"Returning students to pack
paper, pencils, kindness"
Scissors, paper, glue. Check. It's in the backpack.
Kindness?
Even though it isn't officially listed on any of the supply lists,
local school officials hope that item gets checked off as well as
parents send their kids off to school.
"We strive very hard to create a culture of kindness at our
school," said Dan Reed, principal of Birchwood ABC Elementary
School. "We stress how the kids should act toward one another
and what constitutes good behavior and what does not."
Methods for instilling kindness in students vary from school to
school.
At Birchwood, the "Word for the Week" program is used.
It's a character-based program, explained Reed, in which students
are introduced to a different word such as "kindness"
or "caring" or "sharing" via definitions and
classroom modeling.
"We want to get each classroom working as a team first because
without that, the kids cannot get comfortable in an academic setting
where they can succeed," Reed said. "It's all part of
them learning to make good choices."
That concept is used extensively over at Eagle River Elementary
School where Nicole Ertischek is the principal.
This will be the second year that Ertischek and her staff are using
the national Project Wisdom and its daily morning announcement chock
full of kid-oriented prompts toward personal responsibility.
"It's such a nice way to start the school day," Ertischek
said. "Last year we had a lot of feedback from our teachers
that it made a difference in their classroom."
Project Wisdom was started in Houston, Texas, in 1992 by Leslie
Luton Matula, a veteran public school volunteer and professional
writer who saw a need for a school-based program that would more
actively foster responsible, caring and ethical student behavior.
The program runs in more than 12,500 schools nationwide.
It offers a variety of components.
This year, Eagle River Elementary is using the school-wide morning
announcement and classroom writing prompts to teach students about
things such as gratitude, integrity and thoughtfulness.
The morning announcement for the first day of school welcomed the
students to the new school year and discussed the opportunity they
have to make it a good one. It challenged the students to recognize
that how the day turns out is up to them.
"The morning message always ends with the idea that the choices
they make are their responsibility and that they have the opportunity
to make a good choice or a bad choice," Ertischek said. "They
learn that it is up to them and we found last year that was a concept
the kids really embraced."
For one fourth-grade student, making kind choices is already a skill
he has mastered, according to a letter sent home to his parents
from his classroom teacher last year.
Mark Landon was a student in Beryl Anderson's third-grade class
at Fire Lake Elementary School last year. At Fire Lake where disabled
students from the intensive needs program join the regular classrooms
for music, physical education and library or story time.
Last school year, a severely autistic non-verbal student known only
as D for privacy reasons, joined Anderson's class on a regular basis.
Toward the end of the year when students in Anderson's class were
presenting their book reports, it was D's turn to give his report.
The teacher said he could pick a friend to help him make the oral
report.
According to Anderson's letter home to Landon's parents, Mark and
Kay Landon, D chose Landon, who had befriended the challenged boy.
Landon read the report D had written to the class. They responded
with vigorous applause. Landon helped D answer two questions from
class members before explaining to D a compliment one of the other
students gave.
When Landon gently reminded D to say thank you, D looked at Landon
with uncertainty as to how to respond. Knowing that D is non-verbal,
Landon handed him a marker to write on the board.
D can only write letters when he sees them in front of him. The
board was blank.
Landon quickly realized the deficiency and took matters into his
own hands or perhaps more appropriately, fingers.
He used his finger to trace each letter of "thank you"
out on the board ahead of D's marker.
"Mark stood by D so patiently," read Anderson's letter.
"They continued slowly, letter by letter, until thank you had
been spelled out on the board. The entire class was hypnotized as
this act of true kindness played out for all of us to witness."
Anderson said the entire class erupted into cheers when the word
was completed and D too realized the accomplishment that had just
occurred.
"I was in tears. Mark was a hero in my eyes," Anderson
wrote. "To me, it is the small acts of compassion that shape
our lives. Mark was an example for all of us."
Landon himself is a bit more humble about the event.
"I just wanted to help him," he said.
Reprinted with permission
http://alaskastar.com
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