Reflections on Kindness

A writer named Amy Krouse Rosenthal has come into my sphere of influence through Kelly Gallagher's book Write Like This.  In it, he shares AKR's memoir The Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life as a way to get students writing about themselves by addressing that which is ordinary. The examples he gives in the book range from feelings about vending machines to finding a place to park.

I took this idea and ran with it.  My students are creating their own collection of writings based on this idea. They are writing about food they love, brothers and sisters, games, cars, and why teachers say things like "No Excuses."  I'm only requiring one a week, and the results are not very impressive yet. But I have hope.  We will enter a revision phase at some point, and then they will collect everything together for our school's big Portfolio Night in March.

 I shared this video below with my students as an Invitation to Write.  It is AKR's take on how we can leave a legacy of kindness -- how it is basically built right into our DNA -- and how to get there.  It reminds me of the Buddhist teaching on kindness -- how everything we have in life that has been created by humans was actually done out of kindness. We have roads, books, food, medicine, and everything else because of the kindness of others.  A cynic may say that, well, the person was getting paid to go to work to package the food or build the roads. Yes, that is true.  However, they were kind enough to get up each day and do it.  That's good enough.

If you are interested in AKR's book, here here is the link..  Meanwhile, I will be sharing my own entries for the Encyclopedia of MY Ordinary Life here in this blog.  I am committed to doing the same writing as my students, although I have to admit it has been slow going to date. I have plenty of ideas, though.  Be watching!