Being Nice

Today we had an assembly at the middle school. The PTA brought in a motivation speaker named Chad Hymas (www.chadhymas.com if you're interested). At first I thought all the kids were either going to talk through the whole thing or just fall asleep through it, oddly enough, neither one happened. He is in a wheelchair and paralyzed from the chest down and travels around telling his story. He starts out by telling a story about a girl he went to high school with. She was in a wheelchair, had only one arm, and couldn't see very well. He talked about how she wore a poncho every day because she spilled food when she ate and no one would ever sit by her. One night him and some basketball buddies were talking about her when his dad came in. He told him how disappointed he was and showed up the next day at lunch and went and introduced himself to her. He then proceeded to introduce her to his son and his son's basketball buddies. In that conversation, they found out a few things about her, among them that she wanted to be a cheerleader. Eight days later, she was voted captain of the cheerleader squad.

After that initial story, he did a few demonstrations about people helping out others and hit home with everyone there about how much we just stand by and watch as people struggle with small things. When big things happen, people are more than willing to help, but it is the small things that really make the difference. In general, his message was just to be nice.

He also talked a lot about choices. He talked about how 17 years ago he made a choice that changed his whole life. He was moving a one ton bale of hay with a tractor when some warning lights started flashing. He ignored them and the bale of hay ended up falling on top of him. He was trapped underneath for 48 minutes before his wife and two little boys found him and called 911.

The students gave him a standing ovation afterwards and were talking about it on the walk back to the middle school. My faith in middle schoolers has been restored a little bit. They do actually pay attention once in awhile after all.