Learning About Kindness on Pink Shirt Day
SD83 schools joined thousands of others across Canada and the world recognizing Pink Shirt Day on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. Students and staff showed their support for the anti-bullying movement by wearing pink, as well as by taking part in activities in SD83 schools.
For example, North Canoe School held an assembly where students were asked to bring in a white shirt. During the assembly, they designed their shirts with their own ideas of inclusion, peace, and acceptance, and colouring them with fabric markers. They called this activity ‘Uniquely You at North Canoe’. Younger students also enjoyed writing messages of appreciation and kindness and then secretly delivering them to the person they wrote them to.
The Pink Shirt Day activities closely tied into the school’s focus on SPARK – Safety, Peace, Awesome Attitude, Respect, and Kindness. Principal David Wellingham is seen holding the school’s SPARK mascot in a photo below!
Throughout February, Silver Creek Elementary has focused on kindness, promoting random acts of kindness, daily kindness messages, and school-wide assemblies. To wrap-up Kindness Month, students and staff were invited to wear pink shirts, pink ribbons, and fun creative pink accessories. A school-wide photo was taken during the morning assembly.
At Salmon Arm Secondary (Sullivan), Mayor Al Harrison and his wife Debbie attended Sullivan’s Individual Achievement Program (IAP) to support kindness among students. They prepared almost 800 pink “friendship” cookies to distribute to SAS students and staff. The IAP students made cookies for their families while listening to Mayor Harrison read the book “SPORK” by Kyo Maclear and Isabelle Arsenault, a story that celebrates diversity. The IAP students, along with peer tutors and staff, delivered the friendship cookies to students and staff. A special thank you to Principal Cadden for generously covering the cost of the cookie supplies.
Falkland Elementary students reviewed the definition of bullying and listened to various scenarios to determine whether the behaviour was bullying or just mean. “We talked about how all bullying is unkind but not all unkindnesses are bullying,” shared Principal Shelly Cull. They watched a video called “It just takes one” and reviewed the roles of the bully, victim, bystanders, and upstanders. Strategies for intervening in bullying situations or when unkindness is observed were discussed, along with the appropriate responses to experiencing bullying or unkindness. As part of the school’s goal to enhance students’ sense of belonging, there has been a focus on facilitating more positive student-to-student interactions. The assembly concluded with the kindergarten class leading Falkland’s school song.
At North Shuswap Elementary, students participated in the Pink Shirt Day Canada broadcast, a 40-minute interactive show designed for schools. The hosts discussed kindness, featured insights from youth and award-wining authors, honoured Indigenous people, and showcased students’ kindness projects. Over the past two years, the broadcast has reached more than 500 classrooms in 50 schools, engaging over 10,000 children and youth from both high schools and elementary schools across most of Canada.
Inspired by a simple act of kindness in a small Nova Scotian town, Pink Shirt Day has bloomed from its humble origins in 2007 into a global movement against bullying. The tradition is now being practiced in over 25 countries and has been recognized by the United Nations. Pink Shirt Day has become a global call-to-action as schools, communities, and workplaces are flooded with pink; uniting in kindness and in solidarity against bullying.