If your students are excluding a classmate, or even if they’re not, I highly recommend it as a read-aloud.When a new and clearly impoverished girl named Maya shows up at school (“Her coat was open and the clothes beneath it looked old and ragged”), Chloe and her friends brush off any attempt to befriend her. In How to Bullyproof Your Classroom, I suggest using high quality, accurate children’s literature to put issues that can be hard to face head-on at a slight remove, making it possible for children to learn about and reflect on bullying behaviors.

It’s not always easy for children (or adults) to look honestly at the impact of their own behaviors.

We adults can have an effect on our students.Īn important part of bullying prevention is teaching children what bullying is and how they themselves can support or prevent bullying. The teacher, however, teaches her class about the effect of their actions in a way that speaks to Chloe. Maya has already left the community by the time Chloe realizes the power of her excluding behavior. Bullying behaviors are potentiated by the power of the group, joining together in mean behavior. The class coalesces around meanness to Maya. Maya, the child who is targeted, tries to fit in, to reach out, to be a part of the group-but her attempts are unsuccessful. All of us are capable of systematic exclusion of another, and Chloe, the child who excludes, is a sympathetic character. So many elements match what we know about bullying. If you read this book aloud to your students, it will be a powerful reminder to them that our actions do matter, and that our kindness-or lack of it-affects everyone around us.Įach Kindness is set in a rural second grade class, but the story will ring true for most elementary school students. The story and images from Each Kindness will stay in your mind long after you’ve finished reading it. Lewis, creators of the classic picture book, The Other Side. Chloe sadly contemplates her kindness pebble.Įach Kindness is a stunning new picture book, beautifully written by the incomparable Jacqueline Woodson and realistically illustrated by E.B. Albert announces that Maya’s family has moved away. Albert invites each student to state a kindness that he or she has done. “Each little thing we do goes out, like a ripple, into the world.” Ms. “This is what kindness does,” explains Ms. The class watches ripples go out from the pebble. Albert, their teacher, teaches a lesson on kindness.

Spring comes and the girls in the class call Maya names, whisper and laugh about her. Chloe and the other children in the class turn away. Maya smiles, offers to play, and tries to make friends. Despite the fact that there’s snow on the ground, Maya’s shoes look like they’re meant for spring. DecemCategories: Positive Community / SEL SkillsĪ new girl joins Chloe’s class.

Each kindness woodson