West Seattle schools: Madison MS launching ‘Choose Kind’

(Trailer for “Finding Kind,” one of the films to be shown at Madison)
A new campaign to “motivate kids to spread kindness” is launching at Madison Middle School. While the announcement includes a message for parents, it’s of interest to, with a potential impact on, the wider community as well. From Madison librarian/teacher Stacia Bell:

We are very excited to announce that, during the week of December 7th-11th, Madison Middle School will launch the start of its Choose Kind campaign, an endeavor to educate and inform students on various aspects of harassment, intimidation, and bullying (HIB) and motivate kids to spread kindness to improve our school climate and increase student achievement. Throughout the week, teachers will introduce the Choose Kind campaign and conduct lessons on HIB in advisory. These lessons will lead us into a documentary film viewing on Friday of that week. Female students will watch the film “Finding Kind,” while male students will watch age-appropriate excerpts from two films — “Bully” and “The Mask You Live In.” Thank you to the Madison ASB and PTSA for making this viewing opportunity possible for Madison students and families by purchasing the site licenses for our school.

We would like to invite Madison parents/guardians to an advance screening of these films on Wednesday, December 9th from 6:30-8:30 in the Madison library and commons. This advance screening will not only give you an idea of what your child will be watching on Friday, but it will also help you start or keep the conversation going with your student. We’ll break into two groups to watch the films (parents/guardians can choose which film they’d like to watch) and then end with a moderated discussion to debrief the films. Parents/guardians only for this advance screening, please. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Anita Roberson at abroberson@seattleschools.org so that we can plan accordingly.

Our hope is that educating around these issues will spark a larger conversation around empathy, self-advocacy, and mindfulness that will continue beyond this week.

Kathy December 3, 2015 (11:37 am)

This is refreshing news. Congratulations on leading the way to help kids work together to develop empathy, compassion and tolerance. A hopeful step out of the incessant pounding of a culture of violence that kids are exposed to.

SLJ December 3, 2015 (12:22 pm)

This idea is great. Buy why two different films for boys and girls? That seems like a step back. Maybe everyone should see both films.

WSB December 3, 2015 (12:28 pm)

I wondered about that on first reading, but if you look at the trailers for the three films in question – they address gender-specific issues.

miws December 3, 2015 (2:48 pm)

What a great idea.

I’d love to see this at the Elementary as well, and maybe even at every level of K-12 in some fashion. It’s never too early to teach simple kindness, and it really can’t be repeated enough, as kids mature and evolve throughout their school career.

Mike

Curate December 3, 2015 (4:13 pm)

What if our child doesn’t attend Madison? Will there be other opportunities/viewings for the public that aren’t adult-only?

Madison Mom December 3, 2015 (6:30 pm)

Madison rocks! We are so lucky to have the fabulous Stacia Bell and a proactive administration.

Alice December 3, 2015 (6:58 pm)

Love this. Thank you!

Bsmomma December 3, 2015 (7:48 pm)

This NEEDS to be in the elementary schools too!!! We had had such big issues with girls being outright nasty to each other! Finding Kind is AWESOME!! The Girl Scouts had a showing of this. Not a dry eye in the room. I would love to see the girls come to the schools. I really can’t say enough good things about the film/project.

935 December 3, 2015 (7:50 pm)

MIWS, elementary IS the entry level of K-12

935 December 3, 2015 (8:24 pm)

MIWS, elementary *is* part of K-12

miws December 4, 2015 (7:25 am)

935, Huh?

Mike

seattleteenblog December 7, 2015 (11:39 am)

We hosted a community viewing of Finding Kind November 2014. If there is enough interest, we would be happy to work with Indie Films to do a West Seattle community showing of Finding Kind in the Spring and open it up to all West Seattle families.

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