Ahmir: Being Proactive

Proactive project

So we are doing Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective people with our middle schoolers. The guidance councelor at our school came in and did a GREAt presentation on Habit 1: Being Proactive. His presentation didn't take as long as he thought and I had this awkward amount of time after that I couldn't really begin our next lesson, sooooo I came up with a pretty awesome follow up. I showed AHMIR's cover of "Perfect" by Pink, which they have turned into an amazing anti-bullying video (

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gliHyklHr6c

). After I showed the video to my students I had them write them letters saying the following: 1) thank you for being proactive (because obviously they are not in middle school any more and didn't NEED to do this, but they took the time to show kids that they are not alone and it DOES get better). 2) How they are going to be proactive, both in school and in life. A bunch of my students said "Ms. D, they aren't going to write back to us, they don't really care," so I challenged them. I told them that it was extra credit if they turned it in, and nothing if they didn't. I told another Social Studies teacher down the hall what we had done and his classes joined in too. I organized them all by periods, with labels of grade level, and which class they were from (just like any other hyper-organized teacher) and sent them off!! A while later we got a package in the mail. I was so excited and when I opened it I just found a few posters signed with personalized notes, and MY PACKAGE, still organized! I was so confused. I didn't want my kids letters back, and these posters weren't enough for everyone. I thought, "a simple one big letter back would have been fine". Then I looked again, only to find that they had written on EACH AND EVERY letter! So, when I challenged my kids, I thought it'd be a small payback, but WOW did I prove tthem wrong about them not writing back or not caring! GO AHMIR! My kids loved them! instead of a normal thank you letter, I designed out a poster with a Dr. Suess quote on it that I LOVE and had the kids sign it! By signing it, they were agreeing to be proactive, to not be the bully, and to be who they are! Needless to say it was a great lesson with LOTS of impact!