Our mission is to learn more about the benefits of kindness. We have noticed many acts of kindness around Trottier. We also want to learn more about how to boost student’s confidence when coming to school and encourage more friendliness and care among our community here at Trottier.
Research shows that kindness does have beneficial effects on people. Kindness can easily be spread online, but when ihn person, it can be harder to show kindness through actions and words. With everything going on outside of people’s school lives, we want students to feel even more optimistic when arriving at school.
We started off by asking teachers what they notice in their own classrooms. We visited Mrs. Jenks, who teaches both 7th and 8th grade, and Mrs. Amichetti, who is new to Trottier, and teaches 6th grade. According to Mrs. Jenks, from a teacher’s perspective, seeing kindness around Trottier can make not only the students’ days but also the teacher’s. We both agreed that leaders in a classroom do not always have to be the loudest ones but can be anyone. Mrs. Jenks pointed out, “Kindness doesn’t have to be a whole big thing, it can be a smaller action.”
Next we visited Mrs. Amichetti who teaches in the 6th grade. As a new teacher to Trottier, Mrs. Amichetti noticed that Trottier was super welcoming. Both Mrs. Jenks and Mrs. Amichetti agreed that Trottier has a positive community. A strong point that Mrs. Amichetti mentioned, “What humans want is to feel like they belong.”
We think that everyone could be able to relate to this in a way.
After our interviews with Mrs. Jenks and Mrs. Amichetti, we re-evaluated that kindness has multiple ways of affecting kids and teachers in school and that we can always lift up the school spirit with as little as a nice compliment or a thank you. You can also see how a little kindness can make a big difference.
Kim Montague • Nov 30, 2023 at 9:54 am
Madison, Cara and Rachel,
I enjoyed reading your article. I agree with Mrs. Jenks that even small acts of kindness can have a huge impact on a person or a group.
-Mrs. Montague