Tommy Herschell teaches home truths about bullying to school kids

As government ministers work with teachers, students and grieving parents who have lost children to suicide, one man is to tackling the scourge of bullying his own way — by getting raw and real with kids, and teaching them how to be upstanders, not bystanders.

In a regular school hall in Sydney packed with girls and boys from Year 6, a knockabout bloke called Tommy Herschell stands in front of the group and says: “Find ya feet if you’ve bullied someone in this room.”

The nervous energy in the room is palpable.

Children fidget in their chair, whisper to their friends, then a boy rises.

“You’re an absolute champion mate,” Tommy bellows as the boy glances sideways to catch the reaction of his mates.

“I want to call this out, because what you just did, you’re a legend. By standing up and being the only one to stand up,” Tommy continues.

“Everyone else is looking around, going, what’s going on? I don’t know whether I should stand up or not, but because you’re honest and brave enough to be your own person now they will be too.”

And so begins a morning of raw emotion and honesty that none of the children expected as they entered the hall for a leadership workshop at Our Lady of Fatima Primary School in Caringbah.

Axel Slater (l to r), Alexis Daly, Tommy Herschell, Jazzy Bohlsen and Archie Callanan at Our Lady of Fatima Primary School in Caringbah. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Tommy’s questions keep rolling and more and more children find the confidence to “find ya feet”, own their behaviour and even share personal stories of the things that keep them awake at night.

“Find ya feet if you ever yelled out something across the playground at a girl that you regret?” Tommy continued.

“Rise if you have ever been bullied yourself?”

“Stand up if you’ve ever stood by while someone else was being bullied and not said anything?

“Stay standing if you think you can say the name of the person you’ve bullied here in front of us today and say a few words to them.”

By the end of the two-hour session, the students are all on their feet, saying sorry, asking to be friends and praising each other for “being brave”.

Charlotte O’Brien left a note when she suicided telling her parents to raise awareness about bullying. Picture: Supplied by Charlotte’s family

For Tommy, encouraging kids to “cross the floor” when they see behaviour they don’t agree with is a passion.

He spreads the message of Year 7 Sydney schoolgirl Charlotte O’Brien, who suicided last year: “Be an upstander, not a bystander.”

Herschell joined Charlotte’s parents Mat and Kelly O’Brien, and other parents whose children were bullied to death when they met with politicians, education experts and leading principals in December last year at The Sunday Telegraph’s roundtable into bullying in the wake of the Charlotte’s Wish documentary.

Education Minister and Deputy Premier Prue Car and Minister for Youth and Mental Health Rose Jackson vowed to sharpen focus on consequences for bullies, and the federal government has since committed to a national bullying policy.

“Workshops like today are an awesome opportunity to get the boys and girls in one room and shift the culture in one go,” Tommy told The Saturday Telegraph, who was invited along for the session.

“They get an opportunity to tell their story, to listen to stories and they get the skills to empathise and reflect on their own their behaviours and then the tools to be able to leave a workshop and know you don’t walk past someone that is getting bullied, they have the ability to go ‘what’s going on mate? I’m bloody worried about you’.

Tommy Herschell teaching kids to be upstanders not bystanders. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“We heard that young girl who talked about protecting herself and masking it to look after herself. She’s been through a great trauma at home but she puts on a front.

“The minute you get one person to speak up, I just get in behind them and big-time cheer them.

“The minute one fellow stood up early on, I told him ‘that was just gold’ that he was able to stand up and own that, and that is huge.

“The others sitting down want to be able to do that, they feel it, they want it but have to be shown it.”

“When they do it they get proud of themselves, a lot of the time kids are told they are a pain in the arse, a nuisance, and rarely do we get behind them and go ‘mate you’re a legend’.”

Tommy travels the state talking to kids of all ages, “empowering kids one step at a time”.

“For someone to be able to get up and they are able to say ‘I bully you, I tease you, I’m bloody sorry’, to be able to champion that, it’s an awesome opportunity we have.

“They will go back out into the playground and go back to the behaviours, but once they’ve felt the difference we are going to get two or three kids who will step in and go ‘nah this isn’t right’.”

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