I recited this poem that I wrote about P.I.N.K. Shirt Day at an assembly a few years ago:
This story begins
with a once upon a time (2007)
A boy in Nova Scotia
wore a pink shirt in grade 9
This boy was bullied
for the shirt that he wore.
So some older students
went off to the store
David Sheppard and Travis Price
bought 50 pink tanks
And handed them out
Not looking for thanks
But wanting to stand up
to the bullies-at-work.
They fought back together,
Wearing pink shirts
Uniting against
mean acting ways
Has turned into this
Anti-Bullying Day
Now we join together,
As a whole school
To show that we know
Bullying isn’t cool.
We promote acts of goodness
and ways we can find
to be:
Positive, Inclusive
Nurturing and Kind
We’ve taken a colour
and made it mean more.
With the values our school
can stand proudly for.
With thanks to the entire
RS360 team.
Who work to make reality
out of a dream.
On the last Wednesday of February
we celebrate,
The vision and values of
Pink Shirt Day.
But if you look around the school,
and listen and think.
Every day can be
one that’s P.I.N.K.
******************************************************************************
This all began for me when I was sent for training with Stan Davis of Stop Bullying Now in 2012. There was a real bullying problem at our school, and I was asked to work with our vice principal to address the issue. While I was in Maine at the conference, I created the vision of the RS360 and a plan for implementation. It was going to become the student arm of the Respectful School Initiative: a committee of parents, teachers and administrators that were working together to help address the bullying issue at our school. This would be a way to use student leadership to help create a culture of kindness.
As the Student Council Advisor, I was already creating leadership opportunities for students, and I was very excited to develop roles around this important theme. I was looking at a circle when it came to me; I had to address all aspects of school life to embed this in our culture. That is why I called it the RS360- it would be a full circle approach to promoting respect and inclusion among the school community.
The RS360 is the umbrella for three committees- Fun Budz, Lunch Bunch and RSA’s . The Fun Budz sign up to run recess activities for students in SK-4, the Lunch Bunch eat lunch in classrooms of students from Nursery to Grade 3 and are tasked with leading cooperative games, peer tutoring or just hanging out and building relationships. The RSA’s meet with me weekly to plan bi-monthly lessons related to respect and inclusion that they would teach to JK-Grade 5 students and I would cover the lessons for the Middle School. The training always culminated in vest decorating as all RS360 members had to be identifiable with their personalized vests complemented by the school and RS360 logo ironed on.
Just before that first Pink Shirt Day, I decided that it needed to mean more than a colour and a great story about two students from out east standing up for a Grade 9 student. I was working on a poster when the acronym came to me P.I.N.K. = Positive, Inclusive, Nurturing and Kind. I even recall not choosing nice, but that is a conversation and blogpost for another day. Over time, it really stuck at our school. I have shared that acronym with many educators because it really resonates. There wasn't a student at the school that didn't know what that acronym means. At the school, students even described themselves as P.I.N.K.
In our first year of the RS360, we had a contest for a song and logo. We had so many entries that we made it into RS Idol (American Idol was very popular at the time) to determine the winner. The judges, I was among them, couldn’t decide on a clear winner as each entry had it’s own unique ideas, so we agreed to a tie. I worked with the team of songwriters (5 students from Grade 4-8) to collaborate on the lyrics to their chosen tune of Imagine by John Lennon. We rehearsed and recorded with a professional musician. The winning logo design was a combination of a little red school house that alluded to our community of learners submitted by a Grade 6 student surrounded by a group of school children created by a Grade 2 student. It is a simple logo that says so much. I just loved watching and supporting the entire process of recording this song and making this video with my students:
Over the years that I ran the RS360 and Student Council, we had different thrusts initiated by the RSA’s and led by the Student Council's elected president. Our first focus was empathy. Then focused on Random Acts of Kindness, recognizing students throughout the school in monthly ceremonies and through a display board. Then, we focused on building self-esteem with our You Are Awesome Campaign (YAA) and The Corridor of Awesomeness full of uplifting quotes and a place of solace to pick a person up if they are feeling low in their day. We also dedicated a year to building digital citizenship, and started Passport LB: your ticket to the real and digital world. We taught the ABC’s of digital citizenship, online safety and privacy, the pros and cons of gaming, digital tattoos and much more. Working with the RSA’s and writing lesson plans that they rehearsed to follow was one of the most rewarding thingsI have ever done. We learned so much from each other.
Through a proactive approach, collaboration with all the stakeholders, and reflection for learning, the Respectful School Initiative and the student arm, the RS360, we evolved our offering and addressed the bullying issue. Through student leadership and by developing new policies and a behaviour plan to handle peer aggression and prevent bullying, we made a huge dent in the problem. While it still happens, the real cases of bullying were fewer, and we had the data to prove it. This positively impacted the mental heath and well-being of our students and was a key component of the leadership culture on our school.
The RS360 really is a full circle approach, and it is something I am missing very much right now. Building the RS360 and making kindness a part of culture is something I share in workshops and promote in the schools where I work. Being able to create and lead that change with students is one of the highlights of my career. Pink Shirt Day is one day, but being Positive, Inclusive, Nurturing and Kind is more than a day; it's a state-of-mind.