Spreading Positivity: Communications students challenge peers

The Lind-Ritzville High School Communications/Debate class held an assembly on Feb. 7 to introduce a new and unique concept to their peers. They challenged the students and staff of the high school to be more aware of their thoughts, and focus specifically on thinking more positively.

In October, Communications/Debate class teacher Kathy McAnally asked the class to come up with a project or idea to make the school a better place. She wanted her students to use the new speaking skills they had learned, and be able to give back to the school at the same time. The seven students in that class each created a presentation that they gave, and then voted on those presentations until the Positive Thinking Experiment was decided on in November.

The Positive Thinking Experiment began with a woman named Hilary Weeks who did an experiment regarding positive thinking. Weeks had heard that on average people think 300 negative thoughts a day and she wanted to see if this was true. She purchased a clicker and began counting her negative thoughts over the course of a week. After this week, she realized that she was feeling sad and totally depressed. She couldn’t believe that focusing on her negative thoughts completely changed her mood. She quickly decided to change her experiment to counting her positive thoughts instead, and found that she had become happier, motivated, and excited than she had ever felt.

After hearing of Weeks, the students wanted to try this experiment out for themselves. They decided as a class to focus more on what they were thinking every day and to change any negative thought they had to a positive one. After they did this, they were so amazed at the results. Those students who were normally pretty pessimistic saw a huge change in the way they looked at things and saw a positive change in their school attendance and performance. They wanted to share their new discovery with the rest of the student body.

Members of the class put an assembly together where they showed a video that explained Weeks’ experiment, shared their own personal experiences, and handed out bracelets that read “Think Positive” written on them. The students and staff of the high school were encouraged to wear the bracelets to remind them to change their negative thoughts to positive ones. The experiment is to see if a change occurs in the atmosphere of the school when the student body is more aware of the way they are thinking.

When asked how she thought the assembly went and was received, McAnally said that she was very pleased with the way the student body participated and listened to the message. She was also happy to have some of her students tell her that they had gone home that day and the bracelets had helped them stay positive.

McAnally also stated, “

does affect the whole school atmosphere. As teachers, we have talked about the culture of our school. This was something that we did to try to affect the culture by the way people think, so that in general when you go to Lind-Ritzville High School, this is just how we roll, and this is what we do.”

The ultimate goal that the Communications/Debate class had was to be able to use their new speaking skills they had learned, to give a message to their peers that would make a positive impact in their lives. They would like to bring their message to the younger students at both the Jr. High and Grade School to spread positivity even more and keep it going.

McAnally said, “It’s just up to human nature to decide how long it’s going to last.”