Bruneau Elementary Newsletter
February 10, 2017 Issue 8
Upcoming Events
February 13th Teacher Inservice
February 14th BES Community Valentine's Singing
February 20th President's Day
February 25th Bruneau Community Auction
Star Homework
Breakfast Reminder
Smencils for Sale
We are selling scented pencils to raise money for new playground equipment. Pencils will be sold in the Bruneau Elementary office. The prices are listed below.
Smencils: $1.00
Smens: $2.00
Smarkers: $1.00
Gel Crayons: $1.00
Community Groups: Victimproof
You can't control whether or not you get bullied,
but you can control whether or not you become a victim.
-Tom Thelen
Bruneau Elementary students have started learning about bullying and how to become Victimproof in community groups this month. We are studying the message of Tom Thelen's book VictimProof while emphasizing how we do have control over how we respond to bullying. Students are applying the idea of leaving bitterness behind and forgiving to let yourself off the hook, empower yourself and remove the power from the bully. We are learning the importance of The Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". This rule gives us the power to change the culture in our school.
Pre-K Mrs. Merrick & K/1 Miss Wampler
2/3 Ms. Prucker & 4/5 Mrs. Kangas-Hanes
Victimproof: Week 1
This week our Community Groups began learning how to respond to any potential or current bully behavior by making ourselves “Victimproof”.
The idea is simple and yet overlooked; we cannot “run and tell” to stop a person who chooses to bully; we must learn how to recognize bully behaviors and diffuse them by responding in surprising ways.
Our Community Groups explored the characteristics of an act of bullying. We learned that a person chooses to bully because she is empty and believes that to fill that emptiness taking someone else’s power will fill her void. Often the person who bullies is experiencing bitterness, anger, and hatred without even realizing it. We can now identify four ways that we can be bullied, physical, social, cyberbullying, and verbal.
Mrs. Prucker’s and Mrs. Kangas-Hanes’ classes each created a presentation to teach what we understand about the characteristics of bully behavior, how our choice to forgive over feeling bitter diffuses the bully behavior and reduces the possibility that bullying will become a community culture, and finally we shared our big ideas with each other, building our sense of community.
Mrs. Kangas-Hanes’ Community Group really struggled with understanding bitterness and forgiveness; Mrs. Prucker’s class helped us realize that forgiveness shows love and respect, bitterness seeks revenge and harms everyone. Mrs. Kangas-Hanes’ class reminded Mrs. Prucker’s group that bullies have a sense of emptiness. Together we affirmed that when we control our response and give love in response to being bullied we retain our power and dignity and we stay in control of our emotions.
Finally, we learned that we must never stand by silently as we witness bully behavior. We are becoming strong and forgiving, which is a gift we all can afford. Together we make our school a place where everyone feels acceptance, appreciation, love, and self-assured power.
Kid Questions
Mrs. Farfan was interviewed by Piper, Leif, Ulices, Rigdon, Adrian, Ira, Jacob, Hesston, HayDence, Liam, Hays, Samantha E., Ryan, Rigo, Paisley, Estrella, and Casen.