Family School Students are Given an Opportunity to Break Negative Contracts and Get Honest with the Entire School
By Max Z.
At each of the last two graduations, the school underwent many changes. Graduating students and staff departed, houses combined together, routines transformed and students stepped up. On the other hand, the school went through many struggles, including diminishing accountability, and dishonest activity.
In response, the whole school, including staff, circled up in the gym for a community meeting. The title used was “Honesty Day,” and the goal of this was for students to stand up in front of their peers and share their dishonesties and negative contracts with the community as a whole. One by one, Sid Parham picked out of a box the names of the students willing to stand up and share.
In four periods, numerous students came up for their dishonest contracts and staff shared their wisdom on honesty. Terry McCarthy was one of the many staff that stressed the meaning of honesty. “I feel the students did very well, but a question to ask now is if the students shared for their own personal growth towards living an honest life, or if it was for a personality show?”
Father Stephen had a lot to contribute to Honesty Day as well.
At one point during the meeting, the students wrote a list of their negative and dishonest actions and thoughts onto a piece of paper and burned it in a small fire outside the gym, symbolizing the fresh start that a lot of the students created for themselves. Father Stephen got the idea of layering the negatives on top of each other from an American Benedictine monk named Mark Grubr who spent a year with the desert monks of Egypt. “The monks would go and write the names they wished to pray for in the sand with their fingers. By the next morning, the prayers would be smoothed away by the wind, and God would hear them.”
Overall, the community meeting healed many relationships between students as well as staff. Adam S., who shared several dishonesties with the community, said, “I felt free from the shackles of my dishonesties, and I hope to move forward.” Raven S. shared her feelings after she broke her negative contract at the meeting. “I felt nervous, but I needed to do it for myself in order to stop lying to my peers and staff and to be more humble.” It gave the students who shared a clean slate and a new opportunity to continue their lives with honesty.
