You cannot do a kindness
too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. --Ralph Waldo
Emerson
What If
Schools Taught Kindness
--by Laura Pinger, Lisa Flook, syndicated from Greater Good, Feb 10, 2016
Walking to class one day, one of us
(Laura) saw a young student crying and waiting for his mother to arrive—he had
split his chin while playing. When Laura got to class, the other students were
very upset and afraid for their friend, full of questions about what would
happen to him. Laura decided to ask the class how they could help him.
“Caring practice!” exclaimed one of
the children—and they all sat in a circle offering support and well wishes. The
children immediately calmed and they continued with their lesson.
This is what’s possible when kids
learn to be kind at school.
Various mindfulness programs
have been developed for adults, but we and our colleagues at the Center
for Healthy Minds at
the University of Wisconsin, Madison, wanted to develop a curriculum for kids.
Every school teaches math and reading, but what about mindfulness and kindness?
We ended up
bringing a 12-week curriculum to six schools in the Midwest. Twice a week for
20 minutes, pre-kindergarten kids were introduced to stories and practices for
paying attention, regulating their emotions, and cultivating kindness. It’s
just the beginning, but the initial
results of our
research, coauthored with Professor Richard Davidson and graduate research
assistant Simon Goldberg, suggest that this program can improve kids’ grades,
cognitive abilities, and relationship skills.
Why teach kindness to kids?
The school
environment can be very stressful; in addition to any issues they bring from
home, many students struggle to make friends and perform well in class. Being
excluded, ignored, or teased is very painful for a young child, and we thought
it could be impactful to teach empathy and compassion.
When other kids are suffering—like that boy who split his chin—can
we understand how they might be feeling? Kindness bridges those gaps and helps
build a sense of connection among the students, the teachers, and even the
parents. Learning to strengthen their attention and regulate their emotions are
foundational skills that could benefit kids in school and throughout their
whole lives.
On top of that, having classrooms full of mindful, kind kids
completely changes the school environment. Imagine entire schools—entire
districts—where kindness is emphasized. That would be truly powerful. Teaching
kindness is a way to bubble up widespread transformation that doesn’t require
big policy changes or extensive administrative involvement.
Running and studying a Kindness Curriculum
If you had visited one of our classrooms during the 12-week
program, you might have seen a poster on the wall called “Kindness Garden.”
When kids performed an act of kindness or benefitted from one, they added a
sticker to the poster. The idea is that friendship is like a seed—it needs to
be nurtured and taken care of in order to grow. Through that exercise, we got
students talking about how kindness feels good and how we might grow more
friendship in the classroom.
Another day, you might have found
students in pairs holding Peace Wands, one with a heart and one with a star.
The child with the heart wand speaks (“from the heart”); the other child (the
“star listener”) listens and then repeats back what was said. When there was a
conflict between students, they used the wands to support the process of paying
attention, expressing their feelings, and building empathy.
Our Kindness Curriculum combines creative activities like these,
as well as books, songs, and movement, to communicate concepts in a way that is
understandable to four year olds. Our instructors taught the curriculum with
active participation by classroom teachers.
The Kindness Curriculum is designed around the ABCs—or, more
specifically, A to G:
Attention. Students learn
that what they focus on is a choice. Through focusing attention on a variety of
external sensations (the sound of a bell, the look of a stone) and internal
sensations (feeling happy or sad), children learn they can direct their
attention and maintain focus.
Breath and
Body. Students learn
to use their breath to cultivate some peace and quiet. Instead of listening to
a meditation, we played a song from Betsy Rose’s CD Calm Down Boogie, “Breathing In, Breathing Out,” while
the children rested on their backs with a beanie baby on their belly. The
beanie provided an object to “rock to sleep” with the natural in- and
out-breath, while the breathing calmed the body.
Caring. Here, we teach kids to think about how others are
feeling and cultivate kindness. We read the bookSumi’s First Day of School Ever, the story of a foreign
student who struggles with English, and brainstorm ways to help a student like
Sumi—as simple as offering a smile.
Depending on
other people. We emphasize
that everyone supports and is supported by others through the book Somewhere Today, which describes acts of kindness that
are going on in the world right now. Students learn to see themselves as
helpers and begin to develop gratitude for the kindness of others.
Emotions. What do
emotions feel like and look like? How can you tell what you’re feeling? We play
a game where the teacher and students take turns pretending to be angry, sad,
happy, or surprised, guessing which emotion was expressed, and talking about
what that emotion feels like in the body.
