Mindful Mondays: Respect

Our school has started a new way to incorporate character education into our weekly curriculum: Mindful Mondays. Last week our focus was on being respectful to peers and not just adults. First the students were presented with the word "respect" on a piece of paper. Then a few students were asked to cover the word with toothpaste. Once the entire word was covered, a few other students were asked to put the toothpaste back in the tube. As hard as they tried, they could not get it all back in. This led into a discussion about hurtful words. We discussed that it is easy to say mean, hurtful words to our friends but it is not so easy to take them back. We talked about the importance of saying your sorry when you truly mean it but that saying your sorry alone does not always undo the damage caused by the negative words.