Beck students exemplify interpersonal skills in Amazing Shake Challenge

This year, Beck Elementary School adopted an important initiative to coincide with the school’s “True Blue” character practices by placing an additional emphasis on honing students’ interpersonal skills. After a year of habitually practicing these skills, Beck students had the opportunity to demonstrate their progress at the school’s Amazing Shake Challenge.

At the event, Beck challenged students through five experiences including a mock interview, a simulated phone conversation, a library book check-out experience, a restaurant simulation and an assignment challenge. The challenges allowed students to demonstrate how far they had come with their greetings, eye contact and use of polite manners such as “please” and “thank you.”

Family and community members also got involved with the event, volunteering to help run the different challenges.

“This opportunity was important to our campus because we felt that it would encourage students to ‘look up’ more,” said Beck Elementary’s principal, Amanda Bunch. “Our students have been more aware of their manners in terms of greeting each other, using each other’s names in greetings, making eye contact with the person speaking, saying ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no sir,’ and saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ more consistently.”

This was the first Amazing Shake Challenge at Beck, and the school plans to continue the event for years to come.

“Regularly using these skills has engaged more students to connect and build awareness of their bodies and how they treat each other. It’s already made a great impact on our campus,” said Mrs. Bunch. 

For more pictures from the Amazing Shake Challenge, please visit the district’s Flickr account.