A quick search on Amazon and you will find an overwhelming number of resources on gratitude: self-help books, gratitude journals, even page-a-day gratitude calendars. It seems that especially after what 2020 handed us all, that gratitude has surfaced everywhere we look--including our classrooms. I, myself, have started (and not completed) many gratitude practices. One even included a month-long calendar with my students during our unit on Happiness anchored by the Frederick Gaines play adaptation of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. In an attempt to teach my students gratitude, instead, I added more work that they begrudgingly completed. But were they really building the practice of gratitude, or were they just randomly writing things down that would placate me? Considering most of them were suddenly very grateful for their moms, dads, and the breakfast they ate that morning--I am going with just completing an assignment.
So how then? How can we encourage and teach our students to be grateful and show appreciation without making it a chore? Enter GiveThx: “GiveThx is a digital program that strengthens student wellbeing & social-emotional skills using gratitude science.” I stumbled upon Give Thx in the summer of 2019 in a random Facebook group for ELA teachers. The concept seemed interesting, and as it turned out, they were looking for teachers to pilot the new program in their classrooms. So, in the fall of 2019, my team of 7th graders tried out the program.
They immediately liked sending messages to one another in something that resembled a social media platform. That is not to say we didn’t have to monitor the system and constantly review how to word and format gratitude. I think we sometimes take for granted that our students know how to do things like this--like thanking the people in their lives who make a positive impact on them. Or that just showing them one time, and it will click for them. Just like grammar skills and multiplication tables, the act of expressing gratitude has to be taught, practiced, enforced, and sometimes re-taught.
Of course, just as we shared the program with our staff and started working with the whole building to get the buy-in, March 13 brought our classrooms and lives to a grinding halt. After we got our bearings, what better a time to continue the practice of gratitude than when we are all home during a pandemic? Teachers started using it to thank students for their remote learning participation, for showing up and sharing their lives at home, for contributing to our team in a positive way. Students started sending classmates notes to lift each other up and remind them that they are not alone.
Our building was fortunate enough to receive a grant from the program to share it with all six teams (grades six through eight) this year. As with any new initiative, it takes some work to figure out how to roll it out with fidelity. But, along with a few other staff members and a great group of student volunteers I enlisted from last year’s group, we have begun to implement it building-wide. The Give Thx Ambassadors helped create a launch day activity as well as design some posters that are displayed around the building to remind students and staff just how to utilize the program.
Just like anything we learn, it takes constant modeling and reminders. Staff prompt the students to open up and show gratitude. Someone help you with your science lab today? Why not Give Thx? Did your team win in gym class because the goalie blocked the final kick? Give her Thx! Who has made a positive impact on your day already today? Use Give Thx to show them! Did a teacher take some extra time to explain appositive phrases again for you? How about a quick Thx?
Whether you check out and adopt the Give Thx program, or you figure out some other way to share and teach gratitude, now more than ever it is so important to focus on the good things. These things don’t have to be huge; it really can be small stuff. Because whoever said, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” must not have realized that it is those small moments that can change a person’s day with a simple note of gratitude. Thank you.
Liz Speicher is a 7th Grade English teacher at Chartiers Valley Middle School. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, she is a huge Pirates baseball fan, enjoys working out, and loves kitchen dance parties with her husband, seven-year-old son, and two-year-old daughter.
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