Ben Franklin strongly believed in community service, and spent his life trying to do what was right. When he was 27 years old, he decided to become "perfect". (He lately realized that this was impossible, whew.) To achieve this goal, he wrote a list of virtues in a little notebook, and practiced each virtue systematically, one each week. When the thirteen week cycle ended, he began again.
We spent a fair amount of time today reading and discussing Ben Franklin's virtues. Then, pairs of children worked together to come up with ways that we can make our school more "perfect". The children came up with many, many great ideas. From these ideas, I will pick 10 that I think are best and most aligned with what we always work on anyway (being kind, respectful, etc.)
Over the weekend, I plan on getting each child a small notebook. They will write one of our virtues on each page, and then we will practice each virtue systematically, one each DAY before winter break. Each will then write a way that they practiced the virtue. For example, if Monday's virtue is "Always try your best", then a child might write "I really worked hard during math even though it was hard and I wanted to give up."
I'm so excited to see this project flourish!
1 comment:
So cool, Susan, so cool. And, so so so important. :)
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