I teach 9th grade traditional and Honors' English at a small school, so in reality, I have every single 9th grader that attends! That's 220+ fourteen and fifteen year old kids that walk through my doors every single day! I'm the type of person who feels like this is a lot of responsibility and I have a duty to inspire these kids with as much real life as I do in teaching them how to read and write. With all the running around and racing that happens in these kids' everyday lives, someone needs to help them slow down and reflect....so here's how we took a look back into the past and a glance forward into the future.
Each day I make sure that I get at least one positive interaction with every single kid, so as they come into the room we either give high fives or knuckles and I briefly give an instruction. Students grabbed a yellow and green slip of paper from the table as they entered my classroom. I made sure the kids didn't write their names on the yellow paper. I then had each of them write down 2-3 things that were trials this last year. Something that they don't want to go through again. This could be something related to school, home, friends, family, sports, or whatever area of their life that they wanted to write down. Again, I told them that no one else would be reading these trials.
Every day I write a "Quote of the Day" on the whiteboard. Sometimes they are chosen specifically by me and other times students put their recommendations into the container. Today, I specifically choose the following quote: "Growth means choosing happiness over history, and never looking back." I read the quote aloud and repeated it again to let it sink in. I then proceeded to tell them that many adults have never learned this lesson. There are so many people in the world that hang on to the past. They keep it in their back pocket for 5, 10, 15, or even 30+ years...and they blame their present for what happened all those years ago. Whether it was the glory days or the childhood of abuse and violence. We all have things in life that happen which are out of our control. These are situations in life that get people stuck when they don't let go of the situations that have happened. These are moments that will keep people trapped in the past forever.
I was nervous doing this, but man, these kids ate it up! The next step was for them to literally "crumple up the crap" from the past year and put it in the basket I was holding in my hands. I invited each kid to get up and toss their past away when they were ready. I had kids who quickly jumped up and ran through the classroom to get rid of baggage, while others sat with it for a while until they were ready. It's much easier to talk about getting rid of things that hold us back versus the process of letting go of these trials. It was crazy to watch during the process that some students actually dropped their "crap" as they journeyed up to the front to let it go. There were also a few students who tossed their paper into the basket and it seriously bounced back out.
After the dropping and bouncing incidents, we took a moment to talk about how sometimes our past wants to hang onto us and even though we want to let it go, there are sometimes parts of us that want to hang onto something for whatever reason that may be. Most of the time these reasons are subconsciously created and it may take some time for them to unravel why they would want to hang onto a trial that they faced over the past year. It was sooooo awesome to see how engaged in this process they were!
The next step was my students to write down 2-3 awesome things that happened over the past year. These could be things that everyone else would think is cool or something that is small, but a huge victory for themselves. After the kids wrote down their successes, I had them turn to a neighbor and talk about them (think-pair-share). I think they would have been happy to spend the rest of the class period talking about their cool adventures. After a few minutes, I then instructed them to either share something about themselves that they were proud of in the last year or something that their partner should be proud of for accomplishing....BOOM again! We had cheers of people celebrating each others' successes, which is something that many adults are scared to do...for whatever reason they think that celebrating the awesomeness of someone else may in some way, shape, or form take away from the incredible things they are doing. People, HELLO!?? We should be cheering each other on everyday! It was so cool to see that these kids get this. I just pray that they can take this lesson with them into adulthood.
After the successes were shared, I told them to pick a word or two that will be their guide when things get tough, because we all know that things will get tough. I also had them write 2-3 goals for this next year. For the goals, they needed to be realistic, but something that would stretch them to grow in a specific area of their lives. Life is meant to challenge and change us. We are here to learn from our mistakes and grow, to be better than we were the day before. I shared with them my two words: BE. and "SIMPLIFY. Yes, I purposely put the period (.) after "BE" because I feel that sometimes that is the only thing to do...simply BE. I was again amazed by some of the powerful words and phrases they came up with. A few that I can remember are: END, GO90 (rodeo), DO, KINDNESS, and so many others that applied to each of their own situations. I encourage my students to save these slips of paper and refer to them often. I also suggested that some of them may want to create a vision board with their goals and words for the year in their bedroom so that they could be reminded each day of what they are wanting to accomplish for the next year.
I told the kids that when I've done this process with some of my friends, that in fact, we burn our "crap" from the last year. They all thought I was going to pull out a lighter and do it right there at school....um, no....I would like to keep my job:) I have those crumpled papers sitting on my counter top right now (still unread....okay, my hubby read through a few of them, but these are their stories to own). I am going to burn these papers as a physical and symbolic sign of letting go of the things that are keeping them (and me) stuck in the mistakes, failures, hardships, depression, loss, anger, and whatever else we are holding onto. We are setting the past on FIRE!
Even if that past is from yesterday, we always get to make a new decision today. We are always one decision away from a completely different life. Choose to do and be better. I am choosing to BE present, BE purposeful, and BE the woman who
You guys, I seriously love these kids! As much as I teach them, they teach me so much about life and remind me of who I always want to be. They keep me focused on what life is really all about....and that my friends, is people, relationships, and making a difference in the life of someone else. I am not your normal teacher, and I never want to be. I want kids to remember how they felt about themselves after being in my classroom. They most likely will not remember the literature we read or finding imagery in the text of "The Odyssey," but they will remember that they felt loved and heard when they were in our classroom.
The weekend came and I was able to get assistance from my incredible man to take some pics and film the process so I can share it with my students...they keep asking, and now it's finally complete!
Let's Light it UP
I'm not going to lie that I was a little nervous I was going to burn our house down...eeeekk!
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| It was very humbling to be part of this experience with/for my students. My hope is that this activity somehow made a difference in at least one life. I for sure will not forget this! (P.S....go RAMS!! Superbowl bound peeps!) |
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| “In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.” ― |
