Random Acts of Kindness week is in full swing (February 9-15). With Valentine’s Day around the corner, now is as good a time as any to commit to acts of kindness.
Start small – pledge to do one daily act of kindness towards animals, people and the environment for a week. To make a bigger difference, get your students involved.
Why bother?
Other than making someone else’s day a little brighter, or the environment a little cleaner, we experience a rise in feel-good neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine when we do something nice – even if it doesn’t directly benefit us. You don’t need to be a giver or receiver of kindness to experience this boost in mood: we experience an ‘elation effect’ by simply witnessing an act of kindness. Don’t believe me, watch this.
Kindness has beneficial side effects that may be surprising – this Huffington Post article discusses some of these advantages. We’ve discussed in a previous blog post the benefits of kindness in the classroom. By taking opportunities to consciously do something kind we make our homes, schools, and communities better places to be.
Need ideas?
Sometimes it’s hard to be creative. Browse some of the pledges that teachers at the North Central Teachers’ Convention made last week. We’ll continue to be at Teachers’ Conventions around the province; come by our booth to fill out the pledge and enter to win a gift basket.
Checklists
Use one of our handy checklists (this one in French) and visit our website for more ideas, reflection questions and how to add your class to our kindness map.
Tell us what you’re going to do to make the world a kinder place in the comments below – or tweet to us @evrylivingthing .
