Spring Branch ISD Featured News

Housman Elementary School hosted Buddy Day Friday, Feb. 9. Buddy Day is a program unique to Housman, focused on pairing older and younger students throughout the year for times of reflection on SBISD's Core Characteristics.

This month, the students held conversations and participated in activities on the Core Characteristic, Empathetic & Self Aware. 

“The primary goal for Buddy Day is to create opportunities for older grades and lower grades to collaborate around our SBISD Core Characteristics,” said Housman Elementary Counselor Deniese Green. “Today’s focus is for students to understand what it means to show empathy, to help each other, and practice showing respect and kindness.”

In Ms. Shelton’s second-grade classroom, the students made Valentine’s Day cards that showed their appreciation for someone important to them. Joined by Ms. Tapley’s fifth grade class, students paired up and began discussing what they think being empathetic means, how they can show empathy, and why it’s important at school and at home.

“You get to contribute to students who are younger than you and they get to learn with you and from you,” said fifth grade student Deontra Zeno. “I like getting to teach them things from my perspective.”

While students worked, shouts of encouragement such as, “that’s a nice thing to say!” and “woah that’s so cool!” filled the class. From writing Happy Valentine’s Day and Feliz San Valentin, to affirmations of “thank you” and “I am grateful for you,” students captured the purpose of the lesson perfectly.

“It’s awesome seeing my students collaborate with other students in this way,” said Tapley. “It really shows the amazing side of these kids!  When they spend time with their buddies, they get so excited to help someone younger than them and show them the right road.”

Across the corridor, Ms Garza’s kindergarten class was joined by Mr. Alva’s third-grade class with the same objective of learning and understanding empathy and self-awareness.

“Some kindergarten students were puzzled by the idea of empathy and how it ties into their schoolwork, but the third grade students were quick to give a multitude of examples.

It’s like wearing another person's shoes,” said one third grade student. “Empathy is to be caring and to understand how the other person is feeling.”

Ms. Garza then identified a student in class who was actively displaying empathy. She asked the class to observe how Dylan, a third grade student, was being empathetic by including a kindergarten student who did not have a partner to discuss with. Ms. Garza noted how Dylan was listening to both kindergarten students equally, making them both feel heard.

The classroom erupted with applause and the students all burst into smiles, as everyone now understood the importance of being Empathetic and Self-aware.

The goal of Buddy Day continues to be collaboration and community.

“The upper grade levels are all upstairs in the building and the lower grade levels are downstairs, so the only time they get to interact with each other is on the bus,” said Ms. Green. “They have different times for lunch and recess too, so Buddy Day really brings the community together in a special way.”