Last week while running errands I ran into Loblaws and immediately noticed two adult females with a bunch of girls. I thought they were only girls at first. There were fellas too but my brain went "GIRL GUIDE COOKIES!" and the males disappeared right before my eyes. They weren't even in uniform for god sakes. Speaks just a little to my brain power. I morphed a classroom into the potential for cookies in a nano second! LOL
One of the girls approached me and said "We are giving out stickers, for free, just to remind people to be kind". Well of course I will take one young lady, of course. She ran off to the teacher yelling "we're done firrrrst, we got done first!" Ahhh such sweet lessons learned right before my eyes. As I went through the grocery store getting all things needed I forgot I had the sticker on.
It wasn't until I got home that I pulled it off my jacket and really looked at the affixed sticker. It said, "One kind action can change someone's entire day #passiton". It was a great idea, one which I admired the teachers for.
I think kids today have been brought up in the harsh reality of TV, video games, news and we forget they are little humans being formed by what they see and learn from all their teachers including those at school. The teachers at home are you people, you parents out there. Unless they are bullied, we forget sometimes to teach them that bullying is bad. Unless they are made fun of, we forget to teach them not to poke fun. The world isn't a great place unless we teach our kids so. The world CAN be beautiful if we teach them of its beauty of all kids including generosity of spirit.
With the examples like Justin Bieber and the like, our kids don't stand a chance unless we teachers teach them right from wrong. I was really pleased to see this lesson being taught. I want to actually reach out to the school and tell them what a great idea I thought this was to teach kids to do something nice for someone else, for no other reason than to be nice to someone. That's a very selfless act and our kids need to learn there's just as much take in giving so freely.
Our kids have been ingrained with, give and take should be equal. You give $5 you better get $5 of value back. We've taught them this so they learn value. Haven't you ever said to your kid, "you are not buying that, it's not worth that, we could make that at home, I am not spending that on that?" Any of them? We are teaching them value. And we should. But we don't often teach them how giving $5 to a charity gives you nothing in return but a feeling of joy of having done something nice AND knowing you did something selfless on that day for no other reason than you can.
I taught my kids since they were little that we regularly go through their things and give the unused to worthy causes. Unused toys and clothes, once a year, and we give them away to people who don't have as much as us. Sometimes it goes as a hand me downs to a friend of the family. Sometimes it goes to a local charity. I feel like, at the very least, they are learning how to place value on things. Value to them, value to others, and how to give for no other reason than because someone might need it more so than they do. How to give and why we do so.
When it comes to teachers teaching paying it forward by doing nice things, I vote yes.
Have you taught this to your kids yet?
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