Monday, November 4, 2013

"Mix It Up At Lunch"

In an effort to encourage tolerance, Mrs. Tara Dickie has initiated several school activities where students build relationships.

Her most recent endeavor was called "Mix It Up at Lunch".  She, Mrs. Angela Hightower, Mrs. Leila Higginbottom and members of our Middle School Key Club organized activities for our students to do while sitting with students they might not necessarily sit with on a regular basis.  Our science teachers (Mrs. Misty Martin, Mrs. Chas Neal, Mrs. Tammie Caldwell and Mrs. Paula Jones) also aided in the project by allotting some of their class time for students to work on the project.

Mrs. Dickie asked the Mrs. Patricia Hinds and the High School Key Club to come over to our campus and help with the activities.

On October 29th our 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students demonstrated "extreme tolerance" while stepping out of their comfort zones and participating in the "Mix It Up at Lunch" activities. The results were remarkable.  Some comments I heard......."I had no idea people felt that way"......."I can't believe I'm not the only person who..."........."It's sad that people in our community go home hungry"......  I could list countless others.  What's so great is that those comments were not only from students, but any adults who witnessed the activities taking place.

Here is a picture of the wall the students created during the course of their lunch periods.



Mr. Carey Byers allowed one of his television students, Lucas Barber to capture footage of the activity. He tells me it will air on Caveman Radio Thursday, November 7th at 7 pm.  He is also sending a copy to the middle school which I plan on posting on our middle school website.

For more information about "Mix It Up Day" see the link below.

http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-44-summer-2013/feature/how-will-you-mix-it-2013

If you see any of the people listed above, give them a word of encouragement for all they did to make this day possible.  I think it was a very successful event.