This content was created by The Scary Guy. This content was uploaded by The Scary Guy. This is a YouTube video titled "Teachers TV Inspirations Part 1" (Teachers TV) uploaded May 7, 2007. The excerpt is an on-site school workshop/presentation featuring The Scary Guy with school staff (Speaker B, Speaker C) and students (named students like Sam and Stuart). They discuss a 90-minute "Prejudice Elimination" program for a Catholic school—using storytelling, role-play, and a 7-day/7-night challenge to stop negative name-calling and reduce hate, violence, prejudice, and related harm (including references to bullying and a student suicide). The clip is educational, aimed at raising awareness and changing behavior among pupils, teachers, and parents.
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You're watching Teachers TV.
What do you think when you look at me? Am I a troublemaker? Am I violent? Should your children stay away from me? If you make these judgments without knowing me, how can you teach your pupils to not be prejudiced?
We decided to bring The Scary Guy in because as a Catholic school we're really interested in developing good personal relationships. And he, in a different way, looks at personal relationships and fostering the idea of loving your neighbor.
This girl here, she only lived about 14 years old. She was told she was dumb, fat, and stupid her whole life by all of her so-called friends at school. She believed all the words she heard.
Then she killed herself. This is the world you're living in right now.
The elimination of hate, violence, and prejudice worldwide. Gimme a break! One guy can't do this job by himself. I'm in your school because I need everybody in this room's help. I'm gonna dedicate this period of time to all the kids around the world that have died in school. Now you people are killing each other over your differences.
The first show that we present in the school is our Prejudice Elimination, and it's a 90-minute program, and it's about awareness. And what we try to do is we bring everybody to the same level of awareness as to how we all participate in what I call the world's number one social diseases: hate, violence, and prejudice.
I became a professional name-caller and hater at a very young age. I'm a pro. I got 49 years of running my mouth, belittling, degrading, humiliating, shaming, Oh, I can find the fault in you in 2 seconds flat. You people haven't even got a clue!
Why is it important to work with children? Because there is so much damaged, hurtful, harmful words and nonverbal communication going on in schools around the world, and it's being transferred at an alarming rate, and kids are killing themselves and hurting each other over this kind of energy that exists in schools right now.
Hee hee hee. What's your name, dude? Sam. Sam. Sam I am. My name's Scary Sam. We're going to role play. Do you know what role playing is?
Yep.
What is it? Um, when you play a role. Play with roles. No, Sam? Now when I was a young person, I'd see somebody go by, didn't know their name, never saw them before, didn't know who they were. Now people in wheelchairs, you know the ones I'm talking about, they got their hand on the lever on the handle, guiding the wheelchair on by, a little bit of dribble running out of their mouth. See him roll on by and I go like this, ooh. Who'd wanna be by that? In order to make myself feel better on the inside and squash that emotion down, I had to point at that poor soul in the wheelchair I knew nothing about, give him a name so I could laugh at him. It wouldn't end there. I'd take the information back to my buddy Sam, chillin', kickin' it, and I'd go like this, Sam, Check out that geek in the wheelchair, dude. It wouldn't end there. I'd take that information back to school, my neighborhood, my church. I'd gather all my buddies around in a circle. I started sharing information about a dude in a wheelchair I knew nothing about. I started a Geek Haters Club. Man, I got real good at it.
I know there are no bad kids. Of course, everybody goes, "Whoa, that guy's lost his mind." I do believe that there is bad behavior, and it's learned. Kids learn this behavior somewhere else, and it's reinforced in school. So now if that's the truth, there are no bad kids and there is bad behavior. Hmm, I wonder where they're learning that.
Slide in there together.
That's it. Wow!
Hmm, there is something morally and ethically wrong with this. Well, let me ask you a question, Stuart. How old are you, dude? How old are you? 16.
Ladies and gentlemen, there's something in your drinking water.
Now here's what I discovered as I travel around the world. You see the short dude here? Stewat! He's got a body this size. I call it a container.
Yeah.
The tall dude's got a little bigger container. We all have our own containers. They come in different shapes, sizes, and colors. Ladies and gentlemen, they're supposed to. Now here's what I found out as I travel around the world about all these different containers. It don't matter what shape, size, or color it is. It has the same amount of capacity to understand and love all people. So if you're making a decision based on the shape and size of the container right here, I got news for you. You will be wrong. Every word and every step I take is to help another human off this planet with love. I cannot fathom what it would be like to leave this planet degrading and humiliating another human. For 7 years I haven't said one negative word about another human on the planet. For 7 years I haven't called another person a name other than their own.
Huh.
And do you have any idea how hard that is? Well, you're gonna get a sample of it right now.
Part of the mission in the program is a 7-day, 7-night challenge. And so I put all the kids and the teachers and the parents and who's ever involved in the program, I put them all on the 7-day, 7-night challenge.
And it works like this: For 7 days and 7 nights, don't say one negative word about another human on the planet. For 7 days and 7 nights, don't call another person a name other than their own. Even if you think the names you make up for people are funny, they're not. Now we're gonna find out what you're really made of. If you think you're tough, shut your mouth. That's tough.
I chose 7 days and 7 nights because I think it's a, it's a doable target. It's something that you can actually see that there is an end to a process. Really, it's not about being a good person. I don't want the kids to say, "Hey, I gotta be good now," and they really don't. They say, "Hmm, I'm starting to discover how I'm interacting with everybody else's words as energy." And they do quite well, actually. And I teach them a way out, so if they slip up and make a mistake, they have a way out of that. They simply look that person directly in the eyes. Maybe they call them a name accidentally, or they slip up, or they forget they're on the challenge, and they just say, "Hey, I'm sorry I said that." You get on with your program. You got 7 days to go.
