Pink Shirt Day Bonus Episode

It’s 2007. Shutter shades are all the rage. People have to juggle ipods and flip phones for their respective music and T9 texting needs. Facebook is replacing My space. Transformers has just come out on the big screen. Picture a ninth-grade boy in Cambridge, Nova Scotia, Canada. One frosty February morning about, he enters his school wearing a pink shirt. The jeers start quietly, as people nudge and elbow one another, snickering under their breaths. Pink shirt. He’s unaware until louder, the quiet jeering quickly gains momentum, raucous name calling ensues, and the taunting continues relentlessly throughout the day. The boy, who entered his high-school that day, unaware that a singular colour could make him feel so wrong, emerges, crushed by the barrage of cruel insults and bullying. Thankfully, two Grade 12 students Travis Price and David Sheppard decide to take an iconic stand against bullying that day. They go to a nearby discount store and buy 50 pink shirts, including tank tops, to wear to school the next day. Overnight, more than 850 kids get the memo and show up to school the next day dawning pink shirts in solidarity with the Grade 9 boy. More than 10 years later, their act of standing up to bullying has grown into a worldwide movement called Pink Shirt Day. In honour of Pink Shirt Day, which takes place February 27th 2019, I thought I’d gather a few terrific ideas that anyone could use to celebrate kindness in schools and communities for this special bonus episode of KindSight 101. You’ll hear from a music teacher (Margaret Dzbik), a dance teacher (Karley Allen), a classroom teacher (Danielle Miller), and I’ll give you two bonus ideas (inspired by Tamara Letter and Laurie McIntosh) that you could implement in your classroom for the special day! #pinkshirtday2019