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Acts of kindness Teacher encourages pupils to tip the scales Friday, March 03, 2000 By Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
How much does an act of violence weigh?
As Ronald Taylor's rampage through Wilkinsburg demonstrated, sometimes very much indeed.
Pat Gribbin, however, is hoping to teach students at Kelly Elementary School in Wilkinsburg, which is just a few blocks from the site of Wednesday's shootings, that acts of kindness can balance out a violent act. The message is: If the desire and effort is there, it can even outweigh it.
To demonstrate his point, the sixth-grade teacher yesterday made use of several yellow-and-red pan scales normally reserved for math class.
During the class's weekly "Random Acts Of Kindness" program, the youngsters were split into three groups and were instructed to fill the two sides of the scale with weights of varying colors and sizes. The small, orange plastic squares represented acts of kindness; the heavier metal ones, acts of violence. They were then told to figure out how they could balance the scale.
With the shootings obviously still fresh in their minds, some of the children, like 12-year-old Christin Anthony's group, initially opted for more of the metal weights.
"There's a lot of bad stuff going on," Christin explained. "More bad than good."
But Gribbin wasn't convinced.
"Then how come there are so many orange squares on the other side of the pan?" he shot back. The pupils, after all, had managed in a matter of minutes to perfectly balance the small, plastic scale.
Christin giggled. "I guess because there's good, too."
Brandylynn Daniels, 12, and her table mates made sure from the get-go that there were equal amounts of "kind" and "violent" weights in the two pans.
"If you're going to balance it out, you can't have all bad on one side or all good," she noted.
Which was music to Gribbin's ears.
"The way you did it, can you see that's what happens in real life?" he asked. "If a bad thing happens, then almost always something good counteracts it."
During the course of the program, which began in 1993, pupils are encouraged to carry out good deeds in the Wilkinsburg community as well as become more actively involved.
They also receive training on how to make good behavioral choices when they're faced with life's challenges. But sometimes, Gribbin said, it takes an event like Wednesday's shootings to help children realize that random acts of kindness can really make a difference.
As an example, he reminded the class about their reaction on Wednesday afternoon.
After learning a gunman was loose in the community, administrators sent the sixth-grade class, which is housed in portable classrooms, to the gym to wait for their parents. But rather than resort to panic, Gribbin pointed out, pupils consoled one another with hugs and kind words.
"Did anyone tell you to do that?" he asked.
When the pupils shook their collective heads "no," Gribbin smiled. "That's random acts of kindness -- real people helping real people."
After the pan scale demonstration, the class brainstormed about ways they could "change the balance" between good and bad in their own neighborhood.
"Be nicer to one another," called out one pupil.
"We could help in the community," ventured Brandylynn. "One person can do a little job, and if everyone helps we can do a big job."
And that, says Gribbin, was exactly the point of the day's exercise.
"So much of what we teach is just rhetoric," he said. "So when there is something we can put into practice, you do and hope it sticks."
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