Week at LVMS
February 16-19, 2021
Students viewed Matt Wilhelm virtual presentation during
Random Act of Kindness Week.
About the presenter:
Matt Wilhelm is a BMX Flatland rider and motivational speaker. He is known for his fast spinning and aggressive riding style. He is a three-time X Games Medalist, World Championship Silver Medalist, two-time United States National Champion, and Guinness World Record Holder. Among other television appearances Matt advanced to the semi-finals on America’s Got Talent. He also won America’s Got Talent YouTube Competition, and won FOX TV’s 30 Seconds to Fame. Wilhelm is also a motivational speaker and performs at over 300 schools per year. He was featured in the award winning documentary Stop Bullying: Speak UP with President Obama.
All students who completed an exit ticket following the virtual presentation were entered into a raffle to win a prize!
Please join us in spreading this message of kindness outside of school as well.
Making Caring Common (MCC), a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, researches and develops effective strategies for promoting kindness and caring in our youth. Here are five strategies researchers at MCC suggest will encourage kindness in youth:
- Make caring for others a priority. “Children need to learn to balance their needs with the needs of others. Children need to hear from parents that caring for others is a top priority.”
- Provide opportunities for children to practice caring and gratitude. “Daily repetition – whether it’s helping a friend with homework, pitching in around the house, or having a classroom job – make caring second nature and develop and hone youth’s caregiving capacities.”
- Expand your child’s circle of concern. “Children need to learn to zoom in, by listening closely and attending to those in their immediate circle, and to zoom out, by taking in the big picture and considering the many perspectives of the people they interact with daily, including those who are vulnerable.”
- Be a strong moral role model and mentor. “For our children to respect and trust us, we need to acknowledge our mistakes and flaws. We also need to respect children’s thinking and listen to their perspectives, demonstrating to them how we want them to engage others.”
- Guide children in managing destructive feelings. We should “teach children that all feelings are okay, but some ways of dealing with them are not helpful. Children need our help learning to cope with these feelings in productive ways.”