COMPELLED: Week 12 - Gratitude

This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting TheCompelledEducator.com

In this 12th week of the 15-week series on characteristics of compelled educators, I'm excited to share one of my favorite authors and bloggers with you. Ann Voskamp was one of the first bloggers I followed. It's from her that I learned more about grace and gratitude. Her first book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, shows us the power of gratitude, reflection, and pause. (Her book is much like her blog style... poetic and flowing... almost like free writing at times, and choppy in other places. It's not an "easy" read, but it's well worth the effort and pause and space it forces us to create when reading it.)

What if... you kept a running list of the things for which you are grateful? Would you have 1,000 by the end of the school year?

What if... we asked our students to collaborate each day and record things for which they are grateful. How many gifts would there be on the list by the end of the year? One thousand? More?

“Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.” 

― Ann Voskamp

As educators, we not only understand the importance of practicing gratitude ourselves, but we also understand the importance of cultivating gratitude in our students. 

How can we cultivate an "attitude of gratitude" in ourselves and with our community of students?

Text    Ask students to send a Thank You Text to someone for whom they are grateful. (Educators: Get out those cell phones and model a positive use for digital devices!) 

#Gratefulstreak    For ____ number of days in a row, have students to answer the journal prompt, "What are you grateful for today?" Ask students to see how many days in a row they can keep their streak!  (Educators: When kids write, you write. Model persistence as well as gratitude.)

"Three Good Things"    Create a bulletin board titled "Three Good Things." Have students to write 3 things for which they are grateful on a sticky note and post on the bulletin board. (Educators: Be sure to include your 3 things on a sticky note right in the center so that students can find it easily!)

Write a Letter of Gratitude    Ask students to use letter writing skills to write a letter to someone for whom they have never adequately thanked. (Educators: Do this, too, and model gratitude for your students.)

Gratitude Walk   I recently read about Jon Gordon's Thank You Walks. This could be used in PE classes, during recess, or even encouraging older students to think of 3 things for which they are grateful during class change while they walk to their next classes. (Educators: Take a Gratitude Walk during your planning period, do a lap around the hallways before or after school, or try it at home.)

Want to make gratitude a habit the easy way? 

Connect expressing your gratitude with another daily task, such as brushing your teeth, eating breakfast, or cooking/eating dinner. 

If it's hard for you to carve out quiet time for yourself during the day, start expressing gratitude OUT LOUD while you are doing something that you already do during your day. 

Say 3 things you're grateful for out loud while you're doing your daily sit-ups, while you're driving to work, or while you're making your bed (or any other daily task.) 

Do this for 21 days in a row, then let me know how it's going. (If you miss a day, start back over at Day 1.) 

In this post >>

Previous posts in this series:

COMPELLED: Week 1 - Humility
COMPELLED: Week 2 - Compassion

COMPELLED: Week 3 - Overcomer

COMPELLED: Week 4 - Servantship

COMPELLED: Week 5 - Forgiving

COMPELLED: Week 6 - Passion

COMPELLED: Week 7 - Self-Growth

COMPELLED: Week 8 - Hopeful

COMPELLED: Week 9 - Grit

COMPELLED: Week 10 - Excellence

COMPELLED: Week 11 - Empathy

Classroom Conversation Starters {Free Printables}

I love classroom hacks, especially when they have to do with building community in the classroom. 

Probably because I was so shy when I was a kid, I really love "Conversation Starters" because they provide prompts to students and give them something concrete to talk about. Making small talk was something that I struggled with as a kid. I would have SO appreciated if a teacher had used something like these to create community in our classrooms. 

The questions are also appropriate to be used at home. Dinnertime can be transformed into quality family time by building conversations around the prompts on the Classroom Conversation Starters. 

I originally created New Year's Conversation Starters, then a last week I shared the Gratitude Conversation Starters on Twitter. Chaunte Garett was excited about them, and she asked if I knew of any for Integrity. Since I wasn't aware of any, I decided to create some. 

Thinking ahead to upcoming holidays and seasons, I also created some "Joy Conversation Starters." 

If you are a classroom teacher, I highly recommend that you don't ask the questions on the slips of paper to the class as a whole and ask for students to respond to you.

Here are several ways I encourage you to use the Classroom Conversation Starters: 

     -Have them in a basket and ask a student to draw a question for the class.  Then have students to turn and share their answer with a neighbor.

     -You, the teacher, draw a question from the basket and share the prompt with the class. Ask students to share their answers with two people near them. 

