Léman Stands Up for Kindness on Unity Day

October 21, 2021

On Wednesday, October 20, the entire Léman community took part in Unity Day, the signature event of National Bullying Prevention Month. Students, faculty, and staff wore orange, the official color of the initiative, to represent Léman's commitment to this important cause.

To acknowledge Unity Day, Head of Early Childhood Maria Sweeney visited Explorers-PreK 4 classes to read One by Kathryn Otoshi, a picture book that focuses on numbers, counting, and primary and secondary colors while also teaching a lesson about accepting each other's differences and how it sometimes just takes one voice to make everyone count.

Early Childhood and Lower School students also created a chain made up of orange links on which students wrote: "What I like about me." These slips were chained together to form a giant Kindness Chain that highlights our individual differences.  

Lower School students attended a division-wide assembly hosted by School Psychologist Jamie Holtzer who led students in the Upstander Pledge, read What I Am by Divya Srinivasan, a best selling picture book that explores and celebrates the complexities of what makes us who we are, and revealed photos of the Kindness Chain hanging in the ballroom. 4th graders came together to reflect on kindness and inclusion and constructed “Grateful Pumpkins” to highlight acts of kindness that others have shown to us. 5th graders reflected on the importance of acceptance & inclusion and wrote their thoughts on "Kindness Flowers." They then ended the day with a dance party in the name of friendship!

During lunch, Upper School students and faculty signed the Upstander Pledge, created by the Tyler Clementi Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to prevent bullying through inclusion, the assertion of dignity, and acceptance. Léman is proud to have partnered with the foundation to help introduce anti-bullying lesson plans in schools across the country. We also welcomed Jane Clementi, Chief Executive Officer of the Clementi Foundation for a Student Mental Health panel in January 2020. We look forward to partnering with this important organization for years to come.