Through a successful grant-writing campaign I was able to lead two schools in my district in creating a school-wide SEL project called Why You Matter. With lots of organizing, planning, creative problem solving, and a whole bunch of enthusiasm, we have since created an inviting community in both schools focusing on the importance of how we each matter to each other. Check out the project and resources below!
Once the pictures were taken and printed, staff and student volunteers stayed after school to hang the images all over the school. They were a huge hit with staff and students alike!
The WYM posters hung in the middle school for the rest of the year. THe following year we decided to reimagine the project for the high school I had transferred to. This was done at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, right at the height of the pandemic. The hope was to forge a sense of community at a time when we all felt so isolated.
We followed much of the same processes and writing activities, though we scaled it back to being a unit in Language Arts classes instead of an entire themed day. Photography students took the pictures of their classmates, which helped set them at ease. Staff helped hang all of the pictures (nearly 1600 of them!) throughout the school on a Friday afternoon so the students would be surprised by them when they came to school the following Monday. And surprised they were! They stared and read and admired and searched for themselves and their friends. We have kept the project going, adding the new freshmen each year and returning seniors pictures at graduation. It is a highlight of our school and I hope to continue it for years to come.
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