The Buddy Project was created at the suggestion of my co-teacher, Robanne Stading, over a question of dirty tables. "How do we get the kids to care about how well they clean up?"
"Give them a buddy," she said. "Tell them they're going to clean things up for their buddy."
Nikolaevsk is a K-12 school. Over the course of the week, my usually 5th-12th grade language arts and social studies classroom hosts every grade level in the building. 6th hour is split, three days a week, between the 3-5 and the K-2 classes. They spend 30 minutes in the "big kid side of the building" engaged in arts & crafts, watching videos, reading stories, doing yoga, or dancing; whatever their tired little bodies and minds seem to need for the day.
Sometimes those little bodies make big messes. Sometimes those little bodies need big reasons to work a little harder at the end of a long school day to clean those messes up.
On top of trying to solve the simple (but irritating) problem of Crayola on the tabletop, Nikolaevsk is managing another, more serious issue. Our little school has seen a 30% increase in the student population since last year. This welcome influx of students has created an unwelcome instability to the carefully crafted culture of "Respectful, Responsible, and Safe," or "The Warrior Way," that makes the building such a happy and positive place to learn and work. To solve this issue, every adult in the building has been diligently practicing Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (#PBIS) to help our new students learn our building's expectations and remind our veteran students how to practice the Warrior Way and be #NikoWarriors.
Our Buddy Project is part of that PBIS system. We want our middle schoolers (including those 5th graders in our language arts & social studies class) to set an excellent example for their buddies who they see every day in the hall, at lunch, and at recess. We also want them to learn what it means to be a good mentor so that they can find their own mentors as young people and adults.
For the younger students, having a Big Buddy, a mentor, gives them a sense of pride and security. My own son, Quinn, a first grader, lacks connection among his peers but looks for ways to show his respect and admiration for his Buddy, Lukah, an 8th grader, who is, speaking as a mother, the best Big Buddy for my little guy that I could have hoped for.
Every adult working at Nikolaevsk would be hard pressed to shift the school culture more into alignment with the Warrior Way no matter how diligently we practiced PBIS. But leveraging the social drive among the students, we are teaching relationship building and social responsibility, creating what we hope to be lifelong connections, as well as making Nikolaevsk a happy and safe place for everyone to work and learn.