My name is Orly Bieler and I am in fifth grade at Ben Porat Yosef. My classmates and I recently read the book “Wonder,” by RJ Palacio. The book is about a boy with facial deformities who enrolls in a mainstream school for the first time for the fifth grade. While reading the book, my classmates and I analyzed characters, learned about their feelings and discussed how we would handle similar scenarios to ones in the book. Our big focus in the unit was the importance of being kind, even kinder than necessary. We learned how we can be kinder than necessary in school and out of school by talking and brainstorming ideas together.
I thought this unit was challenging, but it made me think about how I could be more kind in my own life. It also made me think differently because I have not always experienced things in the book, such as bullying and the kindness that resulted from it. I was surprised that a positive thing could happen after a negative situation, such as being different than others and being made fun of because of it. In class at BPY, we had a jar and if someone did something kind, we would put a paper heart inside the jar. The goal was to fill the jar with these hearts, or kind acts, and remind us to be as kind as we can be to everyone around us.
After reading the book, we saw the movie “Wonder” in theatres. My classmates and I were really excited to compare and contrast the two to see if they were similar. (They were, but the movie left out a lot of things in the book.) When we returned to school after seeing the movie, my entire grade took part in a Day of Kindness. Teachers set up stations to teach us different things we can do to be kind. At one station, we created posters to hang around the school building to remind people to be kind. We also made Kindness-O-Grams, which were little slips of papers that are given to someone who you see being kind. From here, fifth grade can practice small or large acts of kindness, like holding the door for someone or donating to a charity.
This unit made me a kinder person. I recommend reading the book “Wonder” and seeing the movie. And don’t forget, be kinder than necessary!
By Orly Bieler
