Instead of focusing on correcting negative behavior, one area school hopes that a concentration on kindness will inspire positive acts among classmates.
After hosting the Rachel’s Challenge program, Littlefork-Big Falls School interventionist Angie Williams challenged the classes from preschool through high school to do and say nice things to one another. The students were to write the positive actions of others on strips of paper and link them together in a giant, colorful chain.
The idea of the chain links came from the Rachel’s Challenge program and is one way the program recommends to continue the message of positive actions towards others after the assembly has finished. The motto of the Rachel’s Challenge program is “start a chain reaction” and is based on the premise that one good action will result in the recipient passing along the good will to others.
The Rachel’s Challenge program discusses Rachel Scott, the first student to die in the Columbine High School shootings in 1999. Scott had written in diaries and school assignments about the power of positivity towards others; and her death became a catalyst for her father to start a program that has been seen by more than 15 million people around the world. The message of the program is that one person’s positive actions make a difference. The school presented Rachel’s Challenge in February and the chain link program at L-BF began in March.
“I wanted to make it a goal and somewhat a competition for all the kids to get involved,” Williams said.
The ninth-grade class won the competition with more than 700 links. The school, with just more than 300 students, created a chain of paper-strip links that stretched roughly 300 yards.
The link stretched from one corner of the school at the elementary classrooms across the entire school to the back of the high school. Williams’ goal was satisfied when the link from the high school joined up in a hallway near the common area with the link started in the elementary school.
Students then carried the link outside, a unified action of teamwork itself, and it stretched from the back corner of an end zone on the school’s football field down the 120-yard stretch, across the 50-yard end zone, and back up to the other corner of the first end zone in a U-shape.
“I think forever they’ll remember taking that link out onto the football field and seeing it sprawled all the way around,” Williams said of the lasting impact of Monday’s efforts.
Saying nice things and acknowledging acts of kindness was the focus of the program.
“I really wanted people to take some time to really focus on the positives,” Williams said. “It’s so easy to quickly be negative and say negative things that it’s nice to really have some time to celebrate.
“We tend to focus a lot on the negative and then that’s when we react,” she said. “Instead, let’s focus on the positive and reinforce that behavior and keep that going.”
Some of the links were generic or simple, Williams noted. But many were heartfelt messages about someone who went out of their way to be kind to another.
Williams said the students really took to the project and were always excited to tell her what nice things had been done to earn the links.
“It was kind of fun to see them get excited about it,” she said. “I’m really proud that they really took the effort.”
Although Rachel’s Challenge was a catalyst for the chain links, the motto of doing nice things for other people has been a motivator for Williams at L-BF.
For several years, she said, she has used the book “How Full is Your Bucket?” by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer to teach the students the value of being kind to other people.
The book describes how each person has an invisible bucket which can be filled with happiness and positivity. Negative interactions dip into the contents of the bucket. Williams uses this analogy to teach even the youngest students the value of kindness and being a “bucket filler” rather than a “bucket dipper.”
“I try to tell the kids, ‘Even though your bucket is really, really empty you can fill your bucket by saying nice things and doing nice things for other people,’” she said. “When you do nice things for others, you feel good. It’s a win-win.”
Williams said that conversations with the students, teachers and staff have provided anecdotes that the program has sparked encouragement for kindness and compassion that lasts for more than just a few hours after an assembly.
