I’ve heard stories about terrible happenings such as bullying, racism, and all those terrible things that happen at school. I have always been so oblivious to those things because at school I’m never around that but it really is an eye opener when you hear that people are really suffering at…
Don’t forget to wear pink tomorrow (April 10) to show support for anti-bullying efforts.
http://icanstandforsomething.tumblr.com/post/47367749217/day-of-pink3
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My school is doing a huge anti-bullying thing right now, which is awesome but somewhat confusing for first graders. Suddenly even the smallest offense brings cries of, “S/he’s bullying me!”
So this week I’m doing a lesson a day on what bullying means and how to determine if what you are dealing with is a “small” problem (and how to handle those) or a “tell an adult” problem, etc. Today I wrote “A bully” on chart paper and asked the class to suggest sentences to define “bully”. The first suggestion was “a bully hurts others.” So I wrote that, then did a little play acting. “Wait…Aidan, you accidentally tripped Taylor this morning and he got hurt. Does that mean you’re a bully?” Well of course this was met with dismay and denial, so we added “deliberately”, and they insisted that I add something about how “hurt” could mean “your body or your feelings”, so we did a little vocabulary lesson and threw that in.
“But wait! When I was a kid, I sometimes got really mad at my sister and well… I maybe hurt her feelings on purpose…” My students saw where I was going with that immediately and wanted another revision, that a bully hurts others over and over again (and I did a little dance inside, because that was the big takeaway I wanted from this lesson). Finally, one student brought up the idea that bullies want to make you afraid (this probably came from a lesson that the school counselor did a while back), and that was voted in as the final revision.
And these are first graders! I’m so proud. They really knew a lot more than they thought they did. They just had to stop and really think about it. We will keep this chart up for a while and refer to it a lot over the next few weeks, I’m sure.
Don’t forget to wear pink tomorrow (April 10) to show support for anti-bullying efforts.
http://icanstandforsomething.tumblr.com/post/47367749217/day-of-pink3
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“Born this way” has taken on many connotations over the past year. It is a blog with childhood stories of LGBTQ people. It is the name of Lady Gaga’s album. These popular messages have given many people a sense of empowerment—it’s okay to be who we are, and we should love ourselves. I would not call this kind of self-love “narcissism,” but rather, I would call “born this way” a form celebration of each individual.
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“Born this way” has taken on many connotations over the past year. It is a blog with childhood stories of LGBTQ people. It is the name of Lady Gaga’s album. These popular messages have given many people a sense of empowerment—it’s okay to be who we are, and we should love ourselves. I would not call this kind of self-love “narcissism,” but rather, I would call “born this way” a form celebration of each individual.
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All kinds of couples should be able to marry under U.S. law, and these couples should be provided with benefits equal to those that heterosexual couple currently have. Love is love, and commitment is commitment.
(I believe this post represents more people than my last one!)
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All couples should be able to marry under U.S. law, and these couples should be provided with benefits equal to those that heterosexual couple currently have. Love is love, and commitment is commitment.
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This is a simplified version of what I will make and post in a few minutes. Not everybody is represented here!
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Adoption is the most loving act of kindness that you can show an animal. Don’t buy from breeders.
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Did you know that some breeds of dogs have been so in-bred that they can suffer from specific medical problems because of their genetics? For example, bulldogs have trouble breathing and can suffer from severe sleep apnea. The surgery to correct these problems is dangerous because of their small snouts. Additionally, large breeds of dogs can suffer from hip and joint problems.
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Who says a mutt can’t be as beautiful as a pure-bred? Maybe we should re-define “beauty.”
