I’ve been thinking about the 19 firefighters in Arizona who died unexpectedly with the sudden turn of a fire. I’ve also been thinking of the teachers who gave their lives protecting children from gunmen and tornadoes this year. I’ve even been thinking about the janitors who quietly do their jobs in our school – do you know that if they scrimped on their job when no one was looking – we could literally have outbreaks of disease among our precious children?

How can we help promote gratitude and active thankfulness among this generation?

I just wonder what we as teachers can do to help promote a grateful generation. How can we help kids know the importance of saying “thank you” to and to be glad for what they have?

This is something I want to be more of what I do this year at school.

Sure, I’ve got standards to meet and a curriculum to accomplish, but it is kind of like this.

If I focus on making sure my children keep their room clean while forgetting my relationship with my children – they might have a perfectly clean room but have no kind of relationship with me. We have tasks and relationships to balance. The relationship is vitally important. There’s a human side to every task. When we forget the humans, their task becomes almost irrelevant. (Ahem, overtesting…)

Thankfulness as a habit

If teachers aren’t thanked, perhaps it is because we don’t help kids see and thank others. I’m not proposing we do this so that suddenly people can acknowledge that we are a noble calling (as they should, by the way).

I am proposing that we help our children tell others that they matter and thank them for their work because it is something we must do. When we acknowledge the sacrifices of others, we are more sensitive to notice it everywhere we see it.

A self centered generation will be an unhappy one

The unhappiest people I know think only of their own happiness. An unhappy generation will be a self centered one. Kids are self centered by nature -it is pretty much how we are born. As I’ve matured and begun to see the value in helping others with my own life, I’ve grown in joy and fulfillment.

Because one day tragedy will strike every community – it does. And communities that can live with the peace of mind that they’ve thanked the heroes among them will rest much easier on this.

Please share your ideas and links

How can we thank our law enforcement, EMTs, and all of those people who serve us every day? I’m looking for all kinds of ideas beyond having them come and sit at an assembly and taking food (I think they like the second one the most, from what I’ve heard.) What can we do to really shower and show gratitude to the heroes among us?

If you’ve done something special, please write about it on your own blog and put the link in the comments below so that those of us gathering ideas can learn from you! Thank you.

Written by Vicki Davis, author – Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds – Posted with Blogsy from my iPad