PD Days
Most provinces in Canada have “PD Days,” which usually stands for “Professional Development Days” (for teachers) but sometimes “Personal Development Days” (for students.) The closest equivalent I can think of in the US is “Parent-Teacher Conference Days” except PD Days are just for the teachers. Their effectiveness is universally questioned nowadays, but they have always meant the same thing for students no matter what: no school!
A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stomp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty it was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. This is what happens when a child bullies another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The look on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home.
