the apple experiment bullying

Bullying Lessons Using Apples

Most students know that bullying is bad, and yet bullying still happens in our schools every day.

When we say hurtful things to other people, we often can’t see the damage that we’re doing on the inside. Our classmate may appear fine, but they’re really hurting. On the other hand, kind words can be used to build someone else up, and make them feel beautiful on the inside.

These bullying lessons use apples to provide a memorable, visual to show the damage that can be done with harsh, unkind words.

Recommended Grade Level : All

SEL Skill(s) : Empathy

Duration: 30 Minutes

• 2 Apples as similar as possible, so your students shouldn’t notice any difference

Bullying Lesson Instructions

Prep: About an hour before the lesson starts, and unbeknownst to your students, firmly tap one of the two apples on a table or your desk.

This will create invisible bruises underneath its skin, but as you look at the apple, you should not be able to see the bruising.

Gather your students in a group, either in person or via distance learning, and hold up two apples.

“Who can describe these two apples to me? How are they the same?” “They’re both red,” students may suggest. “They’re both shiny. They’re about the same size.”

Ask your students if they notice anything different about the apples. After establishing that the apples look pretty much the same, start to insult one of the apples.

“Well, I don’t really like this one, here,” you’ll say. “I think it’s a gross apple. It probably doesn’t taste very good. And since I don’t like it, I don’t think you guys would like it either.”

Pass (or show) that apple to a student and have the student tell the apple what he doesn’t like about it. Continue going around to all of your student and have each one share an insult:

• You’re a bad apple.
• You probably have worms.
• I should just throw you away.

Now hold up the other apple. “This is my favorite apple. It looks so beautiful and juicy. I bet it tastes so good. I can’t wait to eat it.”

Show this apple to the group and have students say nice things about it.

• You’re a delicious apple.
• Your skin is so shiny.
• I bet you’d make a great apple pie.

When both apples have come back to you, hold them up again and ask students if they still look the same. Their appearance hasn’t changed, right?

Now cut each apple in half.

The apple that you spoke to with kindness is clean on the inside.

The apple that you were all cruel to is bruised and mushy.

Let your students react to the two apples. Why does one look so different on the inside than the other one?

Bullying Lesson Reflection

What could we have done differently to stop the apple from becoming so bruised? If someone had stood up and said we should stop being so mean to the apple, would it have gotten that bad?

Now that the bullied apple is damaged, is there anything we can do to make it clean and unblemished again? No matter how many kind words we say to this apple now, we can’t make these bruises go away. In the same way, we can make a person who has been bullied feel better, but they’ll always have the memories of the hurtful things.

This is a great time to introduce (or reinforce) the vocabulary term “ empathy ,” or seeing things from another person’s point of view. Ask your students how they would have felt to be the bullied apple and how it would feel to be the beautiful apple. What are some ways we can show each other empathy every day?

Additional Resources

Books and Games

• Totem: the feel good game
• The Juice Box Bully by  Bob Sornson and Maria Dismondy
• Kindness Starts With You  – At School by  Jacquelyn Stagg 
• A Little SPOT of Kindness!  by  Diane Alber

Related Lessons

• Acts of Kindness Lesson
• Hurtful Words Lesson
• Bullying Advice for Parents
• Quotes about Bullying

Need Something More Engaging For Your Students?

Explore centervention’s evidence-based, online sel interventions with your students free for 30 days .

Zoo Academy: Grades K-1 Zoo U: Grades 2-4 SS GRIN: Grades 3-5 Hall of Heroes: Middle School Stories in Motion: High Needs

Purchasing Funding Information SEL Spotlight Supplemental Activities

Contact News Research Support

Get in Touch

Tel (919) 283-8899 [email protected]

Copyright 2024  Centervention®  | All Rights Reserved |  Privacy Policy  |  Terms of Use

Morgane Michael

The Bruised Apple Kindness Lesson (K-12)

How I would teach the lesson:

• Show the class two apples that look the same (one of which has been previously dropped several times before class).
• Next, ask the students to describe the two apples. They’ll note that although there may be minor differences between the apples, both are essentially identical. They won’t notice that one has been dropped, because the bruising happens beneath the surface of the waxy apple skin.

• One by one, encourage them to call the apple names and toss it to the ground as well.
• Now, take the second apple and tell the students that it’s the ‘good’ one. Encourage the students to give the apple compliments and treat it with care.
• Ask the students to compare the apples again. It’s likely that there won’t be a dramatic change in their initial observations; the apples will still look relatively similar. It’s hard to see the damage caused by the drops from the outside.

