Kindness 101

Kindness is the fundamental principle of humanity. It quite literally what makes humans… well, humans. From causing us to be caring and loving to humane and nurturing. Kindness is more than just a chemical in your brain, it is an emotion, it is a feeling, it is a mindset, it is a practice, and it is a skill. And just like any skill, the more we practice it the better we get at it. But what happens when this skill needs a full refresher, when revision is need before the exam when pop quiz, is starting in 7 minutes… or in this case 7 days. It's time to put your game face on, grab a cup of pure black coffee and some energy drinks, and down them 'till you're ready for Kindness Week… the Kindness refresher that everyone needed… Recorded via Teams and notes provide by Jaishivan Sivanesan Paranam.

The kindness week initiative started off like any other week, coming to school and going for tutor time just like you’ve done so many times before. Then suddenly your form captain begins the first Kindness Week project, the Secret Best-Friend Project. This project advertised the importance of friendship and truly got people to connect with each other, make new friends and acted as the first step in a chain of ripples that spread through every student it touched. Step 1 complete… You should really be taking notes right now, this could be useful for revision.

Next up was the Kindness Haiku competition where devoted students had to show their skills in poetry and express the gift of kindness. The idea of the competition was to write a haiku, a popular Japanese form of poetry with 17 syllables in 3 lines of 5, 7 and then 5 syllables whilst also intertwining the aspects of a relevant kindness theme. This would in turn create many successful and touching haikus, all with their own unique message, reasons and impacts. After all, it's Kindness Week, and we know that:

“Unwarranted kindness

breathes life into everything

and we don’t know why”

Are you even reading this? You might want to remember the direct quote - it's going to give you extra marks… remember… anyways, Step 2 Complete.

After this, came the Kindness note signups which allowed students to spread the kindness to those who have changed their lives by being kind to them. It was a platform for students to repay those who had made a tremendous positive impact within them. These notes also allowed students to tell others about how they felt about a certain experience they shared with someone and it's revolutionary how even writing kind things on sticky notes can still make a person’s day so much better. Another haiku to put in your notes… hurry up!

“Since kindness is free

Sprinkle it around like it’s

Supposed to be”

You got that? Good… Time to move on to Step 4.

Finally, to close a really spectacular week we had a Kindness Market which was hosted by the Year 11s in the English Block Area on Thursday 17th November 2022 from 12:15 to 1:10. You gotta jot down the dates, times and places. They are very important to a proper answer… Get to work… Chop-chop! It was an enormous sale filled with all kinds of delicious treats, lovely art, colorful bracelets and so much more. However, what the Kindness Market truly inspired though was the togetherness of Tenbians gathering in one place as one family to celebrate the skill of kindness. This is kind of IMPORTANT!!! It’s in the revision list. After all, Kindness Week is all about being kind to all and it was truly successful at inspiring all of Tenby to do exactly that. I hope this Kindness 101 refresher was useful and now you better ace your exam 'cause kindness inspires kindness. Good luck, you’ll need it!