After watching the videos and reading through the activities for Week 1 of 'Teaching Character and Creating Positive Classrooms' I feel nothing short of inspired. The videos are incredibly interesting and manageable, and match up well with my prior knowledge of Happiness, GRIT and developing character strengths.
Key learnings from this "week":
- Kids always imitate their elders, even if they don't listen to them! How simple and true is that? We have to watch what we say and do, not to mention practice what we preach in order to be authentic.
- They are character strengths or skills, not traits. They change over time, and there is amazing potential for growth.
- The amazingly insightful term 'fragile thoroughbreds' or 'fragile perfects' - students who find most things easy and don't have to work hard. These students tend to struggle later in life because at some point life will be hard. It will be. And they haven't built up the skills (like grit and self-control) to deal with these adverse situations.
- Use specific language and come up with concrete "If/Then" plans to help kids understand their behaviour. If they do this....then what will happen? What will change if they don't do it.
- Practice should be hard! Even professionals struggle with whatever it is they're an "expert" at.
- Praise the struggle, not the "good stuff"
Course Activity Recommendations for the week:
- 3 Good Things - Every night, come up with 3 things to be grateful for!
- Gratitude Reflections - at the end of each week, think of 5 things from that week that you were really grateful for
- Acknowledge actions of others, thank them for what they do. Be intentional about it.
- Write a gratitude letter.
Aren't these great suggestions? Concrete and simple, but really meaningful. If reading this post made you as excited as I feel writing/thinking about this stuff check out the free online course from Dave Levin right here.
Hope to write again soon! Have a grateful week :)