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Clarkson women's hockey makes visit to Potsdam elementary assembly

Posted 4/1/14

This past Friday afternoon members of Clarkson University's National Champion Women's Hockey team attended an assembly at Potsdam's Lawrence Avenue Elementary School, which recognized students who …

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Clarkson women's hockey makes visit to Potsdam elementary assembly

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This past Friday afternoon members of Clarkson University's National Champion Women's Hockey team attended an assembly at Potsdam's Lawrence Avenue Elementary School, which recognized students who practiced using good character every day during the month of March.

The Golden Knights brought their national championship trophies and gave high fives and congratulated students on their good character.

Lawrence Avenue Elementary is a "Bucket Filling" School, which means it emphasizes and practices using good character every day. This character education program is based on author Carol McCloud's book "Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids." This antibulling theory is: Each one of us has an invisible bucket. It is constantly emptied or filled, depending on what others say or do to us. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When it is empty, we feel awful. Each of us has an invisible dipper.

At March's ceremony on the 28th, the students had surprise guests from the Clarkson University Women's Hockey team, seniors Vanessa Gagnon (St. Constant, QUE), Erica Howe (Ottawa, ONT) and Jamie Lee Rattray (Kanata, ONT), and junior Jenna Boss (Little Canada, MN), who had just won the NCAA National Championship on March 23.

Each morning before the Pledge of Allegiance the students at Lawrence Elementary School recite the Bucket Filler's Pledge: "I promise to do my best every day, to be a bucket filler, not to dip, and to use my lid for myself and others at home, at school, and everywhere I go."

Teachers selected students who exemplify that month's character theme. March's character theme was fairness. Boss spoke about the importance of being fair on a team, to yourself, to friends, to teachers, to parents, and to siblings. She stressed cheating is not the answer. It might get you short term results, but being fair will get you where you want to be in the future. Gagnon spoke about the importance of academics and how the life lessons her professors taught her shaped her future as well as the importance of having good, fair friends. She noted her homework had to come before her passion for hockey because grades would get her a job.