At our past PTA Meeting, we discussed bullying and the Art of Kindness Campaign against bullying.

Our speaker was Laurie Hobbie. Mrs. Hobbie had many things to say including: Many students hopes and dreams are destroyed in the public education system because of bullying. 1 in 4 students enters school with some sort of trauma. “Kindness must be taught and practiced to become a cultural norm.” Teachers say that kids do not understand kindness because it is such an overused term. They want to create a culture where kindness is normal and bullying stands out.

“If you can be anything in the world be kind.” Our speaker developed kindness curriculum for use in over 82 schools in Austin. Our next speaker was Amen, who is a former Canyon Vista student who heads the curriculum research and development for the Kindness Campaign. She is an ethnic minority in CVMS but she never felt bullied in Canyon Vista. She loves CVMS and she knows how wonderful our school was to her and to the rest of the students.

Amen told a story about CVMS bringing every student in and told everyone that a new Muslim student would be coming to CVMS, and they told everyone that bullying would not be tolerated and that she would always feel welcome.

In the words of our speakers, creativity heals us as individuals. Art helps with communication and sharing emotions that we might not otherwise know about. Kindness brings beauty to our communities and environment. Victims develop resilience and bullies develop self-awareness and feel less inclined to put other people down. This is what the Art Of Kindness Campaign was developed for.

If you take a pledge at tckindness.org you will get monthly updates on how people introduce kindness into your community. #artofkindness and go follow at @tkckindness.

In other news, we have the eighth grade Formal, and the May meeting is Tuesday, May 8^th global fest.