Bullies. The mean kid at school who always picked on you. The one who called you names, pushed you at recess or told you that you were never going to be good enough.

Bullying is one of the first challenges that students have to face when they enter the classroom, and this challenge is one that they deal with from adolescence all the way through college years.

Sticks and Stones and Words founder, Shanna Srock is a senior education major who realizes how much of an impact bullying can have on students, and decided it was time to take action.

Housed under the Ashland Center for Nonviolence (ACN), Sticks and Stones and Words is a student group focused on bullying and its effects on students as well as the different types of bullying that exist, and how to handle those types of bullying.

In order to best achieve their goal, group members research different types of bullying every week and then present their findings at the meetings. From there, the members write scripts that are approximately five minutes long, focusing on that subject.

Srock enjoys the scripts because it gives students a new perspective during a presentation. She said this gives students an opportunity to be physically involved, and a chance to be empathetic toward other students.

“The audience has the opportunity to try to fix or repair the situation that has happened after we’ve shown it to them once,” she said. “The second time through, if they see a point where they would do something different, like be a friend to the person being bullied, or you would do something differently as a teacher, and intervene throughout the play.”

By giving students the chance to experience different scenarios and perspectives through these scripts, it allows them to further understand how heavily bullying can impact other students.

Rather than focusing on blaming the bully, Sticks and Stones and Words focuses on building awareness, and building a community in the process.

Sophomore Megan Chandler enjoys the skits because she believes that showing them how to handle different situations will help the individual’s future.

“I really like how we use skits to relate to the kids,” she said. “And the fact that we’re going to act out situations that the kids have experienced before, and probably will experience and then show them how to handle that is really meaningful.”

The group hopes that by opening up to students about their own experiences, they will be able to build a sense of confidentiality that will allow students to open up and actively participate in discussions during the performances.

For freshman Holly Stevens, being able to open up and reflect about her own experiences was a big benefit of joining the group.

“I’ve relived my own personal experiences which has helped me see it in a new point of view, and it’s helped make me stronger and made me want to go out and make changes,” she said. “What used to be the worst part of my high school life is now the most inspirational part of my life.”

Creating a nurturing environment is an important motivationr for Srock.

“I want students to be able to concentrate on their education in a nurturing environment, and bullying doesn’t allow that to happen,” she said. “So if this group makes an impression on our student audiences in any way, I will consider that a success.”