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WHITTIER >> Country singer Lizzie Sider brought her anti-bullying campaign, “No One Has The Power To Ruin Your Day,” to Ocean View Elementary School Monday.
She not only sang songs — a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Mean” and her own “Butterfly — but talked to fourth- and fifth-graders about bullying.
“I was called names, and laughed at,” she told the students, who are not much older than herself at 15 years of age.
“I used to sing quietly to myself on the playground,” Sider said, “when I was your age, as a way to cope.”
She called it a very hurtful time.
Eventually, Snider, who was named this year by the Country Music Association as one of the new artists to watch, overcame the bullying.
“One day, I thought, ‘No one has the power to ruin my day,’” she said.
At one point during the assembly, Sider directed the students to close their eyes and asked them to raise their hands if they were ever bullied.
With nearly every hand raised, including teacher’s, she asked everyone to open their eyes and look around to see who had been bullied.
A low-volume, “Whoa,” was the verbal response from the students as they surveyed the room.
After listing NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan, mega singing star Taylor Swift, and the late co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, as those who once endured bullying, Sider asked the students, “Why do people bully?”
They answered that bullies may have been bullied themselves, or they thought it was fun to bully.
Sider encouraged them to look out for one another as they would do in the case of a younger sibling.
She closed out the program singing Swift’s “Mean,” accompanied by teachers and students on tambourines, maracas and other instruments, as well as a solo turn on her own “Butterfly” as the audience sang along.
The Ocean View stop was one of 80 campus visits statewide.
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