I spent the month of May talking about self-worth to all my elementary school classes and for this week’s blog post I’m want to share these lessons with all of you!
I started the month out by showing a clip of a TED talk given by Sean Stephenson, called The Prison of Our Minds. I highly recommend watching this if you haven’t ever seen it. Sean is incredibly motivating in this video and talks about how the real prison is in our minds, in the way we self-bully ourselves. The students I showed this to were touched and we had many great discussions about how we feel about ourselves.
One student asked me how we can stop the negative voices in our heads. I had the other students in the class answer this question, and here are some of the great suggestions they gave: Distract yourself with something you enjoy when the negative self-talk starts Use positive affirmations by looking in the mirror and forcing yourself to say nice things. Use humor to stop the negative thoughts Repeat a positive mantra when the negative thoughts begin, something similar to what Ciara uses like Shimmer Sparkle Shine. The next week I spoke to my students specifically about Share Your Sparkle Day. I showed them a video of Ciara talking about her experience in middle school and how she used that to create the Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project. Then I showed them the video of Ciara explaining what Share Your Sparkle Day is. I challenged the students to think of something they could do to celebrate this day. The most memorable moment came when a student raised his hand and asked, “What if there is nothing I’m good at?” I was immediately thrown back to last year when I was working on the auction for our annual girl’s camp, and I couldn’t think of anything I was good enough at to donate for the auction. In a moment of vulnerability I shared my experience with the class. I asked the class what I was doing wrong when I couldn’t think of anything to donate. They answered that I was too busy comparing myself to others to see what I was good at. So I shared with them how I finally decided to donate cupcakes and that my cupcakes were even bid on and sold! They were excited and decided that they wanted to donate to our auction this year!
The week of Share Your Sparkle Day I read the book Zero by Kathryn Otoshi to my students. This is a beautifully, simple picture book about how the number Zero feels empty inside and struggles to find how she has any value. Zero eventually discovers her value and it is amazing! Read this book now if you haven’t already! My students all the way up to 6th grade loved this story and were able to relate to it. After reading the book we talked about what made it so hard for Zero to find her value, and what it took for her to finally shift her thinking. We discussed how each of us has our own value as well, even when it’s hard to find. -Alicia
One student asked me how we can stop the negative voices in our heads. I had the other students in the class answer this question, and here are some of the great suggestions they gave: Distract yourself with something you enjoy when the negative self-talk starts Use positive affirmations by looking in the mirror and forcing yourself to say nice things. Use humor to stop the negative thoughts Repeat a positive mantra when the negative thoughts begin, something similar to what Ciara uses like Shimmer Sparkle Shine. The next week I spoke to my students specifically about Share Your Sparkle Day. I showed them a video of Ciara talking about her experience in middle school and how she used that to create the Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project. Then I showed them the video of Ciara explaining what Share Your Sparkle Day is. I challenged the students to think of something they could do to celebrate this day. The most memorable moment came when a student raised his hand and asked, “What if there is nothing I’m good at?” I was immediately thrown back to last year when I was working on the auction for our annual girl’s camp, and I couldn’t think of anything I was good enough at to donate for the auction. In a moment of vulnerability I shared my experience with the class. I asked the class what I was doing wrong when I couldn’t think of anything to donate. They answered that I was too busy comparing myself to others to see what I was good at. So I shared with them how I finally decided to donate cupcakes and that my cupcakes were even bid on and sold! They were excited and decided that they wanted to donate to our auction this year!
The week of Share Your Sparkle Day I read the book Zero by Kathryn Otoshi to my students. This is a beautifully, simple picture book about how the number Zero feels empty inside and struggles to find how she has any value. Zero eventually discovers her value and it is amazing! Read this book now if you haven’t already! My students all the way up to 6th grade loved this story and were able to relate to it. After reading the book we talked about what made it so hard for Zero to find her value, and what it took for her to finally shift her thinking. We discussed how each of us has our own value as well, even when it’s hard to find. -Alicia
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