The Montessori Academy at Onesimo Hernandez Elementary School started a “Kindness Week” project that will continue throughout the year.
In school, students study the “3 Rs”: reading, writing, and arithmetic. At the Montessori Academy at Onesimo Hernandez Elementary School, students are practicing something else they’ll need throughout their lives.
“We’re working on kindness,” teacher Cristina Callau said. “I would love them to be kind to one another and to be good citizens, right? Because it’s important that they know how to treat people.”
In Callau’s 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-grade classes, students turn their kind thoughts into kind words on slips of blue paper that they fold and put in a bucket to read at the end of each day.
“Can I read it?” 3rd grader Gabriel asked, unfolding the note he wrote for his sister and classmate, 2nd grader Ariel. “Dear Ariel, thank you for being my sister. I know that we fight a lot, but I know that our mom loves us as much as we love each other.”
The kindness campaign started school-wide last week, with students putting post-it notes of kind words onto a hallway display.
“Because not everybody is nice to each other,” school counselor Amanda Edwards said. “We walk by people on the street; you don’t say hello.”
Edwards said the school has bought into the kindness campaign so wholeheartedly, they’re going to continue it through the school year.
“It just will truly brighten someone’s day without even knowing it,” Edwards said. “So I think it’s really important to continue that.”
“Because other people feel good whenever you say something nice to them,” 3rd grader Joselyn said. “It teaches you how to be nice to others and not be mean.”
