On Wednesday, Feb. 26th, schools from across Canada will wear pink to support bully prevention awareness, education and programs, according to Clearview Public Schools.
The theme for this year’s Pink Shirt Day is “Lift each other up”; a simple but powerful message encouraging people to look beyond their differences and celebrate the things that make them unique. When people lift each other up, they see past the things that separate us and see instead the things that unite us as people.
“Everyone has a role to play in promoting positive mental health and wellness, supporting students, positive social behaviour and preventing incidents like bullying. There needs to be an integrated approach to prevent, address and/or reduce bullying, by developing the right partnerships with schools, parents, community and police,” noted a release.
Students who feel safe are free to develop in healthy ways are far less likely to be involved in inappropriate activities. Students who are learning and thriving take pride in themselves, their school, their accomplishments and the accomplishments of those they are connected to.
Setting a positive school climate and culture will help the tone for a child’s learning. To do this, staff, parents and community must model behaviour and attitudes that are positive, respectful, fair and caring.
This means creating a school climate that is equitable, inclusive, diverse, tolerant, respectful and accepting. By doing this, we will move towards reaching our goal of making Clearview schools inclusive places of learning.
-Submitted