This month, FGCU Students went to a middle school afterschool program as part of the Roots of Compassion and Kindness (ROCK) Center. The cafeteria was filled with over 90 middle school kids and 25 college students divided into six different groups for activities that encourage empathy, compassion, and kindness. The college students described it as “crazy, loud, chaos, stressful, fun, heartwarming…” As the coordinator, I had a few other words to describe the whole situation too. I circulated between the activities coordinating the chaos of groups switching activities: the Affirmation Station goes to Kindness Potato, which goes to Chains of Compassion, which goes to Kindness Origami Fortune Tellers….
One of the activity stations allowed students to create “Kindness Cards” to give to someone that they care about. A middle school student explains the Kindness Card that he created for a friend. He tells the story of his card and illustrates how we can easily misinterpret each other’s words.
At first glance it says,
“you don’t matter give up.”
“No, you read from top to bottom,” he says emphatically,
“you matter don’t give up.”
What story are you telling yourself? How are you interpreting the story? Is there another way to read the situation?
“It’s all in how your read it!”
The process of crafting a personal storytelling requires reflection. We take a past moment, reflect on it, and find new meaning in our present moment. Life experience often gives us new tools to re-examine our past. There’s a lot to learn by returning to middle school… Middle school students are clever. Perhaps he’s being mischievous, either way he’s quite clever. What do you think?