When I walk in the hallways at school I always find myself trying to not look at people wrong, I am always stressing that someone might think I am glaring at them or giving them a nasty look and take offense. Not only has this happened to me before but it’s happened more than once. This is an example of when an intention has a negative impact that hurts or offends another person.  

   The idea of impact vs intent is that intent does NOT equal impact.  We must be aware of how our intentions can commonly be misunderstood and have unintended impacts on people. According to one of the student reengagement teachers, Sierra Nakano, “it’s important to understand the difference between intent and impact because you need to understand the consequences of your actions in order to have good self awareness in healthy relationships. Sometimes we say things that hurt others feelings but we don’t know that we’re doing it.” Which means if you do not have good self awareness, it can be challenging for you to keep healthy relationships. This is not only bad for the individual students, but it is bad for everyone including the teachers at our school.

    If students do not know how to communicate and are not aware of themselves when communicating with others then how will they be able to make friends and enjoy school? According to dr Christian Heim, “Problems arise when your good intentions have an unintended bad impact. This can surprise you, but in a world of diverse cultures, sex and gender expressions, and diverse world-views, religions and beliefs. Good intentions surprisingly often lead to bad impacts.” This can lead to problems with how students collaborate with each other at school. Sometimes students can even be offended when their good intention is taken as an insult or has a negative impact. This can create drama and bad reputations for students at THS, which hurts our community and our ability to work together as students. 

   I believe that our school would greatly benefit if we all did a better job teaching and practicing the difference between intent and impact. Sierra Nakano states, ‘I think a good way to teach intent vs impact is for all of the teachers to be talking about it in every subject. That way students can practice it in different settings to see the positive effects, and then maybe even tie it to the outside of school. 

   A big part of teaching intent vs impact is teaching how to recover when something you intended to be good has a bad impact. We must remember that when someone unintentionally has a negative impact on someone it does not mean that makes them a bad person. It just means that they did not think about their action having that impact on someone else. What is important is how you respond when you realize that you have unintentionally had a bad impact on someone. According to dr Christian Heim “If you create a bad impact, a good apology can fix it. Take responsibility without being personal: I’m sorry that what I said caused you stress. I didn’t mean it that way. An apology clears the air to put two people back in trusting relationships. Learning to apologize is an important skill if you want to get on with people.”