November 15th, 2016

Today the students at Doon listened to a presentation on kindness and anti-bullying from our guest speaker, Quincy Mack (Nickname: Q-Mack). Q-Mack has been a Nike Pro basketball freestyler and signed event host for 10 years and the master of over 100 dazzling basketball tricks. He has worked closely with NBA MVP’s LeBron James, Steve Nash, and Shaquille O’Neal. Currently he has his very own TV show in development and he is a published author of the book, “Dare To Be Different”.

With Q-Mack, was Scott Jackson (Nickname: J-Box). J-Box is the country’s best beat boxer. He represented Canada in the World Championships in Europe and he made it to the Finals of Canada’s Got Talent. A vocal sound effects genious, all he needed was his mouth and a microphone. He was like a “Human I-Pod”! It was amazing to hear his talent in the gym.

Q-Mack talked about the various forms of bullying such as physical, verbal, and cyber bullying. The focus of the assembly was on how insults and exclusion effects one’s confidence levels and then how a solution would be presented. Students were urged to make real attempts to increase their skill sets by learning more than just basketball and beat boxing (math, reading, writing, languages, music, fitness) to BOOST their confidence levels as well as being kind to one another. Q-Mack drove home the importance of “never giving up” and chasing your dreams. The students were encouraged to INCREASE THE PEACE by standing up for each other, not just standing by (the role of the bystander defined in a “team-mate scenario”).

As a follow up to the assembly, we are asking parents to have a conversation at home this evening, perhaps over dinner or after dinner, asking their children about the assembly.

Here are some guiding questions we thought could be discussed at home:

1. How does your family demonstrate kindness to one another? Reflect on specific words and actions you use to demonstrate kindness in the home. What are some other things you may be able to start doing/ saying in order to develop kindness at home?

2. Reflect on the kind actions and words of your family and discuss how these impact each member of the family. Think about how these actions and words affect your actions at home, at school, and out in the world. Does living a kind life at home influence you to live a kind life outside of your home?

We hope that you find these questions helpful in having some meaningful conversations at home. Students will be doing a number of follow up activities over the next few days related to the kindness and anti-bullying message. Be sure to ask your children about the activities as well in your conversations at home.