Kindess At School

Many teachers regularly incorporate kindness in their day to day involvement with children. However, we feel there needs to be a more structured approach to ensure that the kindness message is being heard by all school children. This is something parents can raise with teachers, and as teachers are skilled in the art of educating our children, they are the best source of advice on how this should be undertaken. Unfortunately, teaching is a profession where much is asked and expected, but there is little acknowledgment of a job well done. It also involves working in a system that is sometimes unworkable. Under these circumstances it seems an imposition to expect teachers to carry the flag on our behalf. All we can hope for is that some will become passionate about the benefits of greater kindness to children, and find time to offer advice and guidance on the implementation of a kindness program in schools.

Some thoughts we have are as follows. Initially, children in early primary classes can be given examples of acts of kindness, to ensure they can identify what a kind act is. A five minute segment each day could comprise of the teacher reading something about kindness, or the class could be asked to give an example of an act of kindness. It is better for this to be done in class rather than at assemblies, because of the closer personal contact. Ideally, a special time needs to be set aside, say once each week, to discuss, role play, write, draw or paint about kindness.

The children could be asked to make a drawing or painting that depicts kindness, or write what kindness means to them, or create a poem about kindness, or ways in which they can be kind to themselves, to others, to the environment, and so on. They could also be asked to describe why they should be kind to themselves and others, and what the world would be like if people were kinder to one another.

Some schools in North America have collected stories, poems and drawings created by primary school children, photocopied and bound them ‘in house’, and sold them to raise funds for the school.

Other school kindness activities could be: wash off graffiti or pick up litter in the playground; write notes of appreciation to teachers and staff at their school, and to the ‘lolly pop’ people and school bus drivers; have each student write something positive about other class members, and pass the notes on to the children they write about; create cards for a special day (Easter, Australia Day, Queen’s birthday, etc.) and send them to a retirement village or hospital in the area; write their acts of kindness in a special school journal or their own personal journal or diary; have teachers observe the students at recess and give out special Caught You Being Kind certificates to those seen acting in a kind way; have a competition to choose the kindest person in the community; organise a trip to a nearby area (for instance, a park) to pick up litter; hold a canned food drive to be donated to a charity for underprivileged, abused or homeless people; have a board for children’s paintings about kindness, or stick them along the school corridors; create book marks with kindness messages to take home to parents; have a teddy bear drive so police stations, ambulances and children’s shelters can have teddies for traumatized children. This can be achieved by asking for a donation of bears, or by raising money to buy them; arrange a special ‘get together’ event with a rival school, encouraging the children to look for similarities instead of differences; have classes draw murals depicting kindness on large pieces of paper, and distribute them to retirement homes, hospitals and senior citizen/community centres to brighten up the walls; print out on a typewriter or computer some "I’m a Kindness Kid" and "Kindness is Cool" self adhesive stickers, and give to the children (colored self adhesive sheets with peel off circles or rectangles can be purchased at stationery shops); create a program where children write their commitments to specific acts of kindness on paper cut out in the shape of a footprint. The completed footprints are then taped to the walls of the school, with an accompanying sign reading, "Follow the way to a better school and a better community"; establish specific days of the week to focus on different areas of the children’s lives, such as Kindness in the Classroom Day, Good Manners Day, Kindness at Home Day, Kindness to Animals Day, Kindness to Seniors Day, etc.; create ‘kindness wands’ so that children can anoint each other as Kindness Kids as they witness kind deeds; have children cut hearts out of colored paper, write their name on the heart, then attach it to the classroom wall as a commitment to act in a kinder manner; music classes could focus on kindness songs, history classes focus on kind people in history, geography classes focus on kind countries, science classes focus on inventions that have been kind to humanity (care should be taken to avoid comparisons between kind and unkind inventions, countries, etc. - keep the focus on kindness!); the school library could make a list of books that give a kindness message; the school could make an approach to the local newspaper to create a special kindness section which highlights acts of kindness performed by children. This would create a suitable environment for an explosion of kind acts! Each week the school would forward a list of names and a description of the acts to the paper (if the school has its own paper, it could publish this information, too); send letters, poems, artwork from the children to people in local and overseas areas where there is some crisis (war, flood, earthquake, etc); have classes make a pledge not to intimidate children who are obese, or differ in some way from the norm; the teacher could write the first sentence of a kindness story, and the children could complete the story using their own imagination or experience.

School children could also become involved in community service projects. Alfie Kohn mentions one such project, where the children adopt a needy but anonymous family. The family’s circumstances are described in detail and the children, aided by the teacher, discuss ways the family may be assisted by the class through donated gifts. Nursing homes and hospitals could also be ‘adopted’ by a class.

Returning once more to the ‘put downs’ experienced by children, we read of a case where a group of high school girls pledged they wouldn’t tease other girls for what they wore or how they looked.

The idea is to have the children not only thinking about being kind, but also learning why it is good to be kind. By experiencing it in this way, they will be better motivated and more enthusiastic about it. They will also be thinking about and conceiving acts of kindness they and the people around them can undertake.

There are many, many more activities that can be organised to help school children keep their focus on kindness. Keep a diary of your ideas about projects you may be able to influence your local school to initiate. Such activities help to promote a friendlier and more co-operative environment at school. To quote Kohn once again, . . . opportunities to try out prosocial values not only promote learning by doing, but also encourage children to think of themselves as helpful, caring people.

Some secondary schools in America include community service in the curriculum to promote character building. The students are awarded marks according to the number of hours involved in such activities. It is rare to find students who resent being involved in such services, in fact it has been found that many students involve themselves in a greater number of hours than the course requires. It seems that kindness can become a positive addiction!

Mary Pipher writes in her book, "The Shelter of Each Other" (Vermilion, London) of how she and her thirteen year old daughter Sara, spent a year as volunteers in a soup kitchen. The experience had four main effects [on Sarah]. One, it removed her from a shallow and mean-spirited peer culture and allowed her to spend time with people of all ages. Two, it gave her an education about drugs and alcohol. The people at the shelter who used chemicals didn’t look cool or sophisticated, they looked sick and messed up. Three, the work gave her time with adults who were not in a hurry. Homeless people were the first people she’d ever met who had plenty of time for children. And four, Sara learned that she could make a difference. She could give hungry people food and sad people some companionship. This saved her from cynicism.

Pipher tells us that volunteers are happy people, and that by expressing kindness we can rekindle idealism and rebuild a sense of community. She quotes Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, who said, Sin is that which separates.

In some overseas countries there is a growing trend to promote projects which bring the young and old together. Older people tend to have more time available to share their wisdom, and they have generally let go of the selfish and materialistic values that seem to drive our society. These story telling projects have been so eagerly accepted and sought after by the young people that the community get togethers have become a regular weekly occurrence.

Children are the future, and kinder children will ensure the creation of a kinder, future world.