November 22, 2000

Kindness Kounts at East Junior High School

Seventh graders learn lessons in character building

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       It can be as simple as a brief greeting or sitting beside someone on the school bus, or as complex as making a new friend. Kindness in any form - whether a small gesture or large - can make a difference.
      For seventh graders at Traverse City East Junior High School, a ten-minute program called Kindness Kounts provides a weekly reminder that kindness is the right way to go. These small lessons, shared with students every Friday afternoon via the school's television system, have made an impact on student attitudes since the beginning of the school year.
      "Nobody sits alone anymore at lunch," said seventh grader Katie Hoffman. "Before you could see people sitting alone at a table but now all tables are full."
      Other students report saying 'hi' to students they do no know, sitting beside someone all alone on the bus or taking the time to get to know someone they did not know before.
      "You learn to think twice about what you do," said seventh grader Chelsea Simon. "Without this program I would not think of saying hi to someone I did not know."
      Instigated by John Gerhardt, a seventh-grade language arts teacher, Kindness Kounts gives students pause to consider the feelings of others in school. During his weekly show, Gerhardt reads student essays from the Chicken Soup series, discusses current events in the context of kindness and responsibility and gently reminds students to be good citizens at school.
      "Basically, it is a constant, subtle reminder to kids that kindness does count and that little acts of kindness add up," said Gerhardt, a 30-year veteran teacher. "When being unkind to someone, it may be the first time you've participated in that act; but for the person receiving it, it may be the straw that broke the camel's back."
      A few years ago, Gerhardt began reading excerpts from the Chicken Soup series to his students during their Friday resource period. This time of the week, the last period of the last day, was notoriously a restless one for students.
      His readings to his classroom were so well received that he approached EJH Principal Mike Murray last year about sharing them with the rest of the seventh- grade. Murray gave him the okay and the Kindness Kounts program was born.
      Besides culling from the Chicken Soup books, Gerhardt reads essays by columnist Bob Greene and shares his own experiences with students. The recent election and Veteran's Day prompted a talk last Friday on the responsibilities of citizenship and how to honor our country's veterans.
      "My experience of kids is when they understand that something is mean, very, very few of them want to be mean," Gerhardt said. "More and more today it's a recognized function of the school to teach more than academics. Teaching morals and behavior are expected by many."
      Kindness has a special place for Gerhardt as he recalled the year his handicapped son entered junior high. He went to each class and explained his son's condition, discussed symptoms and how to help him and reassured students that it was not contagious. He saw how students reacted positively when given information and a chance to be kind.
      "At the same time, there was another classmate who had a physical impairment of a much lesser degree," Gerhardt recalled. "He was teased unmercifully and wound up leaving the school system."
      Gerhardt easily shares this story with his students and does not shy away from controversial topics, such as suicide. He sparked intense classroom discussion around the seventh-grade wing the week he read a poignant essay by columnist Bob Greene about a student who committed suicide after years of teasing.
      "The kids really talked about it afterwards," said Nancy Fitzpatrick, a seventh-grade geography teacher. "They discussed how to help those kids."