During a time where bullying has become a serious problem and suicide rates have increased in elementary, middle school and high school, many districts are having a hard time finding ways to limit the amount of damaging behavior that occurs in their schools.
Dude Be Nice–an apparel company focuses on creating clothing with a positive message by making human kindness a trend year-round. Organizations can purchase attire and customize it to fit their business needs and create a positive vibe within their workplace. One high school in Arizona decided to jump on the bandwagon and get involved with the Dude Be Nice brand.
START@West-MEC (Western Maricopa Education Center) Principal Chris Cook has decided to purchase ‘Dude Be Nice’ t-shirts for the Coding students at his campus to continue to promote positive vibes across the campus. Even though, the school is not using this as an anti-bullying campaign it has been used to enhance the culture throughout the facility.
“It is about being proactive instead of reactive. I really liked the [Dude Be Nice] mission and I thought that it could relate to students and it is a simple message that can be spread across the campus,” says Principal Cook.
The school is also looking to launch a few of their own campaigns to get students to show appreciation to their peers and involve their parents. Each campaign will involve a way to enhance the learning process as well as allow them to grow closer as a campus.
START@West-MEC will launch the ‘Dude You’re Awesome’ campaign where students write compliments about their peers on sticky notes and post them on a whiteboard on the campus. Every month student names will be entered into a drawing to win prizes, which will be created by Coding interns on 3D printers, vinyl printers, and laser engravers.
To create student and parent engagement, students will also partake in the ‘Dude You Saw Learning’ campaign, where students will take selfies of the assignments that they are doing in class and send it to their parents. After school students will take a selfie with their parents while showing them what they learned in class. START@West-MEC will also launch a ‘Dude Look at Us’ campaign where students post photos of learning moments on their Coding website.
All of the campaigns combined will enhance the culture at the campus and have educational benefits that students will be able to carry with them into the workforce upon graduation.
Principal Cook states, “These campaigns will teach students skills that will serve them later in life and will help them when they get into the workforce and are in leadership positions.”
START@West-MEC is looking forward to continuing these campaigns throughout each school year to help promote human kindness and a team building classroom environment.