Holiday Wish List For Students at SRHS

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This article will appear int he December edition of the student newspaper the Sanborn Voice:

In the spirit of the holiday season of giving, I am offering all of you my “wish list” of items that I would like to see for Sanborn Regional High School. You’ll notice that none of these items actually cost money – the true meaning of the holidays isn’t necessarily about spending money on each other, but there are lots of ways that we can still give to each other. Here are a few:

1. I’d like each of you to practice one random act of kindness to a peer or staff member. How cool would it be to pass through the lunch line and discover that the student in front of you bought you your lunch for the day? Wouldn’t it be nice to get a card from a classmate with five positive things about you written on the card? I’ll bet a teacher would be thrilled to take you up on an offer to clean their white board for them before class starts. Random acts of kindness remind all of us about the simple joys in life, and kindness can be infectious.

2. The next time you see someone treating another poorly, stand up and say something! All too often, we watch people being mean to each other and yet we don’t have the courage to call them out on their behavior. Why is that? I challenge each of you to put a stop to bullying as soon as you see it starting. If we work together, we can put an end to this right away.

3. Each day, try to do one small thing to help beautify our school campus. Did you know that when I give school tours to outsiders they are so impressed by the level of cleanliness and care that all of you take with our building? They often can’t believe we have been in this place for seven years because it still looks brand-new. We will continue to impress visitors with our facility if you can all help do your part to keep our school looking great.  If you see a piece of garbage on the ground or left on a cafeteria table, please pick it up and throw it out. If you see acts of school vandalism, report them to the office right away. These small things will help keep our school beautiful and allow our facilities staff to focus on bigger issues.

4. Share your good news with us! Our school wants to know when you get a scholarship or award. We want to know when you get a promotion at work or you land a starting position on your club or school athletic team. We want to know when you will be performing in an upcoming dance recital or when you complete a community service project. You never know what might be considered “newsworthy”. For those of you who don’t want to “toot your own horn”, I challenge you to toot your friend’s horn on their behalf. Maybe this success story will make it to our Facebook newsfeed or run in our weekly online newsletter. Maybe it will run on our cafeteria newsfeed or be a feature article in the school newspaper. I’d like to see us spend more time celebrating all of the good things that happen in our school rather than focusing on the things that aren’t happening.

5. Last but not least, consider participating in a community service activity or program. We have formal several service organizations such as National Honor Society, Student Council, and Key Club, but you don’t need to be a member of these groups to do community service. When the Student Council ran their “12 Days of Caring” program, how many of you brought in a donation? When the Kingston police needed volunteers to help build bikes for the Toys for Tots Program, did you offer to lend a hand? Giving back to your community can be one of the most intrinsically rewarding things you will ever do, and I challenge each of you to look for ways to do this more often.

There you have it, these are my five “wish list” items for the holidays. I hope each of you will consider giving these gifts on a regular basis all year long. Together we can improve our school climate and culture each and every day with everything we do.

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