Steinert High School students Yasmine Abed, Hope Sopko, Taylor Thorton, Ben Espenhorst, Kaelyn Wyckhoff, Melissa Fisher and Sara Dendler and teacher Nicole Kasian Caruso display a few of the thousands of Kindness Chain links produced by the Steinert community during the school’s Kindness Week. (Staff photo by Rob Anthes.)
Crockett Middle School and Steinert High School show a little kindness can go a long way
When their table received only a handful of visitors, members of Steinert High School’s
worried their idea may flop. They had hoped the set-up at April 10’s Mr. SHS event would introduce the school to the FOR Club’s big project, a series of five school days called “Kindness Week.” Set for April 21-25, Kindness Week took inspiration from a program called
, itself inspired by the life and writings of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. Scott, in a journal entry, wrote, “I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go.” The centerpiece of Kindness Week was to be a chain made from links of construction paper, each link inscribed with some positive thought or action. The chain would serve as a physical symbol of Scott’s philosophy, which FOR Clubs across the world make it their task to put into action. At first, many at Steinert High seemed confused because the school had never attempted a “Kindness Chain” before, said FOR Club adviser Nicole Caruso, a history teacher. And some of those who did understand received the idea with skepticism. “It started out with, ‘What’s the point of Kindness Week? No one’s going to be kind,’” FOR Club member Sara Dendler said. But the 14 students in Stew Morgan’s first period graphic arts class did more than understand or tolerate the concept. They embraced it. Morgan’s students, most of whom are on the autism spectrum, dutifully generated hundreds of links for the Kindness Chain each day. Buoyed by Morgan’s students, Kindness Week didn’t fail. It flourished. By the end of the week, students said, the mood in the school had changed. People exchanged pleasantries in the hallways, or held doors for one another. They thanked teachers for inspiring them, or planned out ways to help those in need. One student hatched a plan to develop an art and music studio for special needs students. The Steinert community accepted the challenge laid down by Morgan’s class. A friendly competition also sprang up to see which class could generate the most Kindness Chain links. (Lacey Smith’s German III class won in the end.) The FOR Club couldn’t keep up with the number of links coming in, and ran out of places to store them. Caruso kept some in her classroom, stacked on shelves and desks, until they became an obstacle she had to teach around, quite literally. “At one point, it was overwhelming the room,” Caruso said. The student body at Steinert contributed more than 17,000 links to the chain, enough to stretch for a mile. The FOR Club spent hours a day for weeks assembling paper chains, and ran out of walls to hang them. The spares found a home in a heap at the center of an art room. It was hard to ignore the paper chains—they were hung all over the school, after all. But the point of the chains—that each link represented someone doing something to improve their world—wasn’t lost amid the hubbub surrounding slivers of construction paper. And members of the FOR Club said the week couldn’t have been such a success without Morgan’s students acting as trendsetters. The number of links completed each day skyrocketed once people saw completed links and word spread about what Morgan’s students had been doing. And it snowballed until nearly everyone at Steinert had bought into Kindness Week. “Kids saw how they approached the program, and what they did with it,” said Kaelyn Wyckoff, a FOR Club member. “People took it seriously when they saw others were taking it seriously.” Morgan based an entire week of classes on Kindness Week, starting each class by discussing the theme for the day. Each day of Kindness Week had its own theme, and the topic dictated what students should write on their paper links. Subjects ranged from role models to inspirational quotes to positive actions students planned to take. Morgan’s students would brainstorm how the theme applied to them, and share their ideas. Morgan required each student to offer at least one idea for a link, but the students often filled a large whiteboard with ideas in just a few minutes. From there, the students would share the work. The ones who can write quickly and clearly would copy the ideas from the board onto the paper links. Other students were tasked with stapling the paper into a link and making the chain. A student named Doug would then pull the chain out of the classroom and into the hall, so there would be room to make more links. Morgan’s students worked on their own chains, hoping its act of kindness would ease the burden on the students in the FOR Club. “We put out a challenge,” said Sarah, one of the students in the class. A month after Kindness Week, Morgan’s students said they still were reflecting on its themes. One student, Alex, memorized the story of Rachel Joy Scott, and drew comparisons between Scott and Anne Frank, whose diary during World War II became the book
The Diary of a Young Girl
. Alex also kept a notebook of his favorite ideas from the week, quotes that encouraged him to be accepting of others and assured him he deserves respect as much as anyone else. He said the week taught him plenty of lessons, such as, “It’s OK to offer everyone you pass a friendly hello, unless you are in an unfriendly neighborhood.” Another student, Jimmy, said Rachel’s Challenge made him think about ills like war and racism, and strengthened his resolve to treat everyone kindly. “We will help out, and try to make her challenge grow,” Jimmy said. FOR Club members said even they have noticed the attitudes Kindness Week created have survived beyond the event. Caruso pointed to the fact that no vandalism has occurred to the chains, despite being an easy and enticing target. Students said school seems a less dreary place to be. “It really brought out the best in everyone,” FOR Club member Ben Espenhorst said. “Nobody was forced to do anything. You got what you put in.” Students at Crockett Middle School have become familiar with the atmosphere fostered by the program, having worked with Rachel’s Challenge for the past three school years. At Crockett, the kindness chain isn’t a one-week special event; it’s a year-long school project. Under the guidance of faculty members Barbara Constantino and Sue Niedrach, Crockett students make links once a week. Every Friday, a club called Bully Free Friends collects the links, and puts them together. Crockett students had contributed 6,300 links for the 2013-14 school year, as of May 8. Students also try to act as role models for others. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, students did acts of kindness for staff members, things like putting a snack or a bottle of water in their school mailboxes. The success of the program at Crockett convinced Steinert High to adopt it this year. The partnership between Crockett and Steinert, as well as their proximity to one another, made the connection of the schools’ chains a natural idea. In late June—should plans pan out—students at Crockett Middle School and Steinert High School will span the distance between them with their paper chains. Advisers at the schools had hoped to run each school’s chain along a stretch of Klockner Road in the direction of the other, connecting the chains where they met. The logistics of closing roads may make that vision unlikely now, but some sort of dual-school event is in the works. The original idea was for each school’s chain to travel exactly one-half mile, linking of the chains halfway between Crockett and Steinert. The enthusiasm of students, like those in Stew Morgan’s class, means even more is possible. “I think we’ll be able to go a lot further then we figured,” Constantino said.
Steinert High School students Yasmine Abed, Hope Sopko, Taylor Thorton, Ben Espenhorst, Kaelyn Wyckhoff, Melissa Fisher and Sara Dendler and teacher Nicole Kasian Caruso display a few of the thousands of Kindness Chain links produced by the Steinert community during the school’s Kindness Week. (Staff photo by Rob Anthes.),
