Teen to give anti-bullying talk at local school

By Kris Harris

Thirteen-year-old bestselling author James Valitchka knows all about bullying.

After being bullied at school, amid other trials and tribulations, he became a bully himself before his writing helped to show him the error of his ways.

"I didn't have a dad so I didn't feel like I could really talk to anyone," Valitchka said. "So I just started to write, to get my feelings down on the paper."

Now, with seven published books under his belt, he brings his anti-bullying message to schools across North America to try to help children break this cycle like he himself did. On Feb. 4, the Ottawa native will be coming to Sudbury to speak to the students at Lansdowne Public School.

"Bullying is a very key issue today because so many kids are bullied and so many kids are bullies," Valitchka said.

"I usually go to schools to tell kids not to try to handle it by themselves, always go to a teacher. If you're bullying, stop being a bully and actually try to make friends. With help from the teachers and principal you can manage to make friends at the school and earn back that respect."

Another issue that he addresses in his speeches is child literacy. He encourages all the kids he speaks with to get as much joy out of reading and writing as he does.

"All kids want to drive," he said. "When you're a kid, driving seems so cool. But what they don't know is that you need to read and write to be able to drive."

For the staff at Lansdowne, both messages combine to make the perfect speaker for their school.

"One of the things that we all talk about as teachers here at Lansdowne is the importance of making learning authentic," said Cheryl Teolis, Literacy Resource Teacher at Lansdowne. "So the more opportunity we have to expose them to real life experiences or bring somebody in to talk about real life experiences, the closer we are to getting to the children and making it real for them.

"I heard of him (Valitchka) and I thought right away that he'd be perfect because there is such a push towards literacy in schools these days and the anti-bullying just made it a perfect package."

Teolis doesn't think that bullying is particularly rampant at her school, but thinks that the presentation will help to act as a deterrent and prevent the problem from becoming an issue.

"I think that the Rainbow District School Board as a whole is consistently dealing with this," she said. "It's not because there's more of it happening now and we need someone to come speak to them directly. It's more about bringing in the awareness and making this a more enjoyable place to learn."

She added that having a speaker that is the same age as the students will make a big difference to them.

"They're going through the same experiences as James is, and likewise James went through the same experiences as them," she said. "They're all faced with the same challenges."

Valitchka will be speaking to the entire school at an assembly, after which he will be speaking to individual classes to allow interaction between him and the students.

"The whole visit will be fantastic, but I'm really looking forward to the small groups meeting with James and getting that opportunity to speak to him one-on-one if they want to," Teolis said.

Valitchka agrees that these individual discussions are crucial to his message.

"I find that lots of kids ask you key things," he said. "Sometimes they ask key questions, which you give the answers to, which will help all the kids that are there if they ever get into a situation."

Valitchka's first book, Superheroes Don't Have Dads, became a bestseller when he was just nine years old, and is an autobiographical story aimed at helping other children in similar situations. He was the recipient of the Top 20 Under 20 award when he was just 10 years old, and won the Free the Children's Me To We community service award at the age of 12. He also created the annual Literacy Can Change Lives student conferences, which are held in a different city each year.

He has just released a full-length novel, Greater Expectations, which is a heroic tale that openly relays the realistic challenges that teens face today. He said that there were times when he was writing it that tears came to his eyes, but he kept writing because he wanted to share the pain and joy of the many children and teens he had met during his travels.