A Glimpse into Our School’s Kindness Journey
By Marilyn Wilson Odhiambo, Middle School Counselor, Washington International School (Washington, DC, USA), ISCA Task Force Member
Kindness Week was launched in our middle school in January 2017 and is an integral part of our SEL program. Over the past six years, our middle school has worked to actively engage students, teachers, administrators, and families in creating a culture of compassion, acceptance, unity, respect, and empathy.
People define kindness in different ways. Many people believe that being kind is something you are, but in our school, we emphasize that being kind is something you do. Although some people might be better at it than others, kindness is not an inherent personal quality, but a skill that must be explicitly taught, modeled, and practiced. Kindness Week is our opportunity to do just that.
What we want our students to know about kindness…
- Kindness requires practice. We are not inherently kind. Hence, we spend a week each year to intentionally, consciously, deliberately and purposefully practice kindness. If we continually practice we can set a foundation of kindness and empathy that motivates us for social action and to help others.
- Practicing kindness helps life feel more meaningful.
- Devoting resources to others, rather than having more and more for yourself, brings about lasting well-being. (Hall, 2017)
- Kindness can be contagious. When we see someone being kind or generous, it gives us a warm glow feeling inside. Researchers call this “moral elevation,” and it not only feels good but inspires us to want to do good ourselves. (Suttie, 2020)
- Kindness demands our focus and our attention. It requires us to see with clarity and compassion exactly what is in front of us, around us, and within us. Kindness can set a foundation for social action because it fosters empathy and motivates us to help others. Kindness and social justice are connected. Kindness without justice is an empty gesture. We should let the two motivate and inspire each other and always be connected. (Justice, 2019)
- Acting kindly makes us feel good. Neuroscientific research confirms that the warm glow we experience when we do something nice for someone shows up in our brain’s reward system. (Hammond, 2021)
Kindness Week at our school has evolved over the years. There are many features that have become “tradition”, like distributing kind bars and kindness pencils engraved with the current year’s theme, to students. Each year I aim to incorporate something new and/or different to keep Kindness Week innovative, interesting and meaningful. Most recently, I have worked with subject teachers to explore ways that we can make connections to kindness within the curriculum. Overall, Kindness Week has been a success due to many contributing factors. It has also come with some challenges. Kindness Week student-designed campus signs with school mascot displaying kindness
Contributing factors to success:
- Supportive leadership – a supportive principal can make all the difference
- Incorporating Kindness Week into the SEL program
- Seeking student input and support from student government
- Involving faculty/colleagues in activities
- Linking kindness to academic curricula
- Budget – being allotted a generous budget that allows me to show kindness to the school community in a variety of ways; although money is not imperative for showing kindness
Challenges:
- Coordinating between three divisions and two campuses
- Adolescent pushback – there seems to be a small group of students each year who find a reason to complain about kindness week
- Adults not always being good role models of kindness
- Society seems to be becoming more unkind than kind and students are noticing
- Finding effective ways to get parents involved and engaged
Kindness Week: Activities we have done at our school that you can try at yours
- Post-its with kind messages from students and faculty displayed around our school
- Encourage students and faculty write
- kind messages or quotes on post-it
- notes and display around school
- Chalk Walk – students write kind messages with chalk on the walkways around campus
- Rock painting – students paint rocks with kind messages and pictures
- Art, essay, poem contests for students
- Include quotes, trivia, and stories related to kindness in announcements or other school communications to engage students, faculty, and parents
- Design t-shirts for staff to wear during kindness week to as a show of solidarity
- Have a t-shirt contest for students – distribute shirts with the chosen design to the entire school community
- Kindness assembly
- Kindness video – make a video that documents the week and show during culminating assembly
- Kindness stations – set up stations during breaks and lunch where students and faculty can write
- kind notes to be delivered to others within the school community
- Ask advisors to write personalized notes to each of their advisees
- Take a photo of the school community spelling out the word KIND on the field
- Ask teachers to liberally pass out “Caught Being Kind” slips to students they see showing kindness
- Advisory notes – each student writes a kind note to every person in their advisory on a large sheet of paper or cardstock (paper cutouts can be in the shape of a heart, star, etc.)
- Kindness grams – school community writes kind notes to whoever they choose and the notes are delivered either electronically or in person at the end of the week
- Organize a collection drive and donations for a non-profit or charity organizations
- Write letters to first responders, military, and veterans
- Have students write kindness notes to give to students in another division (e.g. middle school students write to primary school students)
- Create kindness bulletin boards
- Teach SEL lessons that connect to kindness during the week in advisories
- Give tote bags customized with kindness slogans to teachers
- Recognize specific departments with kind acts and messages from students and colleagues (e.g. head of school, facilities, transport, custodial)
- Distribute KIND bars/snacks, kindness pencils, kindness
wristbands, etc. - *Kindness to-go bags were given during the pandemic with some extra items for wellness (stress relief toys, a personal note from the counselor, a journal, etc.)
Kindness is contagious. Are you and your school catching it?
Consider these questions:
- Where do you experience kindness the most in your daily life?
- Do you treat yourself kindly? Do you speak gently and kindly to yourself and take good care of yourself?
- What are the most common kind acts that people carry out on your campus?
- How is kindness modeled by the adults at your school?
- What is preventing people from being kind in your school community? 2018 Art Contest First Choice
It is often said that kindness is contagious and it is true! At my school, Kindness Week was “spread” to the primary and upper school divisions by the middle school’s influence and leadership (at least that’s what we in the middle school like to think!) a few years back when my counseling colleagues decided to also begin celebrating Kindness Week in their divisions. It is now a coordinated whole school initiative. As a result, Kindness Week has become a sustainable, valued, and anticipated annual program and has become embedded into our school culture.
References
Hall, K. (2017, December 4). The Importance of Kindness. Psychology Today.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/201712/the-importance-kindness
Hammond, C. (2021, September 21). What we do and don’t know about kindness. BBC Future.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210921-what-we-do-and-dont-know-about-kindness
Suttie, J. (2020, November 18). How Kindness Spreads in a Community. Greater Good Magazine.
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_kindness_spreads_in_a_community
Justice, J. (2019, June 13). Kindness Without Justice?: The Troubling (Mis) Use of Kindness as
Call for Neutrality in the Face of Injustice. Medium. https://medium.com/swlh/kindness-
without-justice-efd66060d241