With a class activity dealing with "emotional baggage", this teacher tries to help her students
Teaching is one of the most difficult jobs a person can choose.
And not because it involves physical fatigue or exhausting situations, but because it means being in tune with a group of young human beings who will be the men and women of tomorrow, and trying to give them the most concrete, correct, and useful foundations so that they can grow up to be balanced people.
School is, in fact, a fundamental completion of the education that the small children receive in the home from their fathers and mothers. Without teachers and face-to-face experiences with peers, a child simply does not grow up as he or she should.
In addition to the notions, subjects, homework assignments, and grades, it is important for a teacher to educate students in regards to good behavior and mutual respect.
Karen Loewe, a teacher from Oklahoma, knows this, and with over 20 years of teaching experience, she decided to offer her students a useful class activity to fully express their thoughts and emotions.
Let's see what she did.
Instead of proceeding with the usual lesson, Karen asked the students in her class at Collinsville Middle School to take a sheet of paper and write down what was their "emotional baggage".
That's right, because each of us, according to the teacher, has a burden or weight, similar to a piece of baggage, that he or she carries every day, and in which there are perhaps worries, fears, anxieties, traumas, episodes, and bad moods that are not possible to easily overcome.
The students were invited, in a completely anonymous way, to write down their most profound worries and problems. Once written, the sheets of paper were crumpled up and then read randomly to each other by the other classmates.
What emerged from the readings aloud left the teacher genuinely impressed, because she had not expected that her students were experiencing such important difficulties in their lives.
The students, for their part, had a fundamental and very important opportunity to express themselves and not have to keep hidden inside their biggest problems while at the same time receive help and understanding from others.
The purpose of such an exercise, according to Karen, was to help them be more understanding and kind to themselves and others and, according to what the teacher said, it seems that this class activity on "emotional baggage" has hit the mark.
The experience was exciting, to the point of arousing emotion both in the students and in Karen herself, and it allowed and encouraged her students to behave better with their peers.
Once the readings were completed, the crumpled sheets of paper with the students' problems written on them were placed in a plastic shopping bag and hung outside on the classroom door.
This was done to symbolize that problems can be removed by using determination and courage and therefore, they do not necessarily have to oppress us every day of our lives.
The "emotional baggage" class activity that Karen proposed to her students has aroused many consents, combined with some critical voices.
The latter individuals have mainly focused on the fact that allowing children to talk about their own traumas, albeit anonymously, could still lead to mockery or marginalization within the classroom group.
The teacher, however, remains convinced of the effectiveness of her exercise and insists on the need to make the students understand that their school is also a place where they can find comfort and emotional support.
Karen Wunderlich Loewe/Facebook
