One of the Things I love about you!

 Lifelong Learners see learning as valuable. In order to see learning as valuable, however, students must first see themselves as valuable. Our students can achieve unlimited success if they can identify and trust that they are worth the investment.

 

Here’s a teaching idea I love to use to help students accept and like themselves.

One of the Things I love about you!

Every year, usually after I get to know my students and have taken the appropriate time to build a sense of community, I give them a blank piece of computer paper and ask them to decorate it with their first name landscape style, neatly written and big. But I never revealed why.  

 I take the papers home that night and write one sincere compliment about each student on his/her paper - graffiti style. Be especially thoughtful because your students will use your compliments as a springboard for their own.

The next day, give each student his/her paper back. Allow them a moment to enjoy what you love about them. Provide clipboards if you have them and sit in a circle somewhere if you can. We went in the gym (Older students love this too. I did it with 6^th through 8^th graders).

 Explain that each of us has wonderful and unique qualities that have added so much to the class and today is a perfect time to celebrate the “one thing I love about you.”

 Have students pass their papers on the clipboard to the left and have each person add an additional thoughtful compliment about each person on his/her nameplate.

I especially love when you direct the passing. It’s funny that way. I would direct by giving them a moment of silence to choose something they just love about that person and then say, “Okay, 1, 2, 3 pass.” I would just keep repeating this which gets to be silly, but also keeps order.

 I have had students come back three years later with their paper in hand and share that it helped them get through many a painful day in high school.

 The video clip is a great follow-up to this activity. Students sometimes feel the pressure that they just aren’t good enough. But truly, they are! They are perfect!