Lessons from Morning Meeting

Among the many meaningful rituals at Bosque is morning meeting.  On a daily basis, we come together to meet as a community before we head off to class as individuals.  Morning meeting allows students to check in with their advisors, order lunch, touch base with friends, hear a presentation, or share school news—highlights may include “Musical” Mondays in the upper school meeting or Mr. Allen’s “Word-of-the-Day” in the middle school. (The school I visited earlier this week in Tulsa also has a daily morning meeting in the upper school; it was fun to see the similarities and differences between their morning meeting and ours.) 

I am fortunate to be able to facilitate and present at the middle school morning meeting on Thursdays and at upper school morning meeting on Fridays.  I usually give a talk or show a video on a topic that pertains to Bosque’s core values of scholarship, community, and integrity. On a regular basis, students, members of the faculty/staff, and parents send me videos or topics that may be germane; I appreciate these suggestions very much.

I wanted to share two recent videos I have shown to our students in the hope that you might take a few minutes and watch them. They are short, interesting, and informative, and many people told me they enjoyed them.  In the first video, several people discuss their creation of a pair of prosthetic legs for a dog who was unable to run on his own.  As I explained to the students, this was not achieved through a huge government project or a multi-million dollar international corporation; this was a few individuals who saw a need, decided to help, and with their brains, persistence, and a 3-D printer changed an animal’s life forever by giving him a quality of life that he never had before.  Be ready to smile as you watch.

You may want to have a tissue on hand for the next video we showed.  This short film tells the story of a young man who had been bullied at school after his father passed away. When he moves to a new school, he decides that he will not be invisible. In the process, he finds a way to have an impact on other students, teachers, his entire school, and eventually other schools and younger children.  As I explained to the students, this presentation reinforced some ideas shared a few weeks ago by Ms. Tamisha Williams, Bosque’s Director of Diversity Initiatives and Assistant Director of College Counseling. In that talk, Ms. Williams discussed the “snowball effect”—the concept that the seemingly small things we do can have a multiplying effect for good or for ill—and we all have the choice whether to begin a snowball for positive or for negative change.

As I hope is evident, morning meeting is a time for connecting with one another, and it is also a time for learning—for all of us.  Perhaps this is why morning meeting is one of the most often-cited traditions that Bosque alumni say they loved, and they miss when they move on to college.