Waynesboro school responds to bullying: ‘Kindness Challenge’

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Schools traditionally spend this time acknowledging that bullying has devastating effects on children and families such as school avoidance, loss of self-esteem, increased anxiety, and depression.

With the added challenge of having to re-teach social skills that have been hindered due to the pandemic, Wenonah Elementary staff decided to not only teach their students the negative effects of bullying, but to also teach kindness.

They are participating in what they call a “Kindness Challenge.” The “Kindness Challenge” started in October, but will be an ongoing project for Wenonah students and staff.

The kickoff to the challenge was the school’s participation in One School, One Book. Every staff member (instructional staff, custodians, cafeteria and bus drivers) and student families received a copy of the book The World According to Humphrey, and the Wenonah community read the book together.

“In our One School, One Book read aloud, Humphrey learns a lot about kindness and empathy in his adventures with students. We have spent some time at school explicitly teaching acts of kindness these last two weeks of October. Starting in November, we are going to challenge students and staff to take what they learned from Humphrey and at school to complete acts of kindness,” said Abby Arey, the principal at Wenonah Elementary.

Wenonah staff plan to further challenge students by giving them “Good Deeds of the Day,” ideas and real-life examples of what kindness looks like.

In addition, every student has a Kindness Bingo Card. On the bingo card students are challenged to complete various acts of kindness, such as create an anti-bullying poster to be displayed in the school hallways or to thank a cafeteria person.

Students will also participate in a Kindness Chain. Each act of kindness a student completes earns a link on the school chain. The goal is that from November-May, the chain makes it all the way around our school.

“Due to COVID, students spent a lot of time away from one another. This has been a great opportunity to re-teach students how to re-engage with one another. It has been really sweet to see the changes in their behaviors,” Arey said.