Strengths-based pedagogy in first grade: How we built classroom culture based on kindness and inclusion
Foto: Tytti Suopelto
How a small act of kindness caused a positive spiral
I teach first grade. We started the school year as usual by practicing kindness. My goal was to give each student a friend to play with at recess. Break time is an important free time. We set a common goal for the whole class to be friendly: "I include everyone in games and play".
At the end of each break we collected points together and day after day we had great successes! Once, one of my students came late from recess. I asked him if everything was okay. This little first grader came up to me and told me that he was late because he held the door open for everyone coming in from recess, because it is very nice and makes others feel good. I smiled and told the student how nice it was, especially in a school with several hundred students. It was great to see how children embrace their strengths and use them in a variety of ways from a young age.
I made a conscious decision to talk to other teachers and the parents at home about what had happened. The most surprising thing was that I still heard about it several months later at a meeting. It was wonderful and inspiring to see how wide the positive spiral had become!
I like that the digital service of See the Good! is also a great tool for feedback between students! As we learned to identify strengths in ourselves, my third graders also developed into amazing strengths people during the semester! I am very proud of my work when my students use the language of strengths and create a good atmosphere for growth, they are full of these micro-moments of love.
I am particularly interested in the future of education and internationalization. I see working with strengths as a very important part of the well-being and development of individuals and communities. When individuals and communities learn to be, for example, kind, resilient, courageous, cooperative and creative, this will have great benefits in the changing world of the future.
I encourage everyone to be brave enough to try different ways of seeing the good and find the right way for you and your classroom. See the Good! has revolutionized my work as a teacher and helped me to see the good outside of work.
Tytti Suopelto
Class teacher
