The paper bag is worn. Tattered, splitting at the seams due to countless hands inthrust to the depths. I forget about it for weeks, until the kids remind me that it's time, Mr. Barber....
Maybe five years ago, we had a classroom community-building exercise. At the end of the exercise, the kids got a challenge, which was to write a compliment to five classmates and to bring them back to class the next day for delivery. That was a success, but I noticed that some kids held back, too shy to write something to another student. And some treated the compliments as an opportunity for roasting or for jokes about Minecraft or Fortnite.
Soooo...a lot of potential, but needing tweaking.
Since I wanted to continue this as an ongoing experiment, I brainstormed--with the class--to iron out the kinks. After a couple of months of back-and-forth, we figured out a way to make it work better. We added anonymity, timelessness--we balanced giving and taking. We added safeguards to keep sarcasm at bay.
It really works, now. In the bag are folded crumpled crinkled creased notes.
The advice given on crafting a note is simple--imagine if you were having a blah day a meh day a terrible day--and opened up a note. What would make you smile? Change your mood? Inspire you?
Some write from the heart. Some look up inspirational quotes. Some just scrawl "You are awesome."
They can leave them anonymous or they can sign them.
So into this bag eager hands reach and draw out inspiration, compassion, jotted drawings, Dad jokes. Most kids keep their notes-I see them slipped into phone cases, Chromebook cases, the backs of ID sleeves.
Since we have to preserve cosmic balance, they write a note in return for what was received. In the spirit of community, they will often write an extra note to build the bank.
In an astonishing incident of sacrifice and paying it forward, I have had a handful of students each year ask to return particularly moving notes back to the bag--because they desire that someone else draw it out later and be equally inspired. Wow.
This year, students added the wrinkle of dating their slips. They know that some of the notes in the bag were written by kids years ago, and this awes them mightily. I suppose when you are twelve, a letter from 5 years ago feels like a time capsule. So, ever inventive, one of my 6th graders decided to start dating her notes so "future generations" (her description) can be likewise duly impressed.
We have installed protections, of course. Given the characteristics of middle school behavior, it is plausible likely almost certain that a jokester could might possibly will find a way to inject inappropriate humor, mean comments, or irrelevant tangents--Roblox comments, anyone? So the first couple of notes each year get "vetted"-which means that I scan them before adding them to the bag. After all, I don't want to nurse a viper in the bosom of Rome, as the Emperor Tiberius would put it.
Junior high kids are stereotyped as mocking and sarcastic, but I am continually amazed that they have made this almost a sacred occurrence. Maybe it is the opportunity to receive unqualified praise or maybe it is the possibility of making someone else's day memorable, but they clamor to be heard. Perhaps the name helped--WORDS MATTER is scrawled on the bag with heavy Sharpie.
And they do.
No comments:
Post a Comment