Kathy Pitt is an elementary school teacher and has a great secret to fight bullying and stop the loneliness that some children are experiencing on a daily basis at school.
Ms. Pitt passes out index cards and has each student nominate an exceptional classmate by secret ballot and with names of kids they want to get to know. The genius idea of this allows Ms. Pitt to know which children are getting attention, which ones have friends, which ones belong, and which ones are getting ignored.
She has been using these cards for 15 years and she has found that the names of her students who don’t end up on these cards are the ones she needs to monitor most.
Each Friday, Ms. Pitt will have the students write down these names and then after all of the students have left, she will study them.
Who is not getting requested by anyone else?
Who doesn’t even know who to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?
This idea came when Columbine happened in 1999. Ms. Pitts realized that there are students who go unnoticed and students who are not belonging. She wants to prevent against that so she has made up this strategy to help her know who nee
ds extra attention.
“Pitt says she hopes her students are getting her message about inclusion and kindness, summing it up this way: ‘I care about you. I want you to care about each other.'”
