Working with Invisible Students

I recently took four students down to Chino Hills HS to see Janet Roberts and her high school put on an amazing rally. If you have not been, it is worth the visit. A connected and spirited campus is a high academically performing campus. What got me the most excited is not the rally nor the great conversation with my spirit and rally commissioners, it was a text from my ASB president, “We are going to have a picnic next Wednesday during lunch, easier to explain if you call.” So I did call, and what I heard was slightly short of amazing.

One of my students was walking across the common area when she saw many students sitting and eating alone. She came back to class rather upset where the kids had a conversation about inviting students to have lunch in the ASB room each Wednesday. The kids thought this was great, then another student suggested, “why don’t we bring some blankets and just invite people to sit with us each day on the grass?” We have four large grass areas in our common area, and all of the kids thought this was great.

So, every other Wednesday we are going to have an ASB picnic where all students are invited to sit in an area. The brilliance of the idea is its simplicity as well as the execution each week. Kids show up, take out blankets, sit and eat while we play some music and hang out. At the same time, our students, mentors and other leaders on campus are invited to go out and invite kids who normally do not have anyone to sit with out to our grass area to sit with other students.

This year my students have a strong sense of reaching out to kids on campus and improving the culture and climate. The old saying, “if you know someone’s story it’s hard to hate them,” is holding very true. We brought this idea up and one of my kids said, “if you know someone’s story it’s hard to forget them.” My kids dont’ want to forget any one on our campus.

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Which Are You?

I had something interesting happen to me that I have not seen in a long time, a person actually went out of their way to tell me I was not good at something. In this day and age where teenage bravado is only matched by anyone’s desire to share or overshare whatever they are thinking whenever they are thinking it,  I’m still amazed at how far someone will go out of their way to put others down.  I got an email the other day that read, “Hey Guess What” in the subject line with the message of “Your videos are really bad.” I was a bit shocked. More so because these were not my videos, these were my students’ videos; and much like an overprotective parent, I was ready for battle. Then I was a reminded of a great poem I was exposed to a few years ago, and I asked myself, which are you, a builder or a wrecker?