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Text Box: The Message of May
“April showers bring May flowers”. It’s an old saying which is not 100% factual, but it helps us weather some gloomy days with the promise of more beautiful days ahead. The promise of spring and the hope it conveys breezes us through the conclusion of the school year. As we consider the lessons we’ve learned, particularly from our monthly highlighting of American heroes, we hope the significance of being an every day hero has reached your home in some way. Treating others with consideration, kindness and fairness are all valuable characteristics which we find in almost every hero. The ability to hold our heads up and carry ourselves with dignity is another characteristic that cannot be overlooked. It is one thing to repeat rules and lessons learned in school about bullying, name-calling and peer pressure. It is yet another mark of actually internalizing those lessons and incorporating them in our daily actions that truly underscores that learning has occurred.
Recent news reports of children beating other children and filming it for “You Tube” as well as the perpetrators showing no remorse are disturbing for all of us; particularly because sometimes we see those selfish or brutal personality flaws developing at this level and we truly don’t want to be correct when predicting who will end up on the wrong side of the law. Although these behaviors are extreme, we must continue to try to impress on our youngsters the importance of good actions for the sake of just being the best way to treat others, (as we would want to be treated or not simply because there is or is not someone looking over our shoulders).
So in May take stock, take a deep breath and re-direct our efforts because in elementary school (and hopefully in life), there is always time for a “do-over”. We have the month of June. We have the summer. We have next September to “do it over” and “do it better”. What will you do?

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