No More Bullying
Are you compassionate? Compassion is the character theme in middle school for this quarter. Today in Chapel, middle school students viewed a one hour video by Frank Peretti. Mr. Peretti is well known as a Christian author and has experienced much success. In the video, Mr. Peretti shared his personal story of being teased and excluded druing his elementary and junior high school years. According to Mr. Peretti there are kids who are wounded, kids who do the wounding, and those who live out both experiences-when others hurt them, they find someone weaker whom they can beat down. Mr. Peretti delivered a challenge students do not hear often. Be noble. Show compassion. He states, “Depth of a person’s character is not measured by his or her physical strength, but by the depth of his or her nobility. How do we treat those who are weaker?”
Each Tuesday in October students will be divided by gender during homeroom to deepen our discussion on how we treat each other. Next Tuesday, October 7, students will discuss times they have been hurt and/or times they have hurt others. I’m not sure how responsive students will be in these groups, especially furing the first few meetings, but opening the dialogue will let stduents know our desire for middle school to be an emotionally safe place for them. We will revisit portions of the Peretti video each quarter so the dialogue about how we treat each other will continue throughout the school year. We plan to keep you informed of our topics.
References for parents by Frank Peretti: The Wounded Spirit (out of print but avilable on amazon), No More Bullies
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