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Extreme Team
Posted by Lance Bandley on September 27, 2005 at 04:30 PM | Permalink
One of the challenges when doing a story that involves children is that they usually give you extremely short answers. Most of the time the response is yes, no or I don't know, even when I don't ask a yes or no question. I interviewed seven 4th graders at Woods Cross Elementary and was worried that the responses would be very short. It was the exact opposite. They were much better than a lot of adults I interview.
The reason I interviewed these students is because they've formed a group called the "Extreme Team." They've decided they want to put an end to bullies in school and so they are going around helping kids during recess or in the halls. These students are doing all this on their own, there's no school project to do this they just want to help students so that school is fun and safe.
It was so interesting interviewing each student. They have hand written and laminated their own business cards to show students. When they see students fighting they go up to them, flash their card showing they're a member of the extreme team and ask them if they can help. The founder of the group said that some students don't want help so they leave them alone, but they have helped some kids by breaking up fights or by just being nice by including them and sitting next to them in class. These students even get together on Saturdays to make a list of students who need help and what they can do to help them at school.
They're not doing it for class credit or to be recognized. They just want everyone to enjoy school. Kind of nice to interview people who are so sincere.
