Activity for the last school week of the year

The kids are getting restless and the teachers are winding down during last week of school before the summer school holidays in Australia. What a better way to spend some time in this last week than letting the whole school watch the 52virtues movie and then presenting a 52virtues screensaver CD as prizes to the children whose artworks are represented in the screensaver.

Over 500 children packed into the Kincumber public school hall and watched the 52virtues movie with lots of giggling, laughing, Oohing and Aahing. One of the favourites with the teachers was Isabel’s virtue of love, and you can see why…

I can’t wait to see other schools around the world developing their own 52virtues artwork projects, what a fantastic way to bring peace and understanding throughout the world.

Doug Beckers

How Kincumber Primary School is promoting the virtues

Imagine going to a junior school end of year presentation night and see that the school is actively promoting “Values”. I was lucky enough to attend our children’s school presentation last night and the values; self reliance, organisation, resilience, getting along and confidence were prominently displayed on the main stage. What a great way of promoting some of the 52 Virtues!

Here is a photograph of our daughter Phoebe with the Award for Music. She got the award because of her enthusiasm towards being in the school choir, the violin ensemble and the dance troupe.

“It is with great pleasure that we present Phoebe Beckers with the Col Murray Music Award. Phoebe’s love of music has been evident throughout her seven years at Kincumber Public School.

 She has participated in numerous musical activities and is multi-talented. Phoebe sings, dances and plays the violin. She has been a committed and enthusiastic member of the school choir since year 3 and has attended all performances. Phoebe’s favourite dance styles are jazz and hip-hop and she has participated for the past two years in the school talen quest. This year her dance troup was placed 1st in their preliminary final for their performance in the quest and she also attended a Creative Arts Camp for dance.

 Phoebe’s love for playing the violin has extended to public performance of the instrument. She has played at many schools assemblies, the Gosford City Council Environmental Awards ceremony and a member of the violin troupe that performed impressively at the Sydney Opera House.

Congratulations Phoebe, you are an inspiration to others and a very worthy recipient of this award for 2008.”

With Phoebe is a display box with one of the schools values. Phoebe’s self-confidence allowed her to gain the award and we are vey proud of you Phoebe, congratulations on your award.

Clancy our 10 year old son, also got an award for being a member of the team that won the Futsal State Finals, great effort Clancy, a fantastic display of the virtue of determination.

Doug Beckers

Obama talks about the virtues

The election win and victory speech by US President elect Barak Obama was a turning point in the way we view the world. His speech talked about many of the things we all strive for such as prosperity, opportunity and peace, and even more inspiring was that he referred to many of the 52 Virtues such as honesty, service, responsibility, humility and determination.

Unity is being different from everyone else but being accepted by a group. Brianna 12

All of the 52 virtues have been interpreted by children at our local primary school at Kincumber on the central coast NSW Australia, by creating artworks around what they believe each virtue means. I’m sure that the children’s interpretations are not that different to what Barak Obama wanted to convey in his speech. Sarah wrote: “Service is giving a favour without asking” something very profound for a 9 year old. Our goal is to have artwork interpretations of the 52 virtues from at least 52 different cultures so a “virtues” movement will be created to help build a better world. Let the process begin!

Doug Beckers