Kindness

I have been feeling a gamut of emotions these past weeks. I like many teachers am thinking and planning for the beginning of the school year. In many ways it is a time of excitement, hope and a chance to begin anew. Each year I am asked to write out my goals and how I plan to achieve them. At the end of the school year I am asked to reflect on whether I reached my goal. I take seriously this task and revisit it throughout the year. Last year's goal was for me to assist my students to try their best at whatever their learning objectives were. It was something that was easy yet hard to attain. It was easy to encourage them and call them out when it was obvious that they could do better. It was hard to measure and also difficult to sustain. The thing is that only each person knows whether they have tried their hardest or not.

I have thought about what makes my day a good one or not. The interesting thing about this is that the answer is really pretty simple. A good day for me is one in which I show and am shown kindness. It sounds simple but it is not something that happens as often as it should. I live my life day to day like most people do. Waking up, going about my routine, doing a good job at what I do (teaching) and generally interacting with the world in a positive manner. I'm going to make a goal for myself this year (not necessarily related to the educational goals for my students) to show kindness to others every single day. It certainly cannot hurt and who knows? Maybe the kindness that is shown to others will come back to me.