The Tower Pulse

The Tower Pulse

The Tower Pulse

Polls

What is your favorite spring sport

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Dabbs assembly leaves positive impression on students, teachers, administration

Dabbs+assembly+leaves+positive+impression+on+students%2C+teachers%2C+administration

Margaret Brennan ’13| Staff Writer

The A.I.M (All in Movement) assembly that took place on Tuesday, March 26 in the gymnasium featured highly regarded motivational speaker Reggie Dabbs. He has spoken to over 1.5 million students last year alone, according to Dabbs.

“My goal is to take every student from point A to point B. Point A is how every day is a normal day, and point B is today I looked at my life and say if I need to change, I’ve got to change,” said Dabbs.

The A.I.M movement was prompted by a group of 20 students who were selected at the beginning of the school year to discuss the school tolerance climate. The students then decided to make a survey regarding such matters.The results of this survey are what in turn emphasized the need for unity, acceptance and respect within the school, Assistant Principal Flint said.

“A.I.M is a one hundred percent customized group unique to Grosse Pointe South,” said A.I.M co-founder Max Roeske’13. “We’ll have break down meetings soon to critique and go over what went well, what went poorly and what could be changed,”

The main themes for the assembly then became those three magic words, unity, acceptance and respect. Dabbs executed these themes by including personal anecdotes as well as incorporating humor and his musical talents by featuring his saxophone, according to assembly attendee Darius Harris ‘14.

“He (Reggie Dabbs) had a few good jokes, if he was boring people wouldn’t have paid attention to him but for me when he first started talking I was hooked,” said Harris.

Post assembly, students were sent to their 7th hour classes to engage in a student run class discussion where A.I.M members lead students to vocalize their opinions on the effectiveness of the assembly. In these discussions, students talked candidly about their experience here at South and in some cases their oppositions towards the speaker’s message.

“Personally I saw the assembly as a little too late; the issues he talked about are things that need to be installed earlier, like in the elementary and junior high years,” said Nikki Kamienski’13. “For us I don’t think the message he conveyed was all that purposeful to our stage in our lives.”

Though Reggie’s message that one person can make a difference didn’t resonate with all the attendees, converse opinions showed that there is always room for improvement at South and Reggie was the start of the change, math teacher  Jacqueline Shelson said.

“However, many students came away thinking that the message was not for them. They like their lives; they have a good group of friends, a stable family life, and do well in school,” said Shelson. “That is great, but many people are not as fortunate. It is important that every student knows that he/she can make a difference,” said Shelson .

Moving forward from Reggie’s visit A.I.M plans to have meetings where they compile opinions taken from the class discussions in hopes to continue the momentum of the movement, according to Flint.

“Whatever we do moving forward is going to come from the kids, we want this to be a student lead movement so they hold the cards (for the future),” said Flint.

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

All The Tower Pulse Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *