MONTREAL - Two hundred pupils from Sinclair Laird elementary in Park Ex found a novel way of denouncing bullying and violence Thursday: they hit the pavement with placards and slogans to bring attention to the issue.
"There's verbal bullying that includes verbal violence, not just physical violence," said teacher Shawn Hoffman. "So there's a number of areas that encompasses but specifically physical and verbal violence."
It's a message that the kids consider important.
"If people bully the other person gets sad and tells other people not to talk to the other person and the bully has no friends anymore," said Grade Four pupil Zahra Ali Asad.
But the kids don't consider their demonstration to be in any way linked to the more prominent student demonstrations opposing tuition hikes.
"We're doing a good protest, a non-violent protest. unlike the students at university who are doing violence protests," said Tahir Dar, who is in grade six.
"We really, really want these children to understand and to know that violence is not what we want here at our school and in our community," said Principal Viola Vathilakis.
