Kindness lessons are the last thing nearly anyone at this school want to hear. Instead of using intervention for what it’s for, students are forced to listen to the same old speech or lesson taught over and over again. Over and over again, children are taught to treat others the way they want to be treated, and be respectful towards others.

Because of this, students miss homework and extra time with the teacher. For some who care more about extended lunch, it takes away from the enjoyment of knowing they are passing all of their classes.

This is all because of the kindness lessons. Intervention is a time for students to get necessary additional time to learn from teachers. People should be kinder, but these kindness lessons are not the way to teach people that.

Some stories were sad and emotional, whether personal ones from people at school, or when someone could not or did not pick up, and the points made in the lesson were important. However, they are just given the wrong way. When you hear someone cursing, apparently it’s funny to vulgar high schoolers who use curse words all the time. Even worse, they can’t pay attention to the extremely heartfelt and emotional story of the next person on the video.

There are faults on both ends. While high schoolers can be more mature, they are still high schoolers, and when teachers ask us if we want to participate because we’ve done the exact same thing before and there’s a resounding no, the teacher just allows them to skip part of the lesson.

Although they are just trying to be empathetic towards their students because teachers realize the lessons don’t interest high schoolers, the kindness lessons are somewhat of a joke among other students. Because of them, there are students saying that other people are bulldozers, or that they obviously weren’t paying attention to the kindness lessons.

Obviously, this is not the desired result. Of course some appreciate the effort that our school constantly tries to better itself, but honestly, it just wastes time.

Even worse, students are then given free banana splits. Many people are not complaining over getting free food (with the inclusion of bringing their own banana, which many students pointedly made a joke of), but at this point, it feels as if they’re offering students food for simply enduring kindness lessons.

No matter the age or maturity level of someone, people should be kind towards others and that’s not something that should be rewarded, but expected.

This doesn’t mean other people’s stories mean less, or that people just laughed the whole time, but the attitude that we approach kindness lessons with just doesn’t work well with people of our age group. Personally, with the right teacher, I have changed my attitude and done one or two different things in my life that I would not have otherwise just thinking about those kindness lessons.

Overall, however, the change just doesn’t happen in many students. If both the teachers and students attempt to actually apply everything they learn, and students are more thoughtful when they write, kindness and the way students treat others could really be changed. Twenty five minutes just isn’t enough to teach someone how to respect other people.

by BENJAMIN KIM