Students from Charles Campagne Elementary School kicked off Kindness Week on Feb. 12 with an engaging assembly program that focused on building a positive school community. Presenters Dr. Nancy Kaplan and Lamar Lee from Lee Legacy visited students in the school’s multipurpose room to highlight the importance of community, diversity, and inclusion.
Dr. Kaplan and Mr. Lee shared their backgrounds with the students and spoke about how they visit schools and professional athletic organizations around the country to discuss what makes a great community. During the presentation, Charles Campagne students learned about what a community is and discussed what kindness means.
Dr. Kaplan led the classes in an activity in which each student and teacher received a piece of paper. They were all instructed to close their eyes and make specific folds and rips in their paper. Upon opening their eyes and seeing how each paper looked, students realized that although they all followed the same instructions, no two papers were exactly alike.
“Your paper is almost like us as people,” Dr. Kaplan said. “We’re all different and everyone is beautiful.”
Students learned that as people, we tend to look for others who look like us. Dr. Kaplan and Mr. Lamar highlighted the importance of diversity and embracing what makes us different and unique. In addition, Mr. Lamar spoke about inclusion and students helped provide examples such as helping one another and including someone in a game at recess.
“If you are known as a person who smiles and who uplifts someone and brightens their day, the people that see you remember that for the rest of their life,” he told students. “They see you in a positive light.”
At the conclusion of the assembly, the students were inspired to be upstanding members of the Charles Campagne school community.
