Bad Consequences If You Expect Too Much To Meet Other People's Expectation

It's common  in this life anyone is always a hope or expectation of the environment. Starting from the family , the surrounding  and the community. New born baby, the parents' hope is already in the baby. They hope the baby  to be a pious child, smart, and so on. Likewise, when school, parents hope that every time they receive their child's report card, they will be ranked first.

This continues. Many parents want their children to go to school, some want their children to go to public schools, some want to go to madrasas, Islamic boarding schools and so on. And expectations apply to all aspects of life, such as behavior, speech, manners, behavior and so on and so on. So that many people in this life behave not as they want but act like the expectations of their environment.

Meeting other people's expectations   is indeed a positive thing. But if we always hope to fulfill it, of course it is not good, we are not free to act and act, work and express as we desire.   In fact, Hamas, Nurhan RT, who wrote on IDNTIMES COM, stated that there are 5 bad effects that occur if we expect too much to meet the expectations of others, namely:

1. You always depend on happiness based on validation from others

The first bad impact is that you will not be able to make your own version of happiness. 

If you always depend on the benchmark of happiness based on the validation of others, then you will be confused what is the true meaning of happiness in your opinion? If that happens, as a result, your life will only be about what other people think so that true happiness is difficult to happen.

2. You will feel burdened in living everyday life

Not only is it difficult to find true happiness, you will always feel burdened if you often meet other people's expectations. This is because you always try not to make mistakes so as not to be blasphemed by others.

At first glance, you are so careful in socializing. However, in reality you feel depressed because you are living a life that is not what you want. From now on, try to stop this habit because it will only make you suffer.

3. You will tend to underestimate your own abilities

Thinking too much about other people's expectations will only make it easy for you to underestimate your own abilities. This can happen because you only focus on the bad scorn from others about you. So, you rarely appreciate all your efforts. 

In fact, you need to appreciate every hard work that has been done by yourself, you know. So that this does not happen, try not to underestimate yourself, okay?

4. You will use various ways to fulfill expectations, even if it hurts

Someone who often tries to meet the expectations of others is identical to a hard working attitude but in a negative context.

If usually someone will work hard for their own achievement, but in this case you do it for the fulfillment of other people's expectations. You will also try to do things even though it is beyond your ability.

If you keep doing it, sooner or later it will torture you.

5. If you fail to meet other people's expectations, you will become stressed

It was previously mentioned that someone who is used to meeting other people's expectations will tend to be willing to do everything. If you don't stop, bad things will happen, namely   prolonged stress if you fail to meet expectations. 

The stress that arises is not because of disappointment, but fear of blasphemy from others. Bad things like this should not happen, because failure is a natural thing. 

After reading this article, cut back on meeting other people's expectations of you. Remember that what saves your life from adversity is yourself, not other people's expectations. good luck!

Notes:

1. Text sourced from https://www.idntimes.com/life/inspiration/tenda-bersajak-nations/dampak-jika-terlalu-memenuhi-ekspektasi-orang-lain-c1c2/5

2, Some pictures are taken from google.

 

One Day Trip Success Tips

One day trip is a traveling trip that only takes one day. That is, we leave in the morning and in the evening or at night we return home. This one day trip is relatively easy to do because the time is short and there is no need to wait for time off and so on. The cost is also cheaper because we don't have to pay for lodging. But even if it's only one day the fun doesn't lose, you know.

Now, how does a one day trip succeed and be maximally successful? For this reason, I deliberately quote a tip written by Isna Triono which was published in Karya. ID

1. Nearby destinations

Choose a tourist destination that is close to your city and can be reached in only 1-2 hours away. If there's a point of interest in town that you've never explored, that's even better. Because there is nothing wrong with being a 'tourist' in your own city. After all, you can still get exciting experiences and new atmospheres.

2. Use the services of a trip organizer

Currently, there are so many trip organizers that offer one day trip packages at low prices. The advantage of using a trip organizer is that you no longer need to worry about which destinations to stop at or about transportation. Trip organizers also usually provide meals for guests. Practical isn't it?

3. Arrange the itinerary as efficiently as possible

An efficient itinerary makes our one day trip maximum. Unlike usual traveling, we are chased by time to visit several areas, one day trips can usually only visit 1-2 places. And that makes us maximally explore the area.

4. Depart at dawn

With an earlier start time, you can more fully enjoy a one day trip. This is one of the effective tricks so that in one day, you can enjoy a short vacation.

5. Prepare a spare battery or power bank

One day trips can also give you an exciting experience and enrich your social media accounts. So, bring a spare battery or power bank so you can take as many photos as you want.  Good luck.

Notes :

The source of the article is https://www.kanya.id/read/032007/hati-5-hal-ini-agar-one-day-trip-hasil

 

10 creative ways to teach English that deliver outstanding results

Anna Waren

The English subject leader and the year 6 teacher at Holy Trinity and St Silas School, London.

As an English teacher at an outstanding primary, Anna Warren is often asked for inspiration. Here she shares her favourite approaches for creative English lessons.

As a creative school, with a track record in fantastic English results, we are often asked what our specific approach is: how do we teach through the arts yet manage to maintain such high expectations from all our pupils? I'd like to share some of these approaches with you:

Immersion activities

How can children access stories, poems and other texts if their minds and imaginations not fully engaged? We have found that immersing children in a range of creative activities before reading the text means that they are fully prepared, and excited, about the reading journey ahead of them. Through painting, music composition, a film project, in role drama or sculpture, the kids have had a chance to share vocabulary, ideas and concepts which gives their reading fresh meaning and purpose.

Clear purpose

What's the point of reading and writing anything if you don't know why you're doing it? We aim to provide children with a clear purpose to all reading, and especially writing tasks. Whether it's an invitation to the headteacher to attend a class assembly, an email to an author or an article for a school newspaper, our children know why the quality of their writing matters: because there will be a real audience for their published work.

Professional publishing

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One effective way of valuing children's work as well as providing a real incentive, is to plan for a range of ways to publish their writing. Recent examples include a whole school bookmaking project. Following a whole school Inset on bookbinding techniques, every class published their own shared book; one example being an anthology of short spooky stories composed