Episode Details

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Elementary school principals issued a kindness challenge to her entire student body. Something started happening that likely changed lives forever. On this episode of the Supercast, here's the heartwarming story of how students rallied to meet the challenge and succeeded in a way that took kindness to a whole new level at the school. We are here at Eastlake Elementary School with Ms. Staley, to talk about the kindness challenge. Thanks for spending time with us here on the podcast.

Ms. Staley:
Thank you so much for letting me be here with some of my second graders. It's exciting.

Anthony Godfrey:
It is exciting. It's always a good day when I get to hang out with some second graders. Tell me a little bit about this project.

Ms. Staley:
Well, all year long our theme has been Color the World with Kindness. The library had came in one day and said we were having a kindness challenge where they would let the kids write down and nominate different children in the classroom for things that they saw happening where someone was being kind. And so that's where my class and all the other classes were able to do this every week. They could write someone new down. So just kind of like catching someone doing something kind.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what were the kind of responses that you received?

Ms. Staley:
Oh, well the library had told me, they said Ms. Staley's class had the most responses. They were amazed at how many people were nominating each other and writing nice things about each other.

Anthony Godfrey:
And do you think that asking students to engage in this way made them realize how much kindness there is around them that they may have overlooked before?

Ms. Staley:
Absolutely! The thing that I was noticing were extra acts of kindness being done in my classroom after the kindness challenge started. It's almost like was more on their brain. After they said, "Oh, have I been kind? Oh, who is being kind of me? What am I noticing?" You could see that it was kind of slowly sinking in with the kids in my class. It was amazing.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it really made everyone a little bit more intentional about being kind. It's about recognizing kindness in others.

Ms. Staley:
Absolutely. It really did. I know in my classroom, we've read a book. Do you guys want to tell Dr. Godfrey what the book was that we've read in our classroom?

Student:
It was called "Our Classroom is a Family".

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me your name and tell me about that book.

Student:
It's about how people are a family in a class and how they help each other and to help someone when they're down.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what's your name?

Student:
Isabella.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about reading the book, "Our Classroom is a Family".

Student:
Well, it kind of helps readers know that it's not nice to hit people or something like that and care for others because they won't help you when you need help. It's kinda like my sister. She doesn't really help me and I try to help her.

Anthony Godfrey:
And so now that you're thinking about kindness, do you keep trying to help her, even though she doesn't always help you?

Student:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
What's your name?

Student:
Ree