Class Lesson: Gratitude

As fourth-grader Christopher stood on a small circle in the atrium of the Dunbar Hill School, he reflected on what he had been grateful for last month.

“I was grateful for you,” he said, turning to Principal Laura Rodriguez. ​“And I was thankful for my classes. And I was even thankful for animals.”

Christopher was recalling some of the gratitude left over from when Dunbar Hill participated in a schoolwide gratitude campaign in March, part of the Look for the Good Project. The project started in Cheshire and has now spread to schools across the country, creates ​“school programs around the core belief that gratitude changes mindsets, reduces violence, and improves everything.”

Rodriguez brought the program to Dunbar Hill from Church Street School, where she was principal up until this year. Stacie D’Antonio, who is now principal of Ridge Hill, introduced the program to Church Street when she was principal there.

The Look for the Good Project is a ​“two-week campaign for schoolwide gratitude promoting students to be more reflective of what they are thankful for,” said fourth-grade teacher Tyson Smith, who ran the program at the school this year.

The national organization sends materials to each school and provides frameworks for how to implement it. At Dunbar Hill, the program lasted from March 18 – 29 and involved four parts.

First, the teachers placed ​“gratitude spots,” like the one that Christopher stood on, throughout the school. Teachers would bring their students to the spots to stop and reflect on something they were grateful for, which they could either share or keep private.

Next, teachers gave their students kindness cards, which the kids gave to each other in order to express their gratitude for one another.

Teachers also created a ​“gratitude wall” in the atrium of the school. Every morning, students would write something they were grateful for on a sticky note. The teachers would assemble all of the notes on a piece of paper, which they then brought to the gratitude wall to display. As the two weeks wore on, the wall grew larger and larger, spilling over into the hallways.

The notes ranged from drawings, which the kindergarteners drew because they don’t yet write, to single words like ​“dogs,” to full sentences.

One kindergartener drew an ice-cream cone, while one sixth grader wrote ​“the baristas at Starbucks.”

Many of the notes featured family members. One kindergartener dedicated a note to ​“mommy and babby,” flipping the D’s so they became B’s. An older student wrote: ​“I am very grateful for my Grandma because without my mom I would never be here.”

Finally, each student ended the campaign by filling out a packet with notes and drawings for someone they were grateful for and delivering it to that person. Smith said that a majority of their students gave their packets to ​“mom,” though some gave them to coaches, teachers, secretaries, and others at the school and beyond.

Rodriguez said that the atrium would often become congested as students gathered around the gratitude wall to see what their friends had written. She said they were looking less at their own notes on the wall than at the notes of others students, something she said she was happy to see.

Smith said that reading the other notes on the wall opened their eyes more and more to what they were grateful for. She said that students still stop on the gratitude spots when they pass them and still give each other kindness cards.

According to the Look for the Good Project’s website, founder Anne Kubitsky of Cheshire got her inspiration for the project when she heard a story about how four divers in California freed a whale from the ropes of an anchor that was dragging it downwards, preventing it from breathing. She decided to learn to paint so she could write a children’s book about the story. In 2011, she placed 500 postcards in public places in her area on which people were supposed to write something they were grateful for and send them back to her. The postcards flooded in, along with other notes and objects that people created. Word spread until she started receiving mail from all over the country. In 2014, she incorporated the Look for the Good Project as a nonprofit dedicated to serving schools.

At Dunbar Hill, the gratitude spots are still on the floors, and sticky notes still adorn the walls. Smith said they’re starting to fall off, so every time she walks by she picks up the notes on the floor and sticks them back up. She said that the campaign will definitely happen again next year, hopefully with more student leadership.

Rodriguez said that gratitude is one of the values that she hopes to instill in her students. ​“For me, it’s important to be able to appreciate what other people have done for you,” she said.

Though the coursework is important, she said, emotional growth at the elementary level is also crucial. ​“We’re trying to teach the whole child.”