In a series of video interviews published earlier this month, gay journalist Anthony Gioffre speaks with mixed martial arts star and anti-bullying activist Daniel Puder about a new self esteem and goal-setting program to help eradicate discriminatory violence among students.
Gioffre explains in his introduction to the series that Puder drew inspiration for his program from a string of highly publicized suicides that occurred late last year as a result of gay bullying.
The interviews, posted in five separate segments and available on You Tube, cover Puder’s inspiration to fight back against a system that allows dangerous bullying to thrive in school environments. A determined self-starter committed to effective, sustainable solutions, Puder insists that speaking in schools isn’t enough. His program, currently in its final stages of development, aims to foster mentoring, goal-setting and self-esteem building among students and changing the way schools react to disciplinary scenarios.
“I don’t want to point fingers,” he tells Gioffre. “The bullies are…there’s something going on in their life. Something happens, and the school system is getting blamed for it.”
Puder tells Gioffre that schools can only go so far in affecting student behavior, and that bullying needs to be cut out at the roots – specifically, the home environments and media influences that teach children to create negative associations with gay, disabled, minority or other communities.
When parents and politicians vilify gay marriage, particularly in the wake of incidents like last year’s tragic series of gay suicides, Puder explains, it sends a message reinforcing discrimination to America’s youth.
“Celebrities and politicians need to understand that they’re being watched by our kids,” he says. “If you [speak out against gay marriage] right after someone gets killed, or beat up…it affects our children today.”
Puder insists that today’s politicians “should stand up and take a new stance, and bring their values to a new level.” Personally, Puder prefers not to speak out for or against gay marriage; instead, he simply wants “everybody to understand that we need to treat everybody the same.”
The self-esteem program, developed with the aid of family therapists, personal trainers and others, is set to go before the Los Angeles Unified School District and hopefully implemented elsewhere in California as well by the end of the year.
“I don’t wanna flop,” says Puder, explaining his commitment to developing the best and most effective program possible. “I want to take a stance on how we can work together to become the best nation…an even a stronger nation.”
