Respect and Kindness

Many schools and school boards are adopting character education. These important skills are often overlooked in a time when the educational focus is upon standards and academics. It is important to remember the education of the whole child. Schools are the perfect place to model and teach character building skills that are as important as the 3Rs.
Check your teaching style and attitudes towards your students. Are you respectful and kind? We all have bad days, but consistently treating our children with disrespect is a sign we need to step back and reassess why we are teaching and what lessons we are "teaching" our students. Make character traits such as respect and kindness part of your classroom expectations and part of the teaching and learning that happens in your classroom.

1.	Take time to teach the children empathy and ‘paying it forward’. Read newspaper articles, stories or books such as “The Giving Tree”, by Shel Siverstein, that demonstrate acts of respect or kindness to others. Have the students write responses to the stories. Have them put themselves in the place of the giver and the receiver of respect/kindness.
2.	Set aside time for affirmation activities. For example, have half the students sit in a circle and the other half sit in a circle around them. Students face each other. Children in the outer circle are the A’s and those in the inner circle are B’s. Each A says something positive to their B partner. Then the A's move one person to the left. The activity is repeated accept this time have the B’s say something nice to their A partner. This continues everyone has heard 3-5 positive messages from different students – many of which not be their good friends. This activity will require modeling and perhaps a list of positive things to comment on if students are not used to giving and receiving compliments and positive feedback.
3.	Assign students to be “kindness reporters”. Have them seek out acts of kindness and respect throughout the day or week and report on it to the class. It might be an oral report, on the announcements or written to take home and share with parents. At the end of each week/month, reward those students who are consistently “reported on”.