Take What You Need Poster

I have really caught on to Pinterest lately.  I've had an account for a long time, but never really got into it.  I don't even know what caused me to revisit it, but I have discovered so many great school counseling things.  I might be addicted now...seriously.  I'm choosing Pinterest over sleep - that's saying something, because I really like my sleep.  Once my mind gets going with ideas it is hard to shut off though.

I ran across this pin:

I thought this was a neat idea.  It is very simple, it requires little time, and zero money to complete.  It is my kind of project.  So, I made one:

This is it - orange roll paper from the library and a purple permanent marker.  It is hard to tell from the picture, but it was fairly large.  I hung it up this morning in the 8th grade building.   I was pretty proud of myself.  Notice the touch of authenticity I included with the already ripped off strip.  Anyway, my pride only lasted a couple of hours.  The next time I walked back through the building the poster was gone.  Only the duct tape remained on the wall (you can kind of see it through the orange).  There was one strip, Kindness, on the floor across the hall and down a bit by the lockers.

At first I was upset.  I was on my way to talk to the assistant principal to see if we could look at the video footage to see who tore my poster down.  I wanted someone to know that they "wronged" me.  Then it hit me, what should I have expected them to do?  They are middle school kids, of course they are gonna go for that.  I pretty much was asking for it anyway.  They didn't know I meant the poster to be kind of symbolic.  I mean I said on the poster "take what you need"  I invited them to take the strips.  So, needless to say I never brought it up with the assistant principle.

My only hope is that maybe it wasn't a complete joke to them.  Maybe one person got something they needed today.  Maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time and effort (although even that wasn't too much).  Maybe it wasn't a complete free for all, a total epic fail.  I can hope anyway, and I may never know unless I ask if any of the teachers saw what happened.  If I happen to get a good update I'll share it.

Anyway, after I picked my ego off the floor I decided I would try something different.  I am working on a display that does not invite students to rip it apart! lol!  My next project is going to be a BE wall.  This is my inspriation:

For now this is going to be in the 8th grade building, but I would like to do something similar at the high school as well.

Last thing, if you are interested, here is the link to my School Counseling Ideas Board on Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/mhunt92/school-counseling-ideas/

Thanks for reading - I welcome any comments or suggestions!