Unleashing the Wild Side of Justice: How ‘Forest School’ Teaches Law Through Animal Role-Play
Learn Law by Pretending to Be an Animal in the “Forest School”
A group of mice bullied the small animals in the school. I stood up to stop them and they beat me up,” said a child dressed in a yellow and green robot costume on the stage, waving his arms.
Sheriff White Cat came closer to check Tietou’s injuries, looking worried. ”Tietou is so brave. Is he hurt by the beating?”
Preventing School Bullying through Situational Drama
The Xinjian District Procuratorate of Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, jointly with the District’s Spiritual Civilization Construction Office, the Xinjian District Committee of the Communist Youth League, and the District Women’s Federation, created a public performance of the large-scale children’s legal education situational drama ”Don’t Be a School Bully” on “Preventing School Bullying.”
This drama originated from a short message. Four months ago, Zhang Mengyuan, a prosecutor at the Xinjian District Procuratorate, received a particularly eye-catching message on the WeChat public account “Xinjian Procuratorate”: “I am fat and ugly, so my classmates gave me nicknames, which made me depressed and tired of studying.”
Zhang Mengyuan believes that interactive situational dramas may be more effective in popularizing the law. “At least they can let the bullied children know that the judicial organs can protect them. It can also tell everyone more intuitively that not only beatings are school bullying, but verbal insults can also cause harm to others.”
Strengthening Law Popularization in Schools
Based on this, the Xinjian District Procuratorate, together with relevant units, began to strengthen the popularization of law in schools through situational dramas. The prosecutors conceived the situational drama “Don’t Be a School Bully”, provided the overall idea of the script, and provided guidance on the legal issues involved in the script.
The teachers of Nanchang Xingfangxi Children’s Eloquence Education Center were responsible for the script writing and specific rehearsal work, and 20 primary school students participated in the performance as “little animals”.
The Forest School: A Story of School Bullying
The “Rat Club” is the school bully in this forest school. The little animals often have their belongings taken away and are given nicknames… but they can only endure it in fear. Until one day, the little animals organized their own animal gang, hoping to “fight violence with violence”, but were eventually stopped by the white cat sheriff teacher and the forest police.
This school bullying with twists and turns was finally settled by defending rights according to the law.
Lessons Learned from the Performance
Guo Guo, a student at Nanchang Yuzhang Middle School, played the role of a bullied spotted martin in the play. She understood the deep meaning of the plot: “When you encounter bullying, you should not fight violence with violence. You should tell your parents and teachers and use the law to protect yourself.”
Guo Guo’s mother watched the whole performance from the audience. She said: “Frequent communication between parents and children can reduce the occurrence of school bullying.”
