Lifeskills Highlight: Honesty

Now that we have made it through a pretty brutal winter, my countdown to spring is on! Warmer weather is exciting in itself, but the spring means some pretty fun activities at Oakhill! I know I am not alone in saying this but, I really enjoy springtime. The warmer temps means spending time with students outside as much as possible! Fresh air and sunshine are good for our brains and overall wellness, so I am excited to take advantage of it in the coming weeks. 

This month, I wanted to shift back to highlighting our Lifeskills for the year, with a focus on Honesty. As I track the Lifeskills that our students earn (quite rapidly), Honesty tends to be the least reported Lifeskill. I know for a fact that it isn’t because our students aren’t honest, they are! However, it’s a challenging Lifeskill to catch in action because we often just think of it as telling the truth… but there is so much more to it than that. Honesty leads us to feel, think, and act in honest ways. It promotes trust, creates and maintains relationships, and it strengthens families and communities. It is one of the most important Lifeskills that we can teach our children because it is quite honestly the foundation for almost everything. 

At Oakhill, our students demonstrate honesty through academics, but also with others by showing virtue and honesty in their actions. Honesty is when our students treat others in a genuine way. When they act on love and care for others, when they maintain fairness, and when they act on something because it is the right thing to do. Honesty is telling the truth, but it’s alos being genuine, authentic, and caring towards others. So if our students are demonstrating honesty more often than not, why is it so underreported? In my opinion, it’s because students are the ones recognizing one another when it’s happening. We encourage our students to peer report and that often happens in the moment, as opposed to being recorded in a form. This semester we have tried to encourage our students to recognize a peer and let an adult know so that it can be recognized on the Lifeskills wall. As I have started to see an increase in this, the two most common Lifeskills reported by peers are kindness and honesty! So while it may not be recognized in the same frequency as Respect, Responsibility, and Kindness, Honesty is truly happening when the other Lifeskills are being demonstrated. Honest acts look like kindness. It looks like Respect. And it looks like Responsibility. 

We have been SO proud of our students and the way that they have taken hold of the Lifeskills this year. We have seen a noticeable shift in extrinsic motivation to one that is truly intrinsic, and it’s awesome. Our students are good people and a lot of that is because of parents!

Parents, thank you for all that you do to make Oakhill such an incredible place, with incredible people! 

Mrs. P