By Julie ConreyRecord Staff WriterHigh school can be a tough place, but it doesn’t have to make you miserable, said two Rotary World Peace Fellows who moderated workshops for students at Warrenton High School on April 16.Peter Paul Opata, from Uganda, and Maria Morell, from Argentina, promoted peaceful strategies for eliminating conflict and bullying prevention in two sessions at the school.Each two-hour workshop was sponsored by Interact Club, a high school club for Rotary. They were the first workshops of their kind sponsored by the club, said Steve McDowell, faculty sponsor.“We saw a lot of schools participating in this,” McDowell said. “It’s good to improve the school environment and address issues. Bullying is a hot topic in education. Kids can look at this from a different aspect.”Recommended by their teachers, a total of 28 students participated in the workshops. The students were selected for their ability to take the messages of the workshops back to other students and to influence them.The students worked in small groups and individually to identify bullying, its root causes and responses to it. Opata and Morell distributed a worksheet titled, “What Can I Do?” It was an individual activity in which the students were asked 20 questions about what their response would be if they were bullied. Should you cry? Tell a friend? Tell a teacher?Morell and Opata moderated the discussion in which students shared responses. It was generally accepted that crying at home and telling a good friend about being bullied was OK. But telling a teacher about an incident can backfire.“It doesn’t help the whole situation if a teacher announces to the class that someone is being bullied,” Morell said.She said that although students who are bullied generally receive support from teachers, teachers need to be trained to handle bullying situations.Morell and Opata asked each student what he or she can do to reduce bullying at Warrenton. Answers ranged from being more of a leader, standing up for those who are bullied, taking chances doing things they wouldn’t normally do, and not judging a person by his or her appearance.How did the workshop go over with the students?Jacob Abel, 16, learned that “we need to recognize people who are being bullied more and try to take care of the problem.”“I learned more about how schools are focusing on getting bullying out and how we can help stop bullying,” Abbigail Yankey, 15, said.Morell and Opata, one of three teams of Rotary Peace Fellows currently working in the United States, will visit 30 Missouri schools by the time they leave the country April 27. Warrenton is the ninth school in which they’ve visited. While bullying is a universal issue, there is less physical violence in the United States, Opata said, but cyberbullying is a challenge for teachers and parents.“There isn’t a lot of discussion about bullying and prevention,” Morell said. “(This is) having students take a more proactive part.”“I think for the first time it’s been very productive,” McDowell, a 22-year teaching veteran, said. “It gives kids an opportunity to voice their opinions and make a difference in their school.”“Bullying is not just a Warrenton thing,” said Jim Ledbetter, co-sponsor of Interact Club that was started at Warrenton in 2003 by him and McDowell.Rotary was founded in Chicago in 1905, according to rotary.org. It’s so named because of rotating meetings among offices of its members. It is one of the world’s first service organizations and currently has 1.2 million members in 200 countries.The Rotary World Peace Fellow program was founded 12 years ago. Students earn a master’s degree in peace-building and conflict resolution. The program is offered at the University of Queensland, Australia; Bradford University, England; International Christian University, Japan; Uppsala University, Sweden; and a joint program at Duke University and the University of North Carolina.Opata and Morrel are two of more than 700 graduates of the program who either work in their home countries or abroad promoting peaceful conflict resolution.“The response (to the program) has been very motivating, encouraging and impressive,” Opata said.

Peter Paul Opata

Maria Morell