MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Content Editor
Posted: Sunday, February 21, 2010 6:10 am

RMS Shawn Lee encouraged her students to complete 1,097 Acts of Kindness. Front: Sunshine Scott. Second Row: Arron Doss, Savannah Bailey, Britni Barker, Justin Patel, Andrew Kilgour. Third Row: Cassandra Mihalko, Jasmin Harris, Keleah Clark and Shawn Le

Teenagers aren’t always the most polite and considerate people on the planet.

But one Rutherford County teacher is trying to change that.

Rockvale Middle School’s Teacher of the Year Shawn Lee embarked on an impressive project this winter: for her students to complete 1,000 Acts of Kindness.

“I just wanted to do something positive for this age group,” she said.

Lee teaches seventh-grade language arts at the school and during a discussion about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, her students said the man would not be happy with how people treat each other.

So on Tuesday, Jan. 19, her 106 students set a goal to reach 1,000 Acts of Kindness by Thursday, Feb. 11.

“They really started this,” Lee said. “They wanted to make a change.”

And change they did.

The students completed 1,097 Acts of Kindness in the three and a half week project with one doing almost 50 by herself.

Most of the students were more kind by helping out around the house and being more polite to their parents.

But a few decided to be nice to their fellow students.

Seventh graders Justin Patel, 13, and Jacob Whitehair reached out and made new friends because of the Acts of Kindness.

One of Jacob’s classmates was bullied by other students.

After learning of the student’s father is stationed in Afghanistan, Jacob stepped in and stopped other students from bullying the boy.

“I told everyone to stop picking on him … because I don’t know what it would be like to have my dad gone for that amount of time,” Jacob said. “It’s got to be hard because he looks like he needs help every day.”

Because of acts like Jacob’s, kindness is spread through the school like wildfire, Lee said.

“Even the comments in the hallway became positive and not negative,” she said. “It’s been quite amazing.”

The kind acts have spread outside of the school too, when students helped strangers.

Andrew Kilgour, 13, was kind to an elderly woman at the doctor’s office by helping her into a wheelchair.

“It makes me feel better to see someone else smile,” Andrew said. “It makes me smile.”

And that’s the biggest difference the Acts of Kindness has made.

The students feel better about themselves for being nice to each other, their parents and others.

“I changed the way I acted. It made me feel good about myself,” Jasmine Harris, 13, said, adding normally she wasn’t very helpful around the house or out in public.

The students also feel like they’re making the world a better place too.

“Now people make the world feel like an ugly place that’s full of hate,” Keleah Clark, 13, said, “and this project taught me that we can make a change to bring kindness into this world.”

The students aren’t ready to quit since they reached 1,000.

“They want to keep going and see what they could get to,” Lee said.

They’re shooting for 10,000 Acts of Kindness.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or at mwillard@ murfreesboropost.com