- 1). An Act of Kindness Project
This activity works best as a four-part lesson.
Lead your students in a discussion on the topic of kindness. Guide them with questions like: Can small acts of kindness, regularly carried out, really make a difference in the world? Do good deeds simply permit bad people to do good things on occasion? What would the world look like if everyone committed acts of kindness every day?
Next, have your students come up with a list of kind but substantive deeds they might carry out. Let creativity reign here; do not dismiss weak ideas. Deeds might be as small as smiling at each person encountered in a day, as cliché as helping an elderly person across the road, or as ambitious as organizing a fund drive for a student's favorite cause.
Divide your students into pairs and explain the next assignment: Each pair gets a month to design, implement and record an act of kindness.
Finally, hold a conference day in which each pair gets to show off the act they have recorded. Don't be surprised if some filmmakers, photographers and artists emerge. Ask the students to reflect upon their experiences. How has it changed their perspectives? How might they incorporate acts like these on a daily basis? - 2). If I Ruled The World
Get your students thinking about the unwritten rules that maintain communities. Precede this activity with a lesson on the rules of conduct that various societies employ. Explore, for instance, the Golden Rule or the Hindu Yamas, which include non-violence and honesty.
Divide your students into groups and give each group a poster board and a thick marker. Tell the students to imagine they have been given the authority to write society's rules. Give them 10 to 15 minutes to discuss and write down the rules they come up with. Next, have each group present their rules to the class with an explanation for each.
Finally, have the students discuss which rules would work well and why. Consider having the class vote for the best group. - 3). Who I Am Matters
Incorporate values into your classroom like one New York teacher did (see http://www.blueribbonmovie.com/). Buy a stock of blue ribbons for your students. Explain to the class that you will use the ribbons to recognize students who have touched your heart because of their kind, generous or ethical behavior. Conduct a ceremony once a week in which you give one student two ribbons. Tell the student that she has one week to give one of the blue ribbons to someone who has made a difference in her life. At the following week's ceremony, the student gets to explain why she gave the ribbon to the person she did.