Cinderella’s mother said, “have courage and be kind”

i work with adolescents.
they’re interesting humans -
adolescents laugh quicker,
dream bigger,
love deeper
and cry faster
than the rest of us.
they are intensely self-absorbed
and yet painfully aware of the world around them.

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I work with adolescents.
When I was an adolescent,
something bad happened
and it changed the way I looked at the world.
Because of it, I stopped loving myself.
I was damaged.
Outside, I tried to be normal.
Inside, I barricaded myself in a small,
safe place.

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Eventually,
I found my way out.
I started to heal.
I had begun to coach preschool gymnastics.
I loved my little students; showered them with praise and cheered them on.
Each front roll, each flip was something to be celebrated.
Each time I helped them,
I helped myself.

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I was rebuilding
the wall of my self-esteem,
one kindness at a time.
I discovered that the way to be kind to myself was to be kind to others.
I discovered that if you expect the world to be a dark place, it will.
I discovered that what you put in to life you will get back.

As you sow, so shall you reap.

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I work with adolescents. I’m sure there is a deeper reason for that.

For years I have worked on building kindness into my curriculum.
We have learned about homelessness
and raised money to help youth on the streets.
We’ve learned about hunger
and contributed to food banks.
We’ve learned about childhood slavery
and wondered what to do.

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We’ve gone to We Day,
sold baked goods,
raffled off gingerbread houses,
been silent, washed cars, sold bracelets,
and volunteered countless hours.
We’ve used our hard work to buy medical supplies,
clean water wells
and even a school for children in another country.

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I’m proud of what we’ve done.
I feel my students are able, at times,
to break out of their self absorption
and become the “shameless idealists” that Craig Kielburger has urged them to be. They care about others;
they want to help.
I’m proud of them.
But then I turn my back and I hear one call another “fatty” or “fag”.

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This one takes that one’s pants out of the change room and hides them. That student takes this one’s hot lunch and this student makes snide comments about that student’s mark on a test. And I know the student being picked on is hurt. And I know the student who is doing the bullying is hurting, too.

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Is this human nature? Is it normal? Is it just kids being kids? Can I do something about it? Haven’t we, as a species, evolved past this? And it’s at this point that the little broken me, the one I buried deep inside me long ago, puts up her hand as says “I have an idea.”

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I take the idea out and examine it. Hold it up to the light, turn it around, tweak it and smile.


The Kindness Project is born. I decide to launch it in February. February is the month of love and heartbreak, chocolates and loneliness. And rain. Always lots of rain. February could use a little kindness.

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5 acts of kindness. That’s more than one per week but small enough to be manageable. And since I teach English, I want my students to reflect on what they’re doing and to write about it. And since I’m a bit of a techie, I decide we’ll blog about it.

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5 acts of kindness plus 5 blogs times 60 students equals a better world. I hope.

The second day of the project I am greeted by several students telling me they completed their first act of kindness. They are eager to tell me what they did.

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The things my students chose to do varied widely, but the way they felt about their actions did not. I felt good, I was proud of myself, I liked helping, it made me smile. My students were experiencing the power of kindness and liking how it made them feel.

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As the month went on, fewer students reported their actions to me. Were they not participating? Just the opposite. Rather than being something new they felt the need to tell me about, the acts of kindness were becoming business as usual. Just what we did. Many of my students completed far more acts of kindness than were required.

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February came to a close. Our final action was to write one last blog, reflecting back on how we felt about the project. Selin wrote about her positive actions having a ripple effect. Zoe said she felt like a better person when she was kind. Shervin felt that his acts of kindness weren’t wasted.

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Jenny noted that there is always space for kindnesses that are unexpected, small and unplanned. And Jaden dreamed about the kind of world we would live in if every one were kind.
I work with adolescents. I am not naïve. I don’t think that my small assignment will change the world.

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But I am enough of a shameless idealist to hope that The Kindness Project will have made a difference in my student’s worlds. That maybe what they have learned will give one of them the strength to crawl out from a dark space or light the spark that spurs them forward to make a difference in the world.

Thank you

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