A good activity to use at the beginning of the school year, or when you observe bullying taking place in your school.
Begin with every student receiving a card, face down. Explain to the students the following:
-You are to not look at your card or tell anyone else what their card is.
-Everyone should place the card on their forehead with the face of the card facing away from their heads
-Begin to mingle with each other but treat everyone based on the "face value" of their card. For example, low cards (2-5) don't get much attention or are avoided, mid-range cards (6-10) are treated with respect but not overly lauded, royal cards (J, Q, K, A) are the best of the deck--those cards are the ones you try to hang out with, treat well and are "super cool".
Allow students to mingle for several minutes treating others based on face value. Call for their attention and then have students divide into groups based on how they have been treated, low cards, mid-range and royalty. Discuss how it doesn't take very long to figure out what "group" you belong to based on how people treat you.
Ask members from each group why they felt like they belonged in that group and how people made them feel. Lead into a disucssion about the "Golden Rule" and how everyone should expect to be treated like royalty, but in return should treat everyone else like royalty as well, not as "low cards." Have students take the cards off their foreheads and check to see if they are correct in guessing which level card they have. After this activity you can easily lead into a bullying discussion where you identify and define what bullying is, types of bullying, why people bully, what to do if you see bullying or are bullied and how to avoid becoming a bully themselves.
At the end, always remind students that bullying stops with them. It has to be a personal and individual choice to make it stop and to treat all those around them as if they were all royalty cards.
