Campaign speech

Peet is running for Middle School Captain - here is his speech (all his own ideas and words!).

MY MIDDLE SCHOOL CAPTAIN SPEECH

Hello fellow students and teachers

I will speak to you about “How I could create a felling of happiness in the Kelvin Grove middle school”.

Firstly I would like to make a small amendment to that topic. I believe that it is nigh on impossible to create a feeling of total happiness anywhere. The reason is that if you do not experience sadness then you will not recognize happiness. Therefore we must strive rather for a feeling of overall happiness or well being, that is why I will speak about creating a feeling of well being in the Middle School.
Some scenarios that demonstrate well being are;

Even if you are not getting the grades you want at school, and you’re working your hardest and doing your best, you can choose to have a feeling of overall happiness or well being.
Even if you are not doing as well as you would like at sport or other extra curricula activities and you are still trying your hardest you can choose to have a feeling of well being.
Even if you don’t get along with someone peacefully you can choose to have a feeling of well being.

Essentially, to improve well being or happiness students and teachers need to be able to perform at their best in a less stressful environment, and students and teachers need to know how to deal with stresses when they arise. Stresses can include conflict with another student or a staff member, heavy school workloads and outside of school commitments.
We can’t do anything about the out of school commitments but we can work on the other two areas.

Firstly, students and teachers need to learn how to resolve conflict. I think that it would be a good idea for each middle school student to learn conflict resolution skills. I think that if each middle school student knew how to resolve conflicts peacefully through active listening skills and other techniques we can be a happier community. I think that these could be taught in a fun way during assembly times. Students could demonstrate these skills and teachers and students could practice during the week.

The other thing that I think would improve happiness or well being is to have smaller class sizes. Obviously, this is out of my control. But one of my ideas is to have senior students, during their spare periods, or on rostered times, come into middle school classes and act as peer teacher aides. This would improve the well being of Kelvin Grove students because:
Students from the Senior School would know middle school students personally
Middle school students may feel more at ease with someone close to their own age
Teachers will be able to spend more one on one time with students who need a teachers specific help; and
Middle school students would be able to have any problems they face with their learning quickly helped.

I am also interested in any other ideas that students or teachers have to offer. I believe that if we can accomplish these ideas the Kelvin Grove School Community will greatly benefit, by improving student grades willingness to learn, and general well being. Remember you can choose to have a feeling of well being.

Thank you for listening to my speech.