Kindness doesn't care how old you are, what your skin color is, who you voted for, or anything else. Kindness just matters.
I saw on Facebook, that this week, February 14-20, is "Random Acts of Kindness Week". I've been thinking about kindness lately. I know I am feeling much more sensitive these days, and I am trying to lean into that. Everywhere I look I have seen moments of extreme kindness, and moments of true meanness. Humanity is such a complex concept. We have the ability to be brought to tears of empathy by someone in need, and yet still spit on another's shortcomings. Sometimes it depends on the time of day which response we will choose.
On Friday I made a pretty innocuous reply to a tweet by Dr. Biden on Twitter. She (or her pr people, I don't really care) posted pictures of huge heart cut-outs on the White House lawn. It was such a teacher-y thing to do, and it really made my day. I said I was happy there was an educator in the White House and thanked her for what she does. Pretty bland, but the responses I got! Not so bland, lol! It's a lot easier to be mean these days, have you noticed? According to those Tweets, I am, "what's wrong with education today", "brainwashing children to hate themselves", "blind to propaganda" "narcissistic indoctrinator", and the list goes on. Whatever- I choose to not reply, and I choose to not let nameless (because most of them don't even use their real names), faceless dots on a screen hurt me.
Every year in my kindergarten class, we spend a lot of time talking about kindness. We sing about it, we read about it, I try to infuse it into so many of the lessons we have during the day. Kindness is more than just being nice, it's thinking about another person in such a way, and treating them in such a way that you would want to be treated. Kindness is finding ways to make someone happy, to make their load easier, to help one another. The more we infuse kindness into our day, the more I see it being played out in their lives.
One year I had a student who was very petite. While she was at recess one day, an older student started to make fun of her size, which caused her to start crying. When her classmates found this out, they were outraged. Now, let me give you a bit of a background on this class- they literally (I do mean to use that word literally) fist fought over every single thing. It was a most exhausting year. But, as much as this class fought each other, they could not stand by and let one of their own be made fun of. From that day on, my friend never was left alone on the playground again. There was always someone close by. They clearly picked up on some forms of kindness...
This year, one of my students struggles to get her boots off. Her friends take turns volunteering to help her.
Last year my students would teach their classmates how to do intricate art activities.
One year I had a student with loads of emotional and behavioural issues. After he tore the classroom apart for the umpteenth time, I wanted to talk about it with the other students. They proceeded to tell me all of the wonderful things this one student would do.
Children understand kindness, and they practice it. They aren't perfect, and they still have those "me first" moments, but when you take time to build a classroom community, things like this happen.
What does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to do kind things? You don't always have to like the other person, you don't even have to know them. But you can always be kind to them. If you can be anything, be kind. Always.
Kindness playlist:
I love that you shared your Kindness Playlist! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm so sorry to hear your kind words were met with such hardness. It is wonderful that you reach out to others.
Children are so precious. Thank you for sharing their examples of kindness and growth.