental atmosphere where popular students can get to know some of their outcasted classmates from a whole new point of view. Additionally, outcasted students will be comfortable joining, and indeed motivated to attend meetings, because members of the cool crowd are involved. It gives it the stamp of “cool approval.” Remember, we may not think this way in the adult world. But kids do. At school, there are two kinds of students—those who are accepted and/or part of the in crowd, and those who aren’t. This club allows them to learn about each other on a human level, rather than a stereotypical teen level.

The Blanco Group has a core curriculum for the meetings. Each week, participants are asked to focus on a different issue relevant to peer abuse. Then, a series of discussions and activities are led that help members explore and enhance their compassion and understanding. The curriculum is tailored for each district, and based upon the information culled from the initial Assessment Interviews.

A faculty leader must also be chosen to help run the meetings. It should be someone who the students consider “hip” and “trustworthy.”

In addition to the meetings, The Blanco Group also helps the school set up an anonymous communication system for students in crisis. In the library, we help set up an anonymous email function system, whereby a student who doesn’t feel ready to join a meeting but who needs help for themselves or someone else, can email the anonymous address and get support. We suggest the faculty leader
check these emails three times a week and respond to them. They may want to involve a student leader of the Club with writing the response. Not only does it give hurting students a safe place to vent, but it can help coax them into attending meetings.

Also, The Blanco Group will help the school find a discreet location for a large drop box for students who prefer to write a paper note as opposed to an anonymous email. The faculty leader would be responsible for checking these letters as well. The Blanco Group has a system that allows for each letter to be responded to individually.

3. Curriculum Enhancement
We all know that for a student to truly absorb a lesson, it has to be personal, specific and most importantly, relevant to their lives. The Blanco Group will work with your faculty, reviewing the lesson plans for the school year. Following the review, we will submit suggested assignments that tie anti-bullying into your required curriculum. For example, if a history teacher is covering The Revolutionary War, we might suggest the class do an essay describing a moment in their lives when they felt like General Cornwallis, bullying the Continental Army. The curriculum enhancement assignments achieve two wonderful goals— they personalize lesson plans, and teach anti-bullying simultaneously.

Cost:  Each District has different needs, thus the cost will vary.
Note:  The Hero of the Week Program and the Encouragement Club are available free of charge.

The Blanco Group team makes itself available for telephone consultation time as well as crisis management advice and counsel.

By now, the difference is obvious. I offer an innovative approach to bullying and peer abuse – an approach that can only be thought of, and taught by a 40-year-old survivor. One who, to this day, copes with the aftermath of the abuse that she endured.

How many teachers, counselors, and administrators, are adult survivors of bullying and peer abuse that have never come to terms with the fact that they were bullied? What about the adults who were the bullies – those rare few who have the courage to admit it, and carry the burden of guilt every day. How many adult bullies work in the American school system now? These adults teach our children, but what are they teaching? What messages are they verbally and silently sending? It’s NOT Just Joking Around! is the only program that teaches and supports faculty and staff as they reconcile their own feelings about the issue. Even for adults, change comes from the inside out, not the outside in.

When working with a student on the issue, it is easy to “define the causes,” and “address the issues,” but what does that really mean? What do your students feel? Students can be “taught to be leaders,” but they need to be inspiring leaders. They can “define violence,” but why should they have to live with the fear of it? And then there’s “empowerment” - one of the most overused terms in recent history. How can a student learn to be “empowered,” if all they truly feel inside is lonely, ashamed, and afraid? I can answer emphatically that they can’t, because I meet those kids every day, and I read their letters every night as they are crying themselves to sleep.

Conclusion:

There is a reason why zero tolerance is not working, and why traditional punishment hasn’t resolved the issue. Shifting the social dynamic of the way students relate to one another requires astute awareness. The motivation for change must be found within, and supported by those around. With the guidance and compassion that can only come from a survivor, I welcome the continued opportunity to help provide the students of America an emotionally safe environment to learn. If they are afraid to come to school, and afraid at school and after school how can they possibly focus on their studies? A confident child is harder to bully, a compassionate child will not bully.

My program is a healthy start to enabling America’s schools to reach attendance goals this year, and beyond. By eliminating the fear factor – fear of not fitting in, fear of rejection, etc. students will show up to learn, and those already increased reading and math numbers will soar even higher. Dr. Eason-Watkins, President of the Chicago Public School system sums it up best, “They can’t learn if they’re not there.” Let’s work together to get them there and keep them there - safe and sound.

FOLLOW UP

Personal consultations by phone with Jodee for individuals and families are available by appointment.

Schools and organizations often schedule consulting hours when booking seminars and workshops.


For availability and consulting fees, please contact The Blanco Group.