Snoqualmie Middle School Girls Rock Program

Snoqualmie Middle School:
In conjunction with Heather Kearn, the counselor at SMS, and my amazing point person, we created this program and worked on it for over a year (we had to change the date three times!).  Despite scheduling conflicts and lack of time, Heather persevered and was able to get school employees on board with her vision.

In fact, the administrators were so gung-ho that the boys were bussed to the high school for an exciting event of their own.

Until this recent event, my workshops have generally been anywhere from 8-50 participants.  300 middle school girls was uncharted territory and neither of us had any idea as to how receptive the girls would be to our program.

Heather and I talked about doing a simple pre-test.  A few days before the experiential lecture, Heather surveyed many of the girls.  The questions were simple ones ranging from have you ever seen other girls pointing at you and laughing?, to Have you ever had a mean rumor spread about you?.  Not surprisingly, the results indicated that many of the girls had been exposed to relational aggression.  More interestingly, across the board, the percentages were highest in the 8th grade.  For instance, in response to the questions have you ever had a (girl)friend stop being your friend without telling you why? 21% of the sixth graders said yes, 34% of the 7th graders said yes, and 100% of the 8th graders said yes.  Heather had told me that there were some very strong Queen Bees in the 8th grade, so perhaps that accounted for some of the high stats.

As the girls poured into the gym and filled up the bleachers, I was both nervous and excited.  The PowerPoint presentation was ready to go and we had a killer microphone.  I said hello to the girls as they walked in and it eased my jitters to see that they all were friendly and enthusiastic.  Once we began, I lost any sense of nervousness.  My audience paid rapt attention, actively participated in all the activities, and laughed at all the right places.

It had been an interesting experience to transfer experiential activities that I do with smaller groups into a large group format.  For instance, one of my favorite pieces is a series of activities called You Are Not Invited or Turning Lemons into Lemonade.  I knew we wouldn’t have time or the adult supervision to do the whole drama activity, so we settled for having the teachers act out a relational aggression scenario.  This was met with raucous cheers from the girls!  Definitely a good idea on our part.

Towards the end, we moved into a piece called What do Girls Deserve?  Heather and I went back and forth, reading scenarios, and discussing why they’d be considered Relational Aggression.  I then showed the girls my What do Girls Deserve? list including such things as girls deserve to choose their own friends, girls deserve to know why someone is mad at them.

The moment of reckoning was upon us.  We asked the girls to add to our list.  Two sixth graders raised their hands.  The rest of the room stayed quiet.  “Oh no,” I thought to myself.  I was expecting that this would be a really rich part of the event, but perhaps they had nothing to say or contribute.  Had the girls grasped the lesson?  Slowly more hands went up around the room and before long, girls of all grades were eager to add their ideas to the list.  What was most amazing to both Heather and I was that the contributions were deep and insightful.  Not one person said something silly or trite.

Here are some examples:
• To look the way they want without being criticized
• A second chance with friends
• To express feelings without being made fun of
• To be respected, no matter where they’re from
• To not be labeled
• To keep secrets that are healthy
• To NOT keep secrets that are unhealthy / hurtful
• A chance to explain yourself
• To be included

We then moved into the final piece, goal setting!  We had just enough time for several of the girls to read their goals.  Again, there was nothing even remotely trite such as “I will be nicer.”  The goals were real and thoughtful.  Here’s some of them.

· To choose not to take sides in somebody else's disagreement
· To explain to my friends why I'm mad instead of talking behind their back
· To choose not to be in the middle of a fight (as the messenger)
· To try not to dislike other people...to look for the good in all
· To express myself freely without worrying so much about what others think
· To choose not to pick out people's flaws all the time
· To talk about something nice when I feel like saying something mean
· To choose not to judge somebody just by what other people say about them
· To start fresh

The girls wrote the goals on pieces of colored paper, so that Heather could later hang them up around the school.
At the end of the program, Heather introduced phase two: girls who were interested were invited to take part in a girls’ group to further explore these issues and take action.  Girls crowded around the sign-up table.
Heather and I had a little while to talk about phase one of the program.  We both were elated and felt that we had touched some deep chords!
I later asked Heather for some feedback.  This is a part of her statement.  “In my time as the counselor at SMS, many girls have stopped by my office to talk about friendship problems, mistakes they've made with other girls, the pressures of popularity, who they want to be, and who they are.  It seems that behind all of the mean actions and words that girls take towards one another is a low sense of worth.  Many girls do not feel good about themselves and are often insecure. We wanted to spend some time talking about what is behind the girl friendship/relationship struggles.  We wanted to begin to think about different ways of dealing with conflict, personal insecurity, and hurt feelings.  Throughout the assembly, the girls were very much in tune with the content; it was obvious that it is a topic they want to hear/talk about.  The interactive nature of the assembly allowed for great discussion and insights.  We plan to move forward from this assembly with further action to address this issue.”

I agree with much of what Heather said.  In my opinion, this has been one of the best programs yet!  Working closely with Heather enabled us to create an event that really fit the needs of the school.  I also loved that we presented to ALL of the girls, yet there was continued opportunity to engage with smaller groups.  I think together we laid a real foundation for change and I am excited to see how things progress.  I applaud Heather too for taking the initiative, for being such a caring School Counselor, and for being such a total joy to work with!