Heritage Middle School students listened intently during an anti-bullying assembly, Tuesday, September 26, where they were inspired to make a difference through kindness.
The speaker, Carolyn Brown who speaks to more than 35,000 students each year across the country, shared her own personal experiences during the assembly, including how at a young age, she, too, was bullied. She shared story after story that exemplified how she took that experience and turned it into positivity and kindness toward others.
“If your friend is making a poor choice, it’s up to us to say ‘stop what you’re doing,’ but what if that person is not our friend or if I tell you to report it? You might think, ‘Ms. Brown, that’s not going to happen,’ there is still a way that you can make a difference.
“You be the person who goes up to them after they leave and says ‘what did you do this weekend’ or ‘hey want to come over here and sit with us?’ Or, at the very least, say ‘hey, those words that they said, were not true.’”
In one instance she recalls seeing a fellow classmate crying at school. Brown, who by now knew that kindness makes a difference, asked the student if she could sit alongside her. After the student shook her head in a ‘yes’ manner, Brown then asked the classmate whether she wanted to talk. The answer was ‘no,’ so Brown simply sat with the student and years later at a class reunion, the then-student, now an adult, thanked her for that act of kindness.
Brown shared many other examples, either that occurred to her or others. Her approach was to express kindness, whether it be sitting with them at lunch or sharing kind words.
The assembly was presented to parents at the school that same evening and made possible by the HMS PTA. Brown is an honorary lifetime member of the Texas PTA and a recipient of the National PTA lifetime achievement award.
In closing, Brown left the students with one final thought, “These actions didn’t cost me anything. It was the tiniest choices I barely remember and they gave somebody hope, and I see your generation giving each other hope every day. I see you all make choices and are intentional to each other. You are making a difference.”
As a district, GCISD joins the anti-bullying effort and invites students and staff to wear blue and boots on Monday, October 2, for World Day of Bullying Prevention.