Thursday, November 7, 2013

Nothing like compassion from a room full of 7-year-olds (or so)...

Morning Meeting has always been my secret favorite part of the day. Since the start of school, we have held a handful of Morning Meetings that I wish desperately I could have captured on film. Whether to share with you via this blog, or just to keep tucked away in my files so I could watch and reflect or watch and smile at later dates. Today was one of those.

Students were introduced to the art of commenting as first graders, I am sure, and I re-introduced them to the art of commenting on someone's share or someone's work this year as second graders. The criteria for Morning Meeting comments are to stay focused on the sharer and to show empathy with the purpose of fostering positive interactions amongst students and scaffolding student independence in offering thoughtful words to one another and acknowledging those words in hopes that students will do this in their own interactions.

Today's share that was beautiful and brilliant and just kind of jaw-dropping, heart-stopping was actually  a sad one. A student shared about an extended family member who is struggling with illness. The student offered a few sentences about the family member, and why it was of concern and weighing heavy on this student's mind. The student followed with a quiet "I'm ready for comments and questions."

This was the first beautiful part of this Morning Meeting--that this student felt safe enough in our classroom and with our group to take this kind of risk.

The second beautiful part of this Morning Meeting were the 3 comments that were offered by our classmates. Comments of true sincerity and tenderness, of true empathy and care. Comments that acknowledged they understood this student's worries, and offerings of hope and consolation.

I was fighting back the tears. Yay for you, second grade families. You have amazing children. Let's notice and celebrate their developing glimmers of deep understandings of humanity and empathy each time they present themselves. They're the best kind, you know, the 7-year-old kind.