What’s in a Name?
People often ask, "why did you name your program Everybody Matters?" The answer is unexpected and beautiful.
Prior to founding Everybody Matters, I was a school social worker at a Jr. High and the Vice Principal asked me if I'd be willing to run afterschool detention.
"Nope," I said. "I don't believe that punishment changes behavior, so I'm not in the punishment business. HOWEVER I'll happily create an afterschool Skills of Success class, and you can change the roster daily and I'll meet with students and teach them alternative behaviors to use when they are stressed, because I AM in the helping business."
He went for this proposal and on the very first day of this class he invited five tough angry young men to join me due to various behaviors they had displayed during the school day. The boys weren't especially happy to be there, and the atmosphere initially had a low level hostility, but that slowly shifted as we discussed the situations they had been in, the reactions they displayed during those situations and new options for how they might behave in the future. They started to "get it." They felt heard. They understood. And this was great!
We finished early and I announced we had about 10 minutes left before the bus arrived and one of boys, I'll call him Bryan, respectfully asked, "Hey, Mrs. Madrid, can we draw?" This struck me as endearing that these tough fellas wanted to draw, and I said, "sure," while I handed out paper and pens and markers.
With just a few minutes left, one of the boys asked, "Hey, can we hang our pictures up?" This had such an element of sweetness to it, and I happily said, "of course," and then scrambled to get tape and hang these up before the bus arrived.
With my back turned, I heard one of the boys say, "I'm not going to hang mine up. It's no good. It's just a scribble." And then Bryan said, "No, man. You gotta hang it up. Your scribble matters."
I stopped in my tracks. YOUR SCRIBBLE MATTERS!
How beautiful was that? How affirming. Your scribble matters.
I will never forget that exchange.
And so, when I founded this non-profit I wanted to call it, “Your Scribble Matters" - but then I knew I'd need to tell this story a gillion times.
And maybe that would have been just fine. Because a story like this deserves re-telling.
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