"That Was So Brave of You": Year One at Harvest Elementary

Ashley Wiele, Assistant Principal at Harvest Elementary in the Kerman Unified School District in Kerman, California, wrote this article. Ashley has served in public education for 16 years at the elementary level, teaching grades one through six. She helped open Harvest as the district’s newest elementary school in August 2024. Harvest serves about 400 students from transitional kindergarten through 6th grade.

Harvest Elementary opened in August 2024. Everything here was new that year, from the building to the staff to students who were meeting each other for the first time. A new school like this has no lived-in traditions and no shared way of talking about behavior, so we were building a culture at the same time we were building routines and schedules. The Positivity Project (P2) gave us a place to start when it came to character education. This common vocabulary provided by P2 meant students in every grade starting hearing the same words from the first week.

Students Name the Strength They Need

Over the past year, our students have shown real growth in their ability to recognize and name character strengths in themselves and others. The clearest place we see it is during behavior investigations. Students are increasingly able to identify which character strength they need to build to improve a situation, which reflects both their understanding of the language of character and their willingness to apply it in moments that require reflection and accountability.

When a student can name the strength that would have helped, the conversation surrounding the situation has somewhere to go next. That student can start thinking about what they want to do differently, and now they have the vocabulary to move forward. This kind of skill takes practice, and it is not something most students arrive with. Hearing a strength named every week puts it in their minds and makes it available when they really need it.

“That Was So Brave of You”

This same kind of language shows up even when an adult isn’t in charge of a conversation. One memorable moment happened when a first-grade student turned to a classmate and said, “That was so brave of you!” right in the middle of our schoolwide study of bravery.

When she said it really stuck with us, because we knew she was really engaging with her P2 lessons. She had heard that specific word that week, understood what it meant, and used it on her own to praise someone else. Nobody prompted her.

That kind of exchange can happen because the whole school studies the same strength in the same week. A first grader and a sixth grader are drawing on the same lesson, so the vocabulary flows easily across our transitional kindergarten through 6th grade classrooms. Students use character strengths naturally in conversations with friends, often celebrating one another’s choices, and P2 has given them the confidence to recognize the good in others and in themselves. As they develop this shared language, they build stronger relationships, become more resilient, and take on a deeper sense of responsibility. Those are skills that support their growth as learners and as members of our new school community.

The Lion Award, Twice a Year

To celebrate that growth, our school presents the Lion Award at the end of each semester. The recognition goes to students who consistently model character strengths and serve as role models within their classrooms.

We specifically chose to hand this award out twice a year. Recognition at the end of a semester rewards what a student has done steadily over months. Students also see the award go to classmates they sit next to every day, so it feels like something they can also accomplish. The award has become a strong motivator and a meaningful way to honor students who reflect our school’s values.

What We’re Still Building

Most of what will become tradition at Harvest we are still creating today, but we’re on the right path. Currently, we are still deciding which things will get repeated year after year and which ones will not. The shared language of P2 character strengths is one thing we already know we are keeping. We expect it to look different in a few years as students move all the way through our grade levels with it in place, and we’re excited to see how it manifests.