Positive Action Curriculum leads to Kindness Week at AMS
According to Jenny Wilkins, Abilene Middle School
Counselor, the Positive Action curriculum has been a great thing for our
school. “One of the best things about it, in my opinion, is that it gives us
all a similar language to use with our kids,” she said.
Ron Wilson, AMS principal, Mrs. Wilkins and the rest of
the staff use positive action messages to communicate with students
individually — using the thoughts-actions-feelings cycle to talk to them about
their choices, what led to those choices, and how they felt afterward. “This
helps them think about how they can make better and more positive choices about
their actions in the future,” Mrs. Wilkins added.
The positive action theme was also the focus of Kindness
Week last semester. During that week Mrs. Wilkins visited classrooms, talking
to all of the students about kindness, empathy, and the effect actions can have
on others. She explained, “I read a book about the impact of kindness (or lack
thereof) and had the kids identify that the characters in a negative
thoughts-actions-feelings cycle not only made them feel negative, but impacted
others around them in a negative way as well. We talked about how they could
have made positive choices and the benefits of making kind choices for all
involved.” Students were also engaged in games and role-playing scenarios, and
discussed how to make their school a positive place to learn and grow. Mrs.
Wilkins also added, “We worked together, as class teams, to develop a contract
for what we want in our ‘Perfect AMS’.” And, the project went viral when the
Longhorn Leaders, a leadership group at AMS, organized a Lip Dub to Taylor
Swift’s song “Shake It Off.”
The efforts of the Abilene Middle School staff are
helping empower students to take control of their actions and surroundings in a
positive way. These are lessons that they are sharing with others and that will
help them throughout life.
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