24+ Gratitude Practice

I’ve started going to Ms. West’s class at a local elementary school to talk to her third graders about active hope and help them take action as we deal with a warming world.

Getting Started

I asked the children to show me with a hand signal how confident they were about the meaning of gratitude. Thumbs up if they had a definition and sideways if they knew what it meant but didn’t have a good way to say it. Most kids in class had a good idea that gratitude involved being grateful and thankful for what you have. I added that it is a universal human need to feel appreciation so showing gratitude to others helps them feel appreciated and that we can be grateful not only to people, but to the things around us.

I then shared the land acknowledgement I used most often.

The land acknowledgement shows gratitude and appreciation for the Coast Salish people for taking care of the land for a very long time.

Active Hope

I gave the students a minute or two to brainstorm things they are grateful for. There lists included their dogs, cats, families and bunnies, their families, moms, dads and siblings. I wanted to anchor a gratitude practice in the Active Hope spiral.

I shared the Active Hope dandelion drawing an we drew a simple spiral on the board. The spiral starts with gratitude — gratitude is at the root and is the foundation of our ability to do the challenging work needed to face the difficulties in our lives. The spiral continues to Honoring our Pain, Seeing With New Eyes and then Going Forth or taking action.

I will be going into classrooms each week to work through the spiral and see how the students can develop their own active hope. This work is based on the work of Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone from their book Active Hope and also The Work that Reconnects from the book Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown.

24+

Next, I placed my phone under the document camera showing a photo of some nasturtiums — a burst of color in my front yard. I shared another of bright purple asters. Some of the students surprised me, knowing that nasturtiums are edible and that the seeds are peppery.

Then I shared the 2 4 + gratitude practice.

2- I am thankful to

4- for this reason…

+- I can add to that by…

My first example was I am thankful…

2/to the nasturtiums

4/for being beautiful and brightening my yard

+I add to that by- watering the plant and tending to it.

Then

I am thankful…

2/to Ms. Dunbar, a fifth grade teacher at the school

4/for introducing me to their teacher Ms. West

+I add to that by- learning about what Ms. West does and sharing what I know with her.

Then the students and teacher shared. Here are a few.

I am thankful…

2) My friends 4) acceptance. +) I am kind to them.

2) Ms. K 4)helping in classroom +)I wrote her a thank you card.

2)My dad 4)making the time to play with me +)I say thank you

2)My dog 4)playing with me in the morning and waking me up. +)I feed him, walk him, and play with him.

2)McDonalds 4)delicious food. +)I’ll ask my mom to take me there.

I shared that a vice principal I had knew wrote a gratitude journal and she was the calmest, most patient person I had ever worked with. I think that being grateful toward others in her life gave her the ability to see another’s point of view. By appreciating them, she was more willing to help them and others.

My aim is to move student thinking beyond being grateful only to people and places closest to them, to see with new eyes how they can be grateful for simple things like an ant going about his or her business or the sound of the wind in a tree. We have so much abundance around us yet we rush past it, always heading to some destination.

I am grateful to (2) Ms. West for (4) letting me take time sharing with and learning from her students. I add to that my efforts to help create with active hope a future where we all can thrive.

Andrea

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This post was previously published on Age of Awareness.

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