By: Tim Culver
Last week during my visit to Meadowview Elementary School I had the privilege of observing their first ever “Friendsgiving”. As a strategy to increase student engagement, the school has implemented a ‘buddy program’ matching cross grade level classes in relationships-building activities across ages and the school. I saw several examples of these lovely interactions. The 3rd to 5th grade matchups experienced an activity Friday where families brought in food representing their very diverse heritage or backgrounds and buddies shared a meal. From latkes to pad thai to tamales...what greater way is there to build bonds than sharing one’s story over a meal; and it showed in their faces! My first thoughts connected this to traditions surrounding Thanksgiving and the power of sharing meals to build relationships with families, friends and others. My second thought was how our teachers and students show us a way forward in times like these when there's so much divisiveness in the broader national sphere of politics.
At moments like this, it is a privilege to be an educator and school leader. Our children are indeed the hope for our future; their minds and souls innately curious and loving. Our role as educators is to help them remain this way. We must strive to ensure that our children are prepared to do better and that they feel safe and hopeful as our society strives to increase understanding, compassion and coming together after a divisive campaign earlier this school year. Everyone, students and adults, returned to school after the election with widely different reactions and emotions and yet, were expected to recommit to their community, their friends, their colleagues — and to continue to work and sit side by side with each other in classes, at lunch and on the athletic fields. I am proud to say that in Oak Creek-Franklin schools I observed our core value of respect and integrity. So many examples of people working to ensure that each student, family and employee is able to be fully who they are, and in so doing, exhibiting a commitment to kindness, understanding, and community.
Times of change are rich fields for real life learning and growth and it is incumbent upon schools to capitalize on this and also model the high road: that we continue to insist that our students learn to respect others whose opinions and beliefs may be different than their own because we know that meaningful, respectful dialogue and activities build character and help our students understand the strength of our democracy.
Our mission statement begins with the words, “working together”. To work together, we have to find ways to come together. I am thankful for the opportunity we have to do this - parents, community members, students, teachers, support staff all striving to make a positive difference in the lives of our children and therefore our future. I hope your Thanksgiving break is as full of the happiness, bonding and hope I saw among the 3rd and 5th graders at “Friendsgiving”. Let’s hope this custom becomes more and more common throughout our community.