Treat all with dignity, kindness

Toward the end of the last school year, Colony High School launched a campaign aimed at improving our school climate, heightening awareness for teachers and students regarding the ways we interact.

The program is part of the Safe and Civil Schools initiative begun by the Mat-Su Borough School District. Led by Kristy Johnston, one of our leadership instructors and student government adviser, students generated many ideas for structuring this campaign. Ultimately, the school opted to call our program RESPECT (Remember, Every Single Person Expects Courteous Treatment). The staff performed a memorable dance at the end-of-year assembly to launch the program, and students designed T-shirts and posters that are displayed around the building to remind all of us to treat each other well. It’s a simple idea, but one that has helped us increase the level of civility in our daily interactions.

This year, we’re building on the campaign we started last year. We changed the whole structure of our first day of school, dividing our students’ time into short meetings with each of their classes and interspersing class time with focused grade-level meetings where students took the lead in reviewing with their peers the RESPECT campaign and covering basic school rules like the tardy policy and dress code. Importantly, our student leaders orchestrated the day’s events, from creating the overall schedule, to making videos demonstrating school policy, to answering individual student questions in the breakout sessions. The day was a tremendous success and led to one of the best beginnings of a school year that staff can recall.

As we move into our second quarter, we’re continuing our habits of remaining conscious of the manner in which we interact with each other, encouraging everyone to treat each other well and allowing our students to take the lead in structuring school-wide initiatives. To that end, next week our student organizations will sponsor activities as part of a national program, Mix It Up Day. Created by Teaching Tolerance in 2002, Mix It Up Day aims to get students to take one simple step — sit with someone different at lunch.

Like our RESPECT campaign, it’s a pretty simple idea, but one with potentially far-reaching implications. If you can sit with someone different at lunch, you can work with a new student on a class project, introduce yourself to a stranger in the grocery line, etc. In surveys conducted across the country, an overwhelming majority of students report positive effects from Mix It Up Day.

Our student leaders, once again, are in charge of operations. Each day at lunch, a different student organization — National Honor Society, Student Government, JROTC, Leadership, Key Club — provides an activity to help students mingle and have fun. On Monday, for example, we will have a large black wall of poster paper in the cafeteria; students can take a “brick” and sign their name on it as their pledge to help break down the wall of intolerance.

Once all the bricks have been assembled, students have arranged for a spectacular demonstration of breaking down the wall. The students involved are keeping the details secret, but I can’t wait to see it.

On Wednesday, the official Mix It Up Day, students will receive instructions for seating at lunchtime in ways that ensure variety. Staff will participate as well. During each lunch period, all staff members with that lunch will gather in one room to spend 30 minutes actually talking to each other — a rare event. Our other student groups have planned fun and interesting activities for each of the lunch periods, so our students can look forward to a week of something a little bit new and different, and a reminder to continue to treat each other well.

Unquestionably, we live in troubling and difficult times.

In a world where our national leaders have made Big Bird a political football and our cultural icons include the likes of Snooki and Honey Boo Boo, dignity and respect are in short supply.

If we expect our students to take on the challenges we face in the world, we need to help prepare them to get along in that world. One of the most important skills we can teach them is how to behave with dignity and integrity and how to get along in a diverse population, honoring each person they encounter for that person’s unique gifts and perspective.

All people are to be respected and treated with dignity and kindness: it’s a simple message and a simple idea, but one well worth our time and attention.

Prudence Plunkett is the librarian at Colony High School.