Kindness Action Ideas

A student playing our singing bowl

To begin this class I gave the Mind Move Make students a chance to share one or more of their Kindness Action Ideas with the other members of our group.  I explained that these actions should be things that they can accomplish in their lives.  A boy in the class raised his hand and asked if he could talk about actions he and his sister are already taking to make the world a better place.  He explained that they donate part of their allowance to a charity of their choice.  His sister donates her allowance to help children who have been impacted by the Ebola epidemic.

Other Action Ideas students mentioned included cheering up friends and family members when they are sad.  This is an action all of us can take in our lives, and it is an important one.  Showing compassion and empathy toward others is valuable and appreciated by people of all ages.

Two girls in our class talked about helping homeless people as an action idea.  I asked them to elaborate on what specific actions they could take to do this, and they didn't have any ideas.  Another girl in the class shared that she has done several things to help the homeless.  She said she once left a loaf of banana bread for one homeless person she sees often.

After this discussion it was time for relaxation.  It is interesting how when we first started engaging in relaxation, many of the students were restless and talkative.  Now most of them sit or lay down on their yoga mats in a comfortable position and take advantage of this valuable time to reconnect to the body and the breath.  I always start by reminding the students to actively think about their breathing.  Then I play the singing bowl for them as they settle into this part of the class.  For the past couple classes I've told them a story, very similar to a guided meditation.  I took a poll of our class members to see if they like the story-oriented guided meditation best, or quietly contemplating their own breath.  Almost everyone voted that they enjoy the story paired with relaxation best.  I'll include the story from this session at the end of the post.

During part of our movement activity I introduced the students to Drinking Birds, a different type of Vinyasa experience.  The students started low to the ground in Chair Pose with their arms swung behind their backs, then they lifted up to standing with their arms above their heads.  We repeated this motion many times.  We also added a pause in Chair Pose with their arms behind their backs and balancing on their toes.  This collection of movements feels a little like flying, and when we finished all the students had smiles on their faces and many were laughing!

For the past several classes we've ended the movement portion of the class with Bhramari, or Bee Breath.  Making a humming sound, the room seems as if it is full of tiny bees!  This is a great way for the students to connect to their breath one last time at the end of our movement work.

Art-wise we had several things to complete!  The ceramic pieces we created during the first class were fired and ready for paint.  Many thanks to Sarah Harpole, the TIS Art Specialist, for firing our ceramic artwork in the kiln!  I decided to try a new technique with the clay artworks; we used  metallic watercolor paints to add color.  The metallics worked best with the pieces that had a lot of texture.  The pigmented golds and silvers settled into the recessed places in the clay and accentuated the textured areas.  The children were excited to take these works home as gifts for family members for the holidays.

This student created a ceramic sculpture of herself with her baby brother

Many students also had to finish their hand drawings from the previous class.  We also used high-quality watercolor paper and prepared the paper for paint during our next session.  The students created a composition using tape in the background of their paper.  After the paint has been applied, we will remove the tape.  The design created with the tape will remain as fields of white with color all around.  In these white areas the students will write their Kindness Action Ideas.  I'm excited to see the artworks when they are completed!

One student using tape to mask the paper so that that portion remains white when we paint with watercolors

Here is the guided meditation story from this class:
Imagine you are walking along a path and you come across the most beautiful lake you’ve ever seen.  The water is any color you can imagine it to be.  Slowly you take off your shoes and feel the sun-warmed ground under your feet.  You step to the edge of the lake and jump in!  Once you are underwater, you discover you can breath!  Feel the water all around you as you swim without worrying about coming up for oxygen.  After a while you come upon the most interesting fish you’ve ever encountered!  What does your fish look like?  You and the fish silently swim along together.  After a while you hear your mom calling you from the edge of the lake, so you know its time to return.  You slowly swim back to the surface, to the edge of the lake and get out of the water.







   

A Helping Hand

We began this week's class by reviewing our central idea, Humans can choose to cultivate kindness and make the world a better place. We also took another look at My Hands Are My Heart by artist Gabriel Orozco. Then I asked if any of the students either saw the movie or read the book The Hobbit. A few students raised their hands and briefly explained the plot of the story to everyone else. Then I read the following quote from the wizard Gandalf, a character from The Hobbit:

"People believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage."

We discussed that Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit, a very ordinary being without obvious extraordinary powers.  But armed with kindness and caring for his friends, he saves the day again and again.

