AACPS Be Nice Campaign

  
Entrée Round

Over the next two months, reunite with others on your Prep Team to prepare an Entree that brings a main course of Be Nice into your school or office. You must use at least four of the resources (referred to as “ingredients”) from the recipe card below to inspire your entree. These ingredients—a variety of articles, stories, and videos--were chosen to help everyone think about a welcoming, positive, nurturing school culture in different ways. Each ingredient can bring a different “spice” to your entree; your challenge is to combine the inspiration from at least four of these ingredients in a way that is unique and true for your school or workplace.*

It is important that your entree touch everyone in your workplace in some significant way, similar to the effect a holiday meal with all the fixins’ has on people at a large family get together. Feel free to think New, BIG and BOLD or simply expand on something you are already doing in your workplace related to the Be Nice campaign by considering the addition of a few ingredients from our recipe card. Once you’ve taken some time, played with the ingredients and cooked up your entree, please implement your team’s idea with your people—young and old, alike within your AACPS school or workplace.  The entrée should be something a bit more substantial than the appetizer, something that is practiced or experienced routinely by students and staff throughout the remainder of the school year, something that has the potential to positively influence workplace culture for students and adults into the future.

Ingredient/Resource

Notes

Greetings Matter
  • Greeting your students, colleagues, families can be powerful
  • You never get a 2 nd chance to make a 1 st impression….. and other things your grandfather may have said to you when you were little….

Kindness Through Their Eyes

  • A video that shares young students offering their thoughts on “kindness”

10 Actions You Can Focus On
to Influence Culture of Respect & 
Civility in Your Workplace

  • Civility in the workplace does not happen by chance

25 Ways to Have Fun at Work

  • A playful, joyful workplace is a healthy workplace
  • People respond positively to joy; niceness is linked to joy

Teasing, Insulting, and the
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  • How we learn to tease and experience teasing helps us to grow
  • Insults are never part of teasing

I am Strong
A Poem by John Hamilton

  • Character comes from somewhere deep, but can be chipped away by simple words uttered casually by influential people

Kid President – How to Change
the World (A Work in Progress)

  • Thoughts on how to change the world….some think kids are very powerful change agents
  • Little People living out big LOVE can change the world

3 Simple Ways to
Earn Your Students’ Respect

  • You can’t really directly teach students to respect you.
  • Keep your word and other things your mother taught you……

Doubletree Launches
“Nice Travels” Index

  • Despite 500,000+ travelers who love adventuring, just 36% of the online conversation about travel is positive
  • What if you received random acts of kindness while staying at Doubletree?

3 Ways to Stand
Out from the Crowd

  • Character, Kindness, and Authenticity Make a Difference in Life

Chopped: Summer Heat  (AACPS Login Required)

Chopped: Jumbo Shrimp, Pepperoni and Cereal  (AACPS Login Required)

 

*Helpful Hint for Creating Your Appetizer

Take a look at the Appetizer Ideas that folks from around the system cooked up for Round 1 of our Be Nice Challenge.  They were simply brilliant!!  These creative appetizers may help you to think of a great idea for an entree that your people may enjoy.    Preparing a Be Nice Entrée can begin with something as simple as sharing four- six of the resources from the table above with staff in meetings, PD sessions, or via email . Then use the ideas and discussions generated from these ingredients to do something at your workplace that touches all staff (and students, if you work in a school). Be as creative as you wish. Give your idea a name and invite people to engage with you as you roll out this entree across your workplace.  The entrée should nurture both students and adults, if you work in a school.