When I was a self-contained special education teacher, my students would attend related arts- PE, Art, and Music- with the general education classrooms. Many times, my assistant would attend with my students until scaffolding was no longer needed and they were capable of attending by themselves. I was never without students because I had a multi-grade class. So while my 3rd grade students were in Art, I was busily working in small groups with my 4th , 5th, and 6th grade students. Therefore, I never had a planning period. One day a student was sick and I had walked that student’s book bag and jacket to the health room to greet the Mom as she picked him up to go home. On my way back to my classroom, I stopped by Art to pick up one of my students. The 6th grade students were working on still portraits. Art class was finishing up and I was walking around the room looking at the students’ art work and trying not to give away that I was there to escort one of my students back to class. While there I noticed, a student working on a beautiful painting of a sailboat floating in the sea. It was a combination of juvenile yet sophistication. At the time my husband and I owned a small beach place at Pirate Land in Garden City. Having stretched ourselves to even purchase that, we had little room for extras-like decorating. I stated to the girl that it was so pretty and I would love to have it for my beach place really just complicating more than being serious about using her art work as décor in my new place. About a week later, she put it in my box in the office with a little note that said “Enjoy!” I purchased a cheap, cheap poster frame from the Walmart and put it up in our place at the beach. After Rosebro2 came along, and a bigger house was needed, we sold our little place at PirateLand and we left the décor for the new owners.
I never ever thought another thing about it until Meet the Teacher night this year. A parent of a 5K student came up to me and asked if I remembered her. You know how this story goes…..turns out she was the student who gave me her painting. I didn’t teach her but she remembered me from that small interaction. I didn’t remember her. I hardly even remembered the painting, but she did. It costs me NOTHING to compliment this young lady on her drawing that day. In fact, it was so inconsequential that I didn’t even remember it-BUT she did. She remembered it so much that she decided to receive school choice to attend JBE because of my kind words in 1998. It mattered so much to her that she still paints today in her spare time. It mattered so much to her that she hugged me with tears in her eyes when telling the story. It mattered so much to her that she wanted her son at a school where teachers must be just as kind as I was to her 20 years ago.
It seems the world is on the #kindnessmatters hashtag trend these days….even we have a student led bulletin board on the subject. But, do we really stop and think about that kindness and how much it really matters? Do you go out of your way to say something nice to your coworkers even those you may not love seeing walk down the hall towards you? Do you find something kind to say to each of your students every day?
So on Saturday, all 4 of the Roses were together-these days this doesn’t happen much. I declared it kindness day. I told them I was doing a little experiment to see who could do the most random acts of kindness that day. It began a little cheesy with the Rosebros being overly kind and sarcastically so. Then it really started taking off, holding doors for other people, saying please and thank you to everyone we encountered, letting people in front of us in line, helping a young mother put groceries in her car as she put two overly tired children in their car seats, and then we were at Sam’s Club. We experienced two different encounters. One was a man who appeared to have a disability of some sort having trouble with lifting an item into his cart. Rosebro2 ran over to help. You could tell he was not used to this sort of kindness. He was caught off guard by Rosebro2’s compassion. Then as we were leaving an elderly lady was struggling getting her cart to stay still while getting just a few items out of the cart and into her car. Rosebros to the rescue only it didn’t go as it had all day. This lady didn’t want the help. In fact, she was not very nice about it either. The Rosebros didn’t even know how to respond. My husband stepped in and told the lady that their mother was trying to get them to be more kind and they had a challenge and that they meant no harm. The lady detailed a story of her purse being stolen in a parking lot recently and how a few years ago her house was robbed by men who appeared to be nice and helpful. As we drove away, I got to thinking about some of our students. Some of our students don’t experience kindness. I see it in car line. Some students jump out of the car in the mornings and no one has looked at them and told them to have a good day, that they are beautiful, that they are worthy. Some hear only negative words. Some hear nothing at all but get up, get dressed, go to school. In the afternoon, I see in the car line some of our students who get put in cars with parents on the phone. No detailing how their day was, no excitement over the great things they learned or experienced. Everyone needs kindness.
So on Saturday, all 4 of the Roses were together-these days this doesn’t happen much. I declared it kindness day. I told them I was doing a little experiment to see who could do the most random acts of kindness that day. It began a little cheesy with the Rosebros being overly kind and sarcastically so. Then it really started taking off, holding doors for other people, saying please and thank you to everyone we encountered, letting people in front of us in line, helping a young mother put groceries in her car as she put two overly tired children in their car seats, and then we were at Sam’s Club. We experienced two different encounters. One was a man who appeared to have a disability of some sort having trouble with lifting an item into his cart. Rosebro2 ran over to help. You could tell he was not used to this sort of kindness. He was caught off guard by Rosebro2’s compassion. Then as we were leaving an elderly lady was struggling getting her cart to stay still while getting just a few items out of the cart and into her car. Rosebros to the rescue only it didn’t go as it had all day. This lady didn’t want the help. In fact, she was not very nice about it either. The Rosebros didn’t even know how to respond. My husband stepped in and told the lady that their mother was trying to get them to be more kind and they had a challenge and that they meant no harm. The lady detailed a story of her purse being stolen in a parking lot recently and how a few years ago her house was robbed by men who appeared to be nice and helpful. As we drove away, I got to thinking about some of our students. Some of our students don’t experience kindness. I see it in car line. Some students jump out of the car in the mornings and no one has looked at them and told them to have a good day, that they are beautiful, that they are worthy. Some hear only negative words. Some hear nothing at all but get up, get dressed, go to school. In the afternoon, I see in the car line some of our students who get put in cars with parents on the phone. No detailing how their day was, no excitement over the great things they learned or experienced. Everyone needs kindness.
Even the givers of kindness need that experience. Too often we underestimate the power kindness has- a hug, a smile, a sweet word of encouragement, to listen, to encourage, to compliment. All have the potential to turn around someone’s day or maybe just maybe someone’s life. You may never even see the effect of your kindness or it may come back to you in a painting some 20 years later.
Be kind.
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