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Spring
2014 9
come more positive.
And then it hit her: why not catch each
other doing acts of kindness? Surely, it would
have a ripple effect.
The eager director enthusiastically shared
the idea with her faculty and deftly added
that it will improve students’ writing skills.
They all listened very politely to her.
“Well?” she inquired, at the end.
Blank looks. Still, they were willing to hu-
mor this strange, merry director.
In her weekly assemblies with the Lower
Elementary School body, Mouchantaf made
her surprise announcement. “Tell your teach-
ers what you see,” she explained.
Mouchantaf waited eagerly for signs of
change in the students’ behavior. None.
Something was still missing. But what?
It gnawed at her for days. And then as
solutions usually do, it suddenly came to her:
a box. Why not place boxes along the halls
and ask the kids to write about the acts of
kindnesses that they ‘catch’?
Little messages immediately came pouring
into the boxes and in all three languages. Not
only that, the children also began reporting
on acts of kindness at home.
“I saw two kids fighting then Jason came
and stopped them,” explained Salem Al-
Enezi, 8, “so I wrote about that.”
Philip Baaklini who will turn eight “in
exactly 20 minutes ” left several notes in the
box. “I’ve been written about too so now
I’m looking for another nice thing to write
about,” he said.
Salem immediately offers a
nice ‘act’.
“Because it’s your birthday
today,” he said, “I will let you be
the goalie at football.”
The boys run off to the foot-
ball game but not before writing
the note about this sudden act
of birthday kindness.
Once the “catch a kind act”
bug bites it’s apparently hard to
let go.
Outside in the hall, teachers
have taken their own initiative
to point out acts of kindness. A
small bulletin board with neatly
typed notes denotes various
small acts. “Today Yasmina El
Achkar took the initiative of
picking up a toy in the hallway
and putting it away while others
were kicking the toy with their
feet. Bravo Yasmina!”
With everyone busy on the
lookout for nice acts, petty argu-
ments and conflicts among stu-
dents have drastically decreased.
The children themselves are
reportedly more positive.
Looking over some documents
in her office, Mouchantaf laughs.
“How do I know that conflicts
have decreased in the school?”
she asked, “because I finally have
time to do my work!”
Tried and tested: the author has
introduced a “catch a kind act”
box in her own home and can
affirm that it works wonders on
children, spouse, and … pets
who all gather around the box
every night.