     -Make several copies of the prompts and have a couple of questions on each desk. If your students' desks are in pods or groups, have a few questions per group. Ask students to choose one conversation starter to answer with a group member. 

     -Use one starter per day as a journal writing prompt. At the end of the week, ask students to choose one from the week to share with a friend in the class.
     

What other ways would you use the Classroom Conversation Starters? Please leave a comment below or reach out to me on Twitter. 

All of the Classroom Conversation Starters can be downloaded below 

by clicking on each picture.

Gratitude Conversation Starters

Integrity Conversation Starters

Joy Conversation Starters

New Year's Eve Conversation Starters

Pin now to share later >>

COMPELLED: Week 11 - Empathy

Having empathy is an extremely important people skill. Empathy drives design thinking and helps build positive relationships and connections. Being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes is not always easy, but it’s valuable as an educator because of the diverse backgrounds in which our students are being raised. Kids don't care how much we know until they know we care. Empathy is the driver of building relationships where we show we care. 

In an article by MindTools, they suggest several ways to use empathy effectively, and most importantly, how to do it through listening. When students want to talk, or when we ask a question of a student, it’s important that we stop what we’re doing and really listen. 

• Listen with your ears – what is being said, and what tone is being used?
• Listen with your eyes – what is the person doing with his or her body while speaking?
• Listen with your instincts – do you sense that the person is not communicating something important?
• Listen with your heart – what do you think the other person feels?

If you can't play the video above on your device, click HERE.

Four qualities of empathy as shared by Brene Brown, about Theresa Wiseman’s work:

   1. To see the world as others see it

   2. Stay out of judgment

   3. Understand another person’s feelings

   4. Communicate others’ feelings and validate them

Helping kids to feel heard and truly connected takes empathy. Empathy is skill that improves with practice, so let’s share a listening, caring ear and get to practicing!

Previous posts in this series:

COMPELLED: Week 1 - Humility
COMPELLED: Week 2 - Compassion

COMPELLED: Week 3 - Overcomer

COMPELLED: Week 4 - Servantship

COMPELLED: Week 5 - Forgiving

COMPELLED: Week 6 - Passion

COMPELLED: Week 7 - Self-Growth

COMPELLED: Week 8 - Hopeful

COMPELLED: Week 9 - Grit

COMPELLED: Week 10 - Excellence

Pin now to share later >>

Change is one of our greatest teachers

As I've grown older, I've come to own my insecurities as well as my strengths. I also take ownership of my own happiness. My personal growth is something that I work on every single day, and through that I have learned the powerful effects of 2 things: controlling the messages that play in my head and practicing gratitude. 

Each day I practice quiet time and reflection, and I think of at least 3 things I'm grateful for. As the year is winding down, my thoughts have taken a wider scope as I reflect on goals, dreams, and actions for the year and those to come in the new one. I ask myself, "Because of my 3 words for 2018, what has come into - or gone out of - my life, for which I am grateful?"

I've journaled, blogged, reflected in quiet thought, and talked with trusted friends about my fears, dreams, goals, and pitfalls throughout this year. As I step back even further for that "balcony view" of my life, there's a couple of pivot moves that have happened in my life that have brought me to where I am now and for which I'm deeply grateful. 

While in high school, my family moved to Birmingham, Alabama. I was able to experience junior high while I lived in Chattanooga, since we moved the summer before my junior year of high school. The schools in Birmingham were 9-12 high schools, so I was able to have two different high school experiences as a student. At the time of the move, I thought it was the most horrible thing in the world. Looking back, it was one of the most beneficial changes in my life. 

As an educator, I am grateful to have worked in four different schools throughout my long career. The first four years I served as a teacher and coach before I got out of education for two years. I then worked in a school for nine years, six of which were as a classroom teacher and three as an assistant principal. My next stop was a two-year stint as a high school principal, and then I went to my fourth school where I currently serve as assistant principal in my tenth year at the school.

These changes in schools have been on my mind and heart lately, as I have been talking with a new assistant principal in a neighboring school. The growth that happens when encountering new routines, people, and ideas is tremendous. As I mentor her, I am able to draw from the lessons learned at each of those experiences to help lift her up in her new role. Had I stayed in one place for my entire career, I don't know that I would have had as much growth as I have had over all these years. Each of the right turns that I made throughout my career (and life) have helped me to grow personally and professionally. For that I am grateful.