Thursday, August 25, 2011

Quotes & Reflection on WOW

Today’s quotes and reflection are on the power of WOW.
At StarShine, we have a Chief Happiness Officer. His name is Rich Rose. Having a Chief Happiness Officer is one of the ways that helps us keep our WOW going throughout the school day and year. Each morning the StarShine Chief Happiness Officer sends out a new WOW message. I thought it would be fun to share Rich’s thoughts with you today. They are definitely a WOW:
OK here is a quick story with a Happy ending, but the story itself is not so happy. In our little world of happiness main campus last week, a not so happy thing happened.

One of our staff's cell phone mysteriously disappeared. Unfortunately, it was not so much of a mystery as to what happened. One of our students, who shall remain nameless in this story, for whatever reason felt the desire to take the phone that clearly didn't belong to him/her.

Narrowing down the window of time the phone disappeared; the staff member and other staff members together developed an action plan to address the situation. Students were talked to the next day as a group and as a group, suffered consequences for the classmates’ actions. The following day students were talked to individually, at which time several students recognized the right thing to do and told the staff what they knew about the incident.

On Monday, the student's parent was spoken to, as well as the student himself, who returned the phone.

So what is the happy part of the story? Was it the return of the phone?
Well yes, the fact the phone is back in the hands of its owner is happy, but for me that's not what I see as the true happiness in the story.

The true Happiness as I see it is:
 - The staff, when confronted with a challenging situation sprung into action, working together in unison to correct a problem. - YEA TEAM!

 - The student body, by and large, knew right from wrong and perhaps it was the positive peer pressure applied to the student who erred in judgment that kept that student from selling the phone.

 - The student who erred in judgment, deep down recognized he/she was wrong. Something prevented the student from selling the phone. Was it conscience? Was it positive peer pressure from fellow students?  Was it the desire to do the right thing in the end?

 - And bottom line, the student chose to stay. In the end, the student chose to return the phone and avoid expulsion from StarShine. The student recognized it was better to stay at StarShine and hopefully learn from his/her mistake then to run and move on.

Let us hope this can be a new beginning for the student and let us be happy that if it is a new beginning, we can be part of it.

If you would like to receive the StarShine Chief Happiness Officer’s daily WOW, let us know in the comments section or send us a facebook message.

Please share your thoughts in our comments section.
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