Forgiveness. Young kids can be particularly hard on
themselves—and others—and we teach them that everyone makes mistakes. A book
called Down the Road tells
the story of a girl who breaks the eggs she bought for her parents, but they
forgive her.
Gratitude. We want kids
to recognize the kind acts that other people do for them, so we have them
pretend to be various community workers like bus drivers and firefighters.
Then, they talk about being thankful to those people for how they help us.
How to Introduce Mindfulness Practices with Children
According to
Pinger and Flook, beginning a personal practice provides a foundation for
sharing with others. For those who are interested, the Center for Healthy Minds
offers many resources to explore, including books, audio practices,
and online or in-person trainings.
Sixty-eight students participated in the research, with about half
going through the Kindness Curriculum and the other half measured as a
comparison. To investigate the impact of the curriculum, we tested children
before and after the training period.
The results of
our study were promising. Students who went through the curriculum showed more
empathy and kindness and a greater ability to calm themselves down when they
felt upset, according to teachers’ ratings. In an exercise with stickers, they
consistently shared about half of them, whereas students who hadn’t gone
through the curriculum shared less over time. They earned higher grades at the
end of the year in certain areas (notably for social and emotional development),
and they showed improvement in the ability to think flexibly and delay
gratification, skills that have beenlinked to health and success later in
life.
This was a small study, and we’d love to see deeper investigations
into our Kindness Curriculum in the future. For example, what happens over a
longer time if we support students’ practice throughout the year and into the next
school year and beyond? If parents got involved in the curriculum, they could
provide powerful support as well.
“Kindfulness” in daily life
Mindfulness and kindness go hand in hand, so much so that the
phrase “kindfulness” accidentally (but aptly) came out in one of our
conversations and has stuck with us. While we administered a specific
curriculum for the purposes of our study, any teacher or parent can bring the
principles behind it to bear on their interactions with children.
The first key is simply to model mindfulness and
kindness. For example, what quality of attention do we bring when we interact
with our kids? Do we give them our full attention—eye contact, kneeling down to
speak with them, asking questions—or are we distracted? Kids are extraordinarily
observant, and they pick up on whether we are paying attention to them. By
modeling behavior, and through our interactions, we show them what it’s like to
be seen and heard and to be compassionate with others.
Another simple activity is to relax and feel the
natural breath for a few moments during the day. Kids need to be active and run
around, of course, but they can also benefit from cultivating a bit of
stillness. For example, when Laura enters the classroom, she or one of her
students rings a bell, which signals students to listen until the sound ends
and then feel five in- and out-breaths together. This practice settles students
and gathers their attention so they are more ready to learn.
We can also help kids reflect on their emotions, which
sometimes feel overwhelming, and change their relationship to them. After a
child calms down, we can sit with them and reflect on that feeling. Which part
of the body felt angry, happy, or upset? All emotions are natural, so kids
shouldn’t feel bad about experiencing them; we can teach them to cultivate a
kinder attitude. For example, a parent might say, “When I feel sad or angry, it
doesn’t feel good in my body. But all people have feelings. Feelings help us
learn about ourselves and others. I can be kind to myself no matter what
feelings come. I can get better and better at learning from my feelings.”
And, by the way, practices like these are equally
useful for parents and teachers, who are struggling with stressful workplaces
or busy classrooms. For teachers, brief practices with students many times
during the school day allow everyone to pause and be fully present to
themselves, each other, and what is happening, whether it is pleasant or
unpleasant. For parents, mindfulness and self-kindness training allow them to
be more present with their spouse and children at home and with their coworkers
at work.
Finally, to combine the
concepts of mindfulness and kindness, we can teach caring practice to our kids.
These phrases work well for children: May I be safe, may I be happy,
may I be healthy, may I be peaceful.
When the boy split his
chin, the other four-year-olds got together to do this practice: May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be
peaceful.
And these wishes can be extended
further: To my entire classroom, my school, my neighborhood, my whole
community…May we all be safe, may we all be happy, may we all be healthy, may
we all be peaceful.รข€¨
In the midst of their distress, the children found
comfort and support for themselves and their friend rather than feeling upset
and worried. They later shared with him that they had offered him these wishes.
It’s these small changes, spread across classrooms, that could make schools
more kind—and educate a new generation of more compassionate and connected
citizens.
This article
is printed here with permission. It originally appeared on Greater Good,
the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC). Based
at UC Berkeley, the GGSC studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of
well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and
compassionate society.
Be The Change: Today
practice random acts of kindness. If you
have children, encourage them to plant seeds of kindness as well.
