Reflections

At the beginning of the year, the head of the lower school and I had a similar dream for the year ahead. I had learned about the book Rhinos and Raspberries: Tales of Tolerance for the Early Grades by Lois Lowry during my time at Friends Select School and was interested in bringing it to the curriculum at GA. Many of these tales of tolerance relate to the five pillars of the mission statement and lead to rich discussions on character and social development, something I found lacking in the classroom last year. The head of the lower school had a brilliant idea of starting a program for the coming year of "Mission Stories" that we would carry around with us in our backpacks. These stories would come from faculty, staff and students telling of times when we felt the mission was being lived to serve as a reminder of what it truly means to be independent in thought, compassionate in spirit, confident in expression, honorable in deed and collaborative in action. I took this as a sign that I should start my own mission curriculum in the classroom this year called Reflections. Thus far in the year I have used inspirational quotes to inspire kids to discuss moments when someone is upholding the mission statement. 

Example of student response to reflection
lesson.

The quote featured at the beginning of this post is from the Reflections lesson I organized in November. To go along with the Thanksgiving holiday I decided to tie in thankfulness to the lesson. To begin we listened to Sam and the Lucky Money by Karen Chinn, a story of a young boy who discovers that what may seem like not enough money to him could be a great gift to someone less fortunate. After hearing the story students had a discussion about how Sam was living the mission statement. The students all agreed that Sam was compassionate in spirit when he donated his gift of "lucky money" to the poor man on the street instead of spending it on himself. After our group discussion the students were then asked to reflect on the story and respond to a writing prompt.

This lesson along with others has been a great monthly exercise for the students to remind them what it means to live the mission.