Currents in Education
Sweet-tempered snail teaches children not to tolerate abusive behavior
By Jennifer L. Saunders
Students at Coastal Ridge Elementary School react with laughter and applause at the end of Lesley Smith's production of "Knights and Wizards," a program designed to help students prevent bullying in their school. The production starred a favorite character at Coastal Ridge: Sammy the Snail.
Photos by Jennifer L. Saunders
YORK VILLAGE - Sammy the Snail was in town on Friday, Sept. 15, along with a wicked wizard, a kindly knight and a little girl named Lizzie who seemed to think being a bully is a good thing to be.
These cast of characters came to life on the Coastal Ridge Elementary School stage through the talents of Lesley Smith, who is known throughout the Seacoast and beyond for as a ventriloquist, puppeteer and singer/songwriter.
At the start of the production, Smith shared her own story of being bullied as a child, and the pain it caused. She also spoke of instances where "good kids" bully other children - sometimes without realizing what they are doing. Smith explained she was sharing her stories in the hope of helping this group of youngsters understand the impact of their behavior on others. Then, she invited the children to watch Sammy the Snail as he helped share a story with a similar theme.
And to look at the expressions on the faces of the vast majority of third- and fourth-grade students who watched Smith's production of "Knights and Wizards" at Coastal Ridge was to see that message getting through.
Friday's event was part of a larger effort to set a tone at school for the students, explained Coast Ridge Counselor Kathy Welch. That tone is one where bullying is not tolerated.
Also last week, about 40 fourth-grades students met with representatives from the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence to explore the link between inappropriate language and physical violence.
This week, center staff were scheduled to spend an hour and a half in each of the school's eight third-grade classrooms discussing those same issues with the students.
On Friday, though, Smith wove humor and music - to the always-right-on-cue and right-on-key accompaniment of Cheryl Stromski's piano stylings - with endearing puppets like the children's favorite, Sammy the Snail, to illustrate the difference between bullying and teasing.
The difference, Sammy and the students learned, is that bullying is a "dangerous and destructive behavior."
Sammy the Snail, with his sweet, hopeful personality, is devastated early in the production when a classmate, Lizzie, who is never seen and is heard only as a cruel voice spouting off hurtful taunts, humiliates Sammy in front of her friends.
From that point, Sammy begins to wonder what is wrong with him, and with a little help from his grandmother and a magical toy castle, begins a journey into a world of knights and wizards where he learns his own worth.
The Coastal Ridge students sang along, asked questions and rooted for Sammy throughout the play as he learned an important lesson: that it didn't matter what other people thought about him; what mattered was how he felt about himself.
A power outage in town one week earlier postponed the Theatre of Life Puppets production - but according to the Coastal Ridge students, it was more than worth the wait.
For more on Smith and Sammy, visit http://www.sammysnail.com.
