Lesson 1: Understanding Caring
20-30 Minutes
Introduce the strategy (1 minute)
Say something like, “Today we are beginning the first of a series of activities and exercises that will help us practice how we can care more for others. It’s important that we think about how we treat others – our friends, family, people we might not know as well, even strangers.”
Visualization exercise (2 minutes)
Begin with a visualization, pausing throughout to give students time to think and process. Narrate the following:
“I invite you to close or open your eyes as we start, whichever is more comfortable. Think of someone who you consider to be a good person. The person can be someone you’re related to or know well, someone from current or historical events that you don’t know personally, or someone no longer living. Think about someone who may be a part of your community or culture or someone who is part of a different community or culture. Once you choose someone that you consider to be a good person, visualize that person and what they stand for, and what they do for others. What qualities and values do they embody? What makes them a good person? What specific actions do they take that makes them a good person? Now write down some examples of why you consider them to be a good person.” You may want to write down these questions or project them on the board for students to refer to as they think.
MCC Tip: In case a student is uncomfortable or unable to engage during the activity, you can provide an example of a commonly known person for the whole class to consider (e.g., Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr.), especially someone they may be learning about currently.
Encourage students to connect to their own cultures, communities, and backgrounds in this lesson and throughout the strategy. While kindness and care have overlapping meanings across cultures, encourage students to also reflect on and notice nuances in how different communities consider someone to be good, kind or caring.
Descriptions group exercise (6-8 minutes)
Distribute sticky notes to students and have them each write three to five words or short phrases that describe what makes the person they were visualizing ‘good.’ Ask students not to identify the person by name on the sticky notes. Give students two minutes to work on this activity.
MCC Tip: Think about your class composition. If you suspect some students will not get along, it’s probably best to separate them, at least for the first few lessons. If you suspect some students will have a tough time, it might be a good idea to put them in groups with students you trust to be helpful or cooperative. Remind students of classroom norms, or refer to Appendix 1 for examples.
Once students have finished individually reflecting and writing, have them get in groups of three to five, post their notes on a space of the wall (or on an anchor chart), and work together to cluster them into groups based on similarities that they notice. For instance, some students may have focused a lot on the person’s emotional support (e.g., he’s always there for me/others), whereas some may have focused on the person’s giving (e.g., my mom buys me nice clothes). Give students no more than five minutes to work on this together. Instruct groups to try and label the clusters they create.
Prompting Tips: Prepare and present the question prompts and directions on a PowerPoint presentation or on a classroom board to accommodate a variety of learning styles.
Gallery walk and reflection (5 minutes)
Once the groups have finished, have students silently circulate around the room and read what their peers wrote. Before students move, prompt them to think about the following questions:
What connections or similarities do you notice?
What seems to make someone a good person?
Did anything surprise you?
Next, instruct students to individually reflect and write additional descriptors of the person they had in mind using a different colored sticky note. Encourage students to write additional qualities or examples of actions for their chosen person.
Group and whole-class discussion (6-8 minutes)
MCC Tip: Based on your class and group dynamics, consider assigning group member roles such as note taker, reporter, time keeper, and process checker.
Have the initial groups get back together and discuss similarities and differences between the second batch of sticky notes. Prompt students to discuss the following and prepare to share out the final question in bold to the class.
What new connections do you see in your group?
Have you seen any notes in the gallery walk that have changed the way you think about kindness or caring? (e.g., Perhaps some students didn’t consider the person they visualized to be kind in emotional ways, but upon seeing other notes or connections, they now have examples.)
What is the relationship between being a good person and being kind and caring? (If the question doesn’t prompt a discussion, ask probing questions that help students see the link between a person’s kind and caring actions and students’ perceptions of them as good. They may have differing opinions about whether a person can be good without being kind and caring.)
Ask groups to volunteer their answers to the class.
Next, define caring, connecting it to student responses from the prompt above.
Caring: Caring is about being good to yourself and others, even in small ways you might not see right away. It’s about showing kindness and concern for yourself and others and not needing anything in return. It’s also about helping those in need, especially those who might not be able to help themselves.
MCC Tip: Post the definition of caring in the classroom to remain throughout future lessons.
Wrap up (2-5 minutes)
If students want to continue the conversation and there is time, bring the class together for a more detailed group discussion on the following questions:
How do we recognize caring?
What are the differences between being caring and being kind?
How can kindness and care be different in different families, communities, and cultures?
Can people be truly good and uncaring or unkind?
Close Lesson 1 by saying, “I hope we all aspire to be more caring, kind people— to ourselves, each other, and people outside of this class - both in and out of school. Whether it be during a sports game, music lesson, or in your home, we can all do more to be caring. It’s important that we be caring and kind in all areas of life, and we’ll practice this throughout our next few lessons together.” Let students know when you think the next lesson will take place.
MCC Tip: Caring or kindness can mean different things to different communities. For instance, some families might emphasize ‘doing’ nice things, like saying “thank you,” or offering help, whereas others might emphasize ‘being good’ as the absence of bad qualities, like not lying or cheating. Push your students to recognize different aspects of caring and kindness – and to push themselves to try new things during these lessons.
Some students may also find this strategy to be contrived or cheesy, and you can acknowledge that! The hope is to get them in the habit of noticing and thinking about what it means to be caring, feeling concern for others, and displaying acts of kindness, especially for those who are different from them in some way.
Content developed by Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
