Students at Chief Kanim Middle School joined more than one million students across the country to help break down social barriers, by participating in the 13th annual Mix It Up at Lunch Day, Thursday, Oct. 30.

The national event, launched by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project in 2002, encourages students to sit with someone new in the cafeteria for one day at lunch.

As part of National Bullying Prevention month, Chief Kanim staff taught anti-bullying lessons in October and students took a school-wide pledge against bullying. They wrote their pledges on paper handprints to promote the slogan “Take a stand, lend a hand, stop bullying.”

Approximately 700 hands hang on the school walls, a reminder that CKMS students and staff do not tolerate bullying.

After making their personal pledges, students then mixed it up at lunch as a way to get to know new people. They sat at tables marked with their birthday month and talked with other students they did not normally eat with. Several staff members joined their birthday month tables, and flyers on the tables listed conversation starters.

Mix It Up helps schools  “create learning environments where students see each other as individuals and not just as members of a separate group,” said Teaching Tolerance Director Maureen Costello. “When people step out of their cliques and get to know someone, they realize just how much they have in common.”

Learn more at www.teachingtolerance.org.

Chief Kanim Middle School Key Club members Nitka Kumar, Sayge Thompson, Abby Russell, Megan Caro, Leslie Player, Tori Garcia and Sloane Dutton, with counselor intern Amy Lee, pledge to stop bullying.