The Biggest. Assembly. Ever. #MeanStinks

Today was the day of Mean Stinks’ Biggest Assembly Ever. Host Alexis Jones and Disney Star Zendaya lead a discussion about it is not OK to be a bully. Students have the power to change the world. It may not be easy, and sometimes they may need some help from an adult, but it is important to stick up for others and “Gang Up For Good.” It was a really great message. Hundreds of schools across the US today watched Alexis and Zandaya on a live webcam open up about their experiences with bullies. For 8 school, including Lansing Middle, we received a special shoutout from Alexis and were part of the Google+ Hangout live presentation. We had t-shirts to hand out, with some very cute sayings:

Tease Your Hair–Not Your Friends
Try Bird Calling–Not Name Calling
Spread Frosting–Not Rumors

With some help from the Tech Department, several teachers, our principal, and friends, we were able to pull this off. The cool part of all of this is that you can log onto www.meanstinks.com and watch the live version. You can also register your school (although it will fall under high school) as the Nicest School In America. You can tweet all the great things you and your kids are doing to #gangupforgood and you will be able to see all the great things under your school. Check out Lansing High School (zip code 14882) and see all our tweets and what our kids asked and had to say. For our middle school students, we did not allow cell phones in the assembly. I did have index cards available and students could post their tweet on the card and hand it to one of our “Tweeters” and it was sent that way. We also had Treats for Tweets, and anyone who asked a question or handed in a comment got a little goodie bag. The kids were very excited!

Mean Stinks has a lot of great handouts, PowerPoint, fact sheets and videos on their website that you can share with students to help prevent relational aggression, cyberbullying, and just plain ‘ole meanness. I highly recommend you check them out.