Teachers paint inspirational phrases on school walls
Principal Anderson: ‘We’re spreading kindness and cheer throughout the building.’
Greenwich Elementary teachers are spreading happiness and kindness by painting inspirational phrases and pictures on the school walls.
Greenwich-Lenhartsville Elementary School Principal Mr. Erin J. Anderson said faculty early in the school year talked about brightening up the walls of the school.
“Make it a fun and happy place for our children here at school,” said Anderson. “We have a number of teachers who are painting, we’re spreading kindness and cheer throughout the building.”
Anderson said a number of teachers have taken the initiative to start painting phrases that encourage kindness, some of which has been inspired by students. For example, “Learn, Have Fun & Be Kind” was a phrase on a student’s T-shirt and is now being painted by Greenwich Elementary librarian Tina Caulfield on a wall near the school library.
Big white spaces on the hallway walls have been adopted by teachers to add color and an encouraging phrase.
“The teachers have done a great job. It’s all their work. They’ve been taking time after school and on weekends to paint things up on the walls,” said Anderson. “The students love it. As a matter of fact, early on, they were quite surprised and they would walk by and see one of us painting on the wall and say, ‘You’re painting on the wall?! Are you allowed to do that?’ and we said, ‘Yes, we absolutely are allowed to do that.’”
“We’re going to paint the walls and make them brighter and more colorful and make it happier,” said Anderson.
In addition to the inspirational paintings, Peace. Love.Kutztown, a subcommittee of Kutztown Community Partnership, also asked the school to help promote their kindness campaign. Anderson said a Peace.Love.Kutztown sign has been placed in the grass out front of the school building. Greenwich Elementary third grade teacher Allison Scheidt asked to paint the Peace. Love.Kutztown logo on a school wall.
“We wanted to find a big spot for it here in the building where everyone could see and the staff decided that they thought it would be good to paint it in the gym because that’s where most of the community whenever they come into the building they’ll be able to see that.”
Scheidt, school nurse Vanessa Sherrer and kindergarten teacher Cyndi Parker devoted a week recently to paint the logo on the gym wall. Also, the first inspirational phrase was painted on the school wall outside Scheidt’s classroom.
“We saw online from a middle school that had inspirational things on their walls and we just thought that would be great because (Mr. Anderson) told us we could paint,” said Scheidt. “We actually started by putting the kids’ hand prints on our ceiling tiles but then we found different things and I just did the first one outside my room and everybody else kind of went from there. It’s awesome. The kids are excited. They’re having fun just picking out all of the new ones as they crop up.”
Scheidt hopes the inspirational paintings help to remind students to be positive and happy and peaceful. She likes that the Peace. Love.Kutztown campaign is spreading peace, joy.
“Reminding the kids to stop the hate. It’s such a powerful message,” she said.