Grygla K-12 students take in a movie infused with kindness and acceptance
Tue, 12/19/2017 - 9:26am
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By:
Kari Sundberg, Eagle Editor
Recently, the Grygla K-12 students took a school trip to Falls Cinema in Thief River Falls. The movie they watched was called Wonder and has been said to have had a massive cultural impact in which many schools are using to teach empathy, acceptance and kindness.
Wonder is a WONDER-ful, feel-good movie starring Owen Wilson, Julia Roberts and Jacob Tremblay, who plays August Pullman. It tells an inspiring and heartwarming story of Auggie, a boy with facial deformities, who enters 5th grade and is attending public school for the first time. With bullying, friendship, betrayal and forgiveness, Auggie’s extraordinary journey unites them all and proves you can’t blend in when you were born to stand out. Based on the bestselling children’s Novel, Wonder spreads a message about the power of kindness. In fact, the motto of the whole book and movie has started a ‘CHOOSE KIND’ movement in classrooms and communities across the country. Especially now, people want to be reminded that there is an inherent goodness in people. The Grygla School is proud to be a part of the movement.
After the school outing, small group discussions were held amongst the elementary and high school students and their teachers. The Grygla Eagle was fortunate enough to attend the movie and discussion with the school and took note of the personal takeaways the day provided.
What some of
the students had to say:
Jordan Herseth (senior): I really liked to see that Auggie had the courage to keep going when things were tough for him.
Dustin Smith (senior): With the different characters in the movie, you can see how a person’s home life really influences them and the decisions they make.
Layla Jelle (sophomore): This movie shows that is just takes 1 person to make the right decision and the rest may follow.
Nolan Anderson (8th grade): The movie showed us a lot of things...like how you get to know someone in spite of what they look like or what’s going on and you find out that you actually want to be friends with them because of who they are.
Jake Ahlbeck (junior): There’s a lot of different perspectives in this movie, like the way Auggie’s mom never gave up on him...but do mom’s ever give up on their kids? It was cool to see.
Jens Oslund (3rd grade): I felt bad for Auggie in this movie. He didn’t have many friends at first, but then he made a lot and was brave!
Brooke Limesand (senior): The kids in the movie didn’t want to stand up for Auggie because they cared more about fitting in.
Bailey Watne (sophomore): Everyone has a story. We shouldn’t be so quick to judge.
Grygla School Principal Jamie Lunsetter assembled the students for a large group discussion at the end of the day. He let the kids take the floor and talk about different things they had taken away from the movie. He said the easy part is going and watching the film; the tough part is the implementation of how the movie made everyone feel. The student body was then encouraged to always choose the hard right...sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.
In closing, the main three lessons majority of our young people agreed on was 1. To never judge someone by their appearance as that has nothing to do with their personality. 2. It’s not your circumstances that determine your happiness, it’s your attitude and outlook. 3. Stand up for yourself and don’t give in to bullying.
As the movie shows us in so many ways, kindness counts. And the message it sends has the power to transform the way we think about everyone who crosses our path.