Overview
Students will reflect on and discuss how to encourage more kindness and caring, for themselves and others, at their school and beyond. They will practice regular intentional acts so they become routine and normalized parts of students’ lives. By reporting back, students will learn about each other’s experiences and can use them as sources of inspiration. The activity encourages a variety of kind and caring acts from classroom community care to self-care.
Recommended time
15-20 mins per lesson (use the pacing suggestions or timestamps to adjust, depending on time available)
Five lessons total, one lesson per week
Materials and advance prep
Student journal
Sticky notes
Anchor chart paper and markers
Lesson 2: printouts of Appendix 2 (optional), and access to technology for a video -- be sure to test technology prior to the lesson
Lesson 3: printouts of Appendix 4 (optional)
Lesson 5: printouts of Appendix 6 (optional)
Read through all five lessons and try to set a timeline. Lessons may require minor preparation to implement with fidelity and ease.
Objectives
Understand what it means to be kind and caring.
Practice acts of kindness and caring, especially towards those different from us.
Connect empathy to kindness and care
Observe and notice when others may need support, kindness, and care
Why this matters
Research shows that acting with kindness and care makes people feel good by building connections with others and reinforcing a positive view of themselves. Studies have also shown that feeling care and concern for others is linked to altruism, and feelings of care can be cultivated by asking people to imagine what others are going through and how they feel. Kindness and caring are contagious—they can spread and influence people to do good deeds beyond their existing networks. Throughout these lessons, students will be given opportunities to practice intentional acts of caring and to share and learn from their experiences. The acts should create a chain reaction that builds a habit of kind, caring actions towards others.
Other considerations
Feel free to adapt the lessons as necessary to meet your students’ needs, but also try to maintain the integrity of the content or concepts throughout each lesson. Reaffirm class norms, or if you haven’t yet set class norms, see Appendix 1 for ideas on how to do so. Tips and suggestions are provided throughout, but do not hesitate to check in with other staff as well.
Extending this strategy
Display or create a digital “Everyday Caring Board” or “Shout Out Wall” where students can post anonymous “shout-outs” to their peers. Take time throughout the week to read these aloud.
Continue assigning acts of kindness challenges (Appendix 2) and kindness scavenger hunts (Appendix 5) to encourage regular, intentional caring acts as well as noticing kindness.
Play one or more of the following Making Caring Common games: Cheers, Spotlight, Thumb-O-Meter, Whip-Arounds, Kick-Off Quotation or Poem. The games are a great way to transition in or out of a strategy lesson or to boost the positive interactions in your class.
Content developed by Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
