Unity

A number of years ago, our school had some anecdotal evidence that we had a fairly good sized bullying problem. So we surveyed our kids, found out the extent of the problem and took steps to decrease bullying. We defined bullying, we made rules against it, we increased supervision, and taught all staff members to confront bullying head on.When we surveyed our students st the end of the year, we found that the problem had significantly diminished, particularly in the middle school. We asked the students what they thought had made the difference, and they said the thing that helped the most was when we divided the whole middle school into teams with people they never would have chosen to work with, and assigned a school or community service project. They had to work together for a purpose, and in doing so, came to value their class mates.

I was asked to teach a lesson on unity today, and I told that story to introduce the concept. Then I read a fun book that illustrates the power of music to bring people together. It's a good one. I hope you check it out. It's called "And to Think That We Thought That We'd Never Be Friends" by  Mary Ann Hoberman.