I asked the students to brainstorm in their sketchbooks three to five ways they can "grow" kindness in our world.  Here are some of the kindness action ideas that they came up with:

• Showing kindness by being a good friend
• Being kind to myself by practicing yoga
• Donating to those less fortunate than we are
• Being kind by spending time with my family
• Maintaining a neighborhood community garden
• Helping others feel better
• Showing kindness to the earth by recycling

What a great start in developing ideas to cultivating kindness in the world!

Here is a picture of one student brainstorming kindness actions in her sketchbook!

After that I asked all students to find a partner and we practiced Secret Message Back Writing!  This activity develops concentration, engages students in positive touch, and builds spelling and literacy skills (from Lisa Flynn's book Yoga for Children).  To play the game, one student either draws pictures or writes words on the back of his/her partner, then the person receiving the touch has to guess the shape or word.  I encouraged the children to start with simple shapes first and build up to writing words on one another's backs.  In order to correctly guess the shape or word being written, the students must be fully present and focused!

Two students practicing Secret Message Back Writing.

After participating in a guided meditation during relaxation time, the students were ready for some movement!  On Monday I attended a yoga class with Simon Menasche, one of my favorite teachers.  His class gave me a few ideas for the movement portion of the class.  One movement activity involved slowly unfolding from seed posture into standing with our arms above our heads, using the breath to guide us.  Our class ended the movement practice with Tree Pose, and I was impressed that the students chose to help each other maintain balance.

All the students in the back row were helping each other in Tree Pose

   

During the art portion of the class students focused on drawing their hands!  Drawing the human hand is a difficult task, but these students were up to the challenge.  I asked them to really exercise their skills of observation while capturing their own hand.  Eventually we will cut out the drawings of our hands and incorporate them into a larger piece of artwork.  The drawings will be combined with writing we've done around kindness.

Here are a few of the drawings so far!

My Hands Are My Heart

It was wonderful to get started with Session II of Mind Move Make! I was excited to see many students from the last session and to welcome one new student to our group. 

For this session we will work with the following central idea throughout all twelve classes:

Humans can choose to cultivate kindness and make the world a better place.

We will reflect on kindness to one's self and kindness to others, along with contemplating kind actions we can take in our own lives to improve the world around us. To start the first class, I posted the central idea in a prominent place in our classroom and asked a student to read it out loud to everyone. I wanted to make sure all of the students understood the word "cultivate", and when I asked who wanted to define the word only two students raised their hands. I chose a student to explain the word to everyone, and he did a better job than I could have! He said, "Cultivate usually refers to agriculture, but it can be applied to many different things. Basically, to cultivate means to grow something". Wonderful!  

Humans can choose to "grow" kindness and make the world a better place

Once I was sure everyone understood the central idea, we went around and shared one kind thing we've experienced recently, something someone else has done for us. Something that made our world just a little bit better. I mentioned that my partner, Seth, makes coffee for me every morning before he leaves for work; this simple action dramatically improves my morning!  

My Hands Are My Heart by Gabriel Orozco

After the discussion I introduced students to My Hands Are My Heart, a piece of art by Gabriel Orozco. In the piece, there are two images of Orozco. In one image his hands are closed over a piece of clay that was used to create bricks in Cholula, Mexico. In the second image, he holds his hands open to show the imprint his hands have made on the clay. I asked them to look at the image, think about the title, and try to connect both back to our central idea. I broke the students into three small groups so they could have a conversation about the artwork. For this session I created sketchbooks for everyone, so they also reflected on the ideas in their sketchbook.  

I was impressed by the ideas they generated after looking at this piece of artwork and connecting it to the idea of "growing" kindness! Many students connected the shape of the clay to the shape of a heart. One student wrote, "My hands are my heart because they do so much for us and our heart does so much for us too." A third student explained that our hands are what we use to DO kind things while our heart is what we use to THINK and FEEL kind things. When everyone was finished discussing and writing about the work we came back together as a group to share ideas. If you'd like to hear Orozco speak about this piece himself, here is a link to an audio file of him describing the work.

Then it was time to move our bodies! Once again this session I will start each movement portion of the class with quiet relaxation so that the children can decompress after a long day at school. We listened to the soothing sound of the singing bowl and paid attention to our own breathing. After this, we engaged in more active movement with an assortment of yoga poses the students were already familiar with, along with one new pose: bridge or Setu Bandha Sarvangasana.

After that I introduced them to the art project, which was inspired by Gabriel Orozco's work. Using terracotta earth clay the students formed their own representations of how their hands and their heart are connected. Many of the children created miniature sculptures to represent their families. It was interesting to see what was important to them through their artwork. When the students completed their sculptures I photographed them individually holding the artwork. Here are some of the photographs!

~A special thank-you to Shannah, the art teacher from New City School! I borrowed some of her ideas while developing this project.