Maui High School Spreads the Word!
Maui High School did celebrate Spread the Word to End the Word Day in March. It took a lot of preparation from the teachers and the students. The inclusive leadership class at our school worked really hard for months planning the various events to coincide with our school’s spirit week.
On Monday February 26th, our leadership class held a assembly in our gym for this well-known day. An athlete from our class, Shelby, sang the national anthem and she definitely stole the hearts of many in the gymnasium. We had several of our leadership students promote a very strong message which was erasing the r-word from everyone’s vocabulary. Ahead of the assembly, we handed out positive r-words to students with instructions on when to stand. During the speech from the inclusive leadership class, students slowly raised when they heard the speaker say their highlighted statement. Throughout the gym, you would see positive ‘’R’’ words. For example, reliable and resilient. We can only encourage this movement so far, it’s up to society to be the difference and a role model. We do believe that our student body was very moved by our assembly and we know we made a difference!
Then, during lunch time we had games and ipads for people to pledge to stop using the r-word. Some of the games included donut game-eat donut from a string, hula hoop contest, and musical chairs. Many students came to pledge and after completing the pledge, they got a sticker with the spread the word to end the word logo. Also, we had some really amazing shirts that students could win. Most students jokingly call their friends the r-word freely and don’t think there is anything wrong but we taught them that their are other words that are not offensive. Finally, we made posters to hang up during our lunch time activities.
Overall, with our r-word campaign, we were able to spread the word to our entire school! Combining our campaign with spirit week made its reach even more wide because we were able to access our whole student body. We can’t wait to do an even better campaign next year!