• Ask the students to reflect on how this exercise might apply to bullying. You might even want to ask them if they want to eat the bruised apple. Many may react with disgust. Ask them to reflect upon their contribution to making the apple bruised and brown. We all did this…why shouldn’t we value it? When we call people names, reject them, or send the message that they are lacking, we are dropping them and bruising them like we did this apple. Even though the damage isn’t apparent on the outside, it is very destructive on the inside.

Leave a comment below to share how you used and adapted this lesson for your classroom! I always get inspired by people’s stories and the things they do. You might just inspire someone today!

Find us on Twitter @SABI21days,   FACEBOOK@smallactbigimpact21days,  and INSTAGRAM @smallactbigimpact21days or via email 

Feel free to check out the rest of my website for my blog, additional tangible challenge ideas, journal template, videos-links, bios to cool people who influenced the challenge with their ideas, and the science behind the SABI challenge (peer-reviewed journal articles linked).

Share this:

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Teacher's Powerful Lesson About Bullying Goes Viral

This teacher used apples to teach kids an important lesson about bullying

For adults, it’s easy to understand the severe damage bullying can cause, but for kids, it can take a while for the lesson to truly sink in. That’s why one Birmingham, UK, teacher had the brilliant idea to use a pair of apples illustrate the effects of bullying, and her Facebook post about her lesson is going insanely viral.

Rosie Dutton is a teacher who tours schools in her area, teaching kids mindfulness and relaxation techniques. Earlier this week, she posted on her Facebook page, Relax Kids Tamworth , about an experiment she did to show kids what really happens when someone gets bullied.

Dutton showed her class two apples — one untouched and one that she’d secretly bruised by tapping it repeatedly on the floor. On the outside, they looked exactly the same, and her class noted that “both were red, were of similar size and looked juicy enough to eat.”

Wrote Dutton, “I picked up the apple I’d dropped on the floor and started to tell the children how I disliked this apple, that I thought it was disgusting, it was a horrible color and the stem was just too short. I told them that because I didn’t like it, I didn’t want them to like it either, so they should call it names too.”

Dutton said the class looked at her “like I was insane,” but they soon got into the game. “We passed the apple around the circle calling it names, ‘you’re a smelly apple’, ‘I don’t even know why you exist’, ‘you’ve probably got worms inside you’ etc,” she wrote. “We really pulled this poor apple apart. I actually started to feel sorry for the little guy.”

Then, Dutton passed around the other apple — the one she’d left untouched — and had the kids “say kind words to it, ‘You’re a lovely apple’, ‘Your skin is beautiful’, ‘What a beautiful colour you are.'” They compared the apples again, and noted that they still looked exactly the same.

Then Dutton cut the apples open.

The apple the class was kind to was crisp, juicy, and ready to eat. The apple who’d been bullied was bruised, brown, and mushy inside. Explained Dutton, “I think there was a lightbulb moment for the children immediately. They really got it, what we saw inside that apple, the bruises, the mush and the broken bits is what is happening inside every one of us when someone mistreats us with their words or actions.”

Dutton explained that sometimes people “don’t show or tell others how they are feeling,” but the damage is still there — just like it was inside the mushy apple. And, that’s why it’s so important to be kind with both our words and our actions.

Since her post went up, it’s been shared over 200,000 times and has more than 168,000 likes. Thousands have also commented to say her “experiment” should be recreated in classrooms all over the world to help kids understand why bullying is such a serious issue. Dutton’s lesson is stunningly simple, but it packs a powerful punch, even for adults. It’s hard to imagine a more effective way to illustrate the mental and emotional impact of being bullied.

Dutton thanked everyone for their support and said, more than anything, she just wants people to understand how much power we have to eliminate bullying. “Unlike an apple, we have the ability to stop this from happening,” she wrote. “We can teach children that it’s not ok to say unkind things to each other and discuss how it makes others feel. We can teach our children to stand up for each other and to stop any form of bullying, just as one little girl did today when she refused to say unkind words to the apple.”

“The tongue has no bones,” Dutton wrote at the end of her post, “but it’s strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words.”

This article was originally published on June 24, 2016

• View Calendar

The Apple Experiment

Gone viral: Teacher uses two apples to explain bullying to kids

Today, we conducted The Apple Experiment in our class. We had a meaningful discussion about how we treated the two apples.

How did the green apple feel after being abused, mistreated, dropped and bullied?

-heartbroken

How did the red apple feel after we took care of it, treated it kindly, respected it and passed it around gently?

We sure learned a life lesson about the importance of treating people, animals and objects with kindness and respect.

“Treat people the way you want to be treated.” -William

“Even though you can’t see the green apple on the inside, it is still bruised, just like how our feelings get hurt on the inside.” -Hailey

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *