Day 69: Simple ideas can lead to big changes.

"Honk If You Love Someone"

Photo from http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-09-02/lifestyle/35494321_1_happiness-positive-emotions-signs

I ran across this blog post by Jason Markey that describes how he is developing a vision for his school around the simple idea of being kind to others.  Markey says,

"Be Kind, Find Your Passion, and Commit to Excellence.  This is my new personal vision for education.  This is the sentence that I will share repeatedly with every one of our students and more importantly I will bring these thoughts to every conversation and decision I’m a part of."

I really like this video that Markey included.  It features the story of Massoud Adibpour who wanted to make a positive impact.  Adibpour got some folks together and put simple messages like "Honk if you love someone" and "Smile" on signs and stood alongside busy Washington, D.C. roads.  I love this idea of doing something simple to try and make a big impact.

There's been lots of research done to see what initiatives can make the biggest difference in schools, but it seems the best approach may look more like the vision of Jason Markey and Massoud Adibpour. Maybe the most influential initiative we can undertake is to show kindness every single day.  Simple things like saying hello to a student or smiling at them can make the biggest difference.  

Day 62: The Power of a Compliment, UPDATE

100 Acts of Kindness

The beginning of something positive: Miss Tucker's class is displaying acts of kindness outside their room.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a story about a group of high school students from West High School in Iowa City, Iowa who are using social media to send complements to their classmates.  I asked the question of how we could do something like this as a building, and I'm happy to say that some classroom teachers have answered through action.

Heather Tucker, a 1st grade teacher at Hilliard Horizon, emailed our staff about a plan she already had for her classroom called 100 Acts of Kindness:

"If anyone is interested in learning more about the 100 Acts of Kindness project, email me and I will put a copy of it in your mailbox. I will send home a letter about the project on Friday, Jan. 18th, and the project will start Jan. 22nd and end on Valentine's Day. I am encouraging students to participate in Dr. King's dream by doing 100 acts of kindness at home, in the community and at school. This project can be adapted to take place any time of the year..."

Miss Tucker's project features some of the same aspects that the Westhigh Bros project in Iowa has: sharing acts of kindness and displaying it for a community to see.  It really is the perfect answer to the question of how we could do something similar to Westhigh Bros in an elementary school.

Close-up of Miss Tucker's display

More classrooms have already started, and we are looking forward to more joining in on this positive community building project.

Mrs. Remington's class Acts of Kindness display

Day 57: The Power of a Compliment

The Power of a Compliment

Over the weekend, I received a link for the video below from another educator.  The video shows how one group of students at West High School in Iowa City, Iowa.  The group is called "Westhigh Bros" and they use social media to send out compliments to other students at the school.

It's a great project that I think indirectly challenges all of us to try and create this for every student at ever school.  I'm not sure how we could do this in an elementary building, but I'm not going to let that stop me.  If you have a suggestion or comment on how something similar could be done at an elementary building, please feel free to post a comment.

Enjoy the video!  It's worth it!