Convocation: A K-12 Challenge to Celebrate Kindness and Interrupt Unkindness

Since 2016, we have gathered our entire faculty, staff and student body (with the exception of the slightly intimidated junior kindergarten) to mark the end of summer and the beginning of each school year. That Convocation event this Friday, September 6, will put us in a giant 1,300-person circle in the Round Gym, highlighted by seniors with their newly assigned kindergarten buddies, to spend a half hour doing some cheers, singing our alma mater, having some competition among our Quads, and sharing a community message. 

The message this year is about Celebrating Kindness when we see it on campus, and it is also about Interrupting Unkindness when we see it. Trying to create a message that is accessible to the kindergarteners but also relevant to the seniors in this rare all-school gathering, I will talk about FWCD’s core values and how the core value of courage is necessary sometimes to meet our expectations and uphold another core value: kindness. It takes courage to interrupt unkindness. 

I will also talk about being a lot like a family at FWCD. While we might have a sibling or two or three at home, here we have many more “Falcon siblings.” Like home siblings, school siblings can be kind and respectful, but they can also be unkind and disrespectful on occasion. We do not expect ourselves never to get frustrated or never to speak unkindly at home or at school. We do, however, expect to aim high, to set high expectations for ourselves to Celebrate Kindness and Interrupt Unkindness, to greet each other in halls and on sidewalks, to hold doors and shake hands, to apologize when appropriate, and to listen to each other regularly.