hearts week planning
hi ASB! please put any additional ideas/questions/suggestions/comments/concerns about hearts week in the comments below.
here's the link for the notes farhaan took:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jcov5XK4IMuY9zzylPOfSQyuuKSCgWVAYQISA6lKhVo/edit?usp=sharing
thank you guys!
hey PR!
ReplyDeleteRegarding opt in/out, I think it should be opt out because Calais is right in saying that this is one of the few events that people can automatically participate in. If people opt in, they may also fear the thought of seeming "arrogant" as Michael mentioned. The only downside is that this event may not receive as much participation as it would in person. It is very convenient to hold a pen during passing period and right on a few friends' hearts, but having it on an app/form/whatever is an additional inconvenience. So my only concern would be that students/teachers don't receive as many comments as they expected, resulting with ASB having to fill them in.
concern about negative comments:
this won't be an issue if the comments are collected from the ASB app because everyone signs in to the app with their name. People write negative comments because they know its anonymous, but I don't think anyone would do something like that under their name.. If they do, we can talk to them.
electronic/paper:
Put simply, paper is too inconvenient. Whether you have ASB hand write messages sent into the app or print 1800 hearts, it probably will not be possible (unless hearts are returned weeks after the event). I think students will be o.k. with receiving electronic messages given our current situation.
hey PR!
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Jonathan/Michael's thoughts, I think keeping hearts week opt-out would be the best option, both in person and virtually. I expressed some of my thoughts about the logistics for hearts week awhile back during the feedback discussion, and although I don't want to push it too hard, I think it should still be considered, especially since the Lynbrook app is such a great resource for us to use (a lot of students already have the app downloaded for BOTC).
Sending/"writing" a message on someone else's heart can come in the form of app notifications (instead of a one-time here's-your-heart). Once you choose someone's name (through a search/scroll function), you can send an unlimited amount of messages to someone. Because messages will be easily filtered through a vetting process, negative comments are highly unlikely--ASB will immediately know who wrote the comment.
App notifications would be released throughout the day instead. An app notification would look something like "[Name] sent you a Heart's Week message!" We can also have a compiled heart at the very end that they can save/print/screenshot.
One great advantage we have is that no one else can see your heart, and you can't see others (to avoid comparison). This solves a lot of the issues that IRL Hearts Week struggled with, and honestly, once we go back to school in the future, in-app Hearts Week can still be possible. I truly believe and hope we can make this work, as this has been an event that many students enjoy. Good luck <3
Hi!
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Joyce and Jonathan, I think it would be best to keep hearts week opt-out, especially virtually. I feel that we've all noticed the lack of student engagement thus far, and I anticipate much lower participation overall if students need to sign up to opt in. From the events I've organized I've come to realize that students prefer doing the minimum amount of work possible to participate in events, so keeping it opt out seems most effective in promoting participation to me.
I've always valued that the heart was physical and I think it adds more value overall when it's a heart you can hold in your hand and read (a lot of people even pin these hearts up in their rooms). While COVID presents challenges to distribute IRL, I think it's definitely possible. We can collect messages through the app (which also makes it easier to filter out negative messages) and digitally add them to hearts. With roughly 1800 hearts and ~35 ASB commissioners, I think it's definitely manageable to print them out at Lynbrook, give them to ASB where each commissioner can cut ~51 hearts and return them for distribution the next week.
Good luck!
Leaving some thoughts for future PRs looking into this, based on my previous three years of experience with it and half-a-year of deep thinking about the event:
ReplyDelete1) We must continually re-examine the purpose and implementation of Hearts Week. As of its current state, Hearts Week focuses more on the receiving of compliments than the giving of kind words, as you are rewarded with a fuller heart if you get more compliments, but you *technically* don't get any visible reward if you give lots of compliments. Instead, we should try to reward the thought behind and actions of giving, of fostering a culture of kindness.
2) Hearts Weeks makes kindness seem special and once-a-year when we should instead be normalizing it throughout the year. While I would argue that the Hearts Week event as it currently stands is still a net benefit to the vast majority of students, it could be improved if we could surround it with smaller but more regular events recognizing kindness and gratitude as a regular part of the day-to-day Viking life. That way, Hearts Week is just the biggest of many events promoting kindness rather than the only one that seems to do so.