A teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high
school by telling them the difference they each made.
Using a process developed by Helice Bridges of Del Mar, California,
she called each student to the front of the class, one at a time. First she
told them how the student made a difference to her and the class.
Then she presented each of the with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold
letters which read, "Who I am Makes a Difference."
Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see
what kind of impact recognition would have on a community.
She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed
them to go out and spread this acknowledgment ceremony.
Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored
whom and report back to the class in about a week.
One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby
company and honored hime for helping him with his career planning.
He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him two
extra ribbons, and said, "We're doing a class project on recognition, and
we'd like you to go out, find somebody to honor, give them a blue ribbon,
then give them the extra blue ribbon so they can acknowledge a third
person to keep this acknowledgment ceremony going. Then please
report back to me and tell me what happened."
Later that day the junior executive went in to see his boss,
who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow.
He sat his boss down and he told him that he deeply admired him
for being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised.
The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the
blue ribbon and would he give him permission to put it on him.
His surprised boss said, "Well, Sure."
The junior executive took the blue ribbon and placed it
right on his boss's jacket above his heart. As he gave him the
the last extra ribbon, he said, "Would you do me a favor?
Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring
somebody else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is
doing a project in school and we want to keep the recognition
ceremony going and find out how it affects people."
That night the boss came home to his 14-year-old son
and sat him down. He said, "The most incredible thing
happened to me today. I was in my office and on of the
junior executives came in and told me he admired me and
gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine.
He thinks I'm a creative genius. Then he put this blue
ribbon that says 'Who I Am Makes A Difference' on my
jackey above my heart. He gave me an extra ribbon
and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was
driving home tonight, I started thinkin about whom I would
honor with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want
to honor you.
"My days are really hectic and when I come home I don't
pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not
getting good enough grades in school and for you bedroom
being a mess, but shomehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here
and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to
me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person
in my life. You're a great kid and I love you!"
The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn't
stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father
and said through his tears, "I was planning on committing suicide
tomorrow, Dad, because I didn't thinky you loved me. Now I
don't need to.
for the next story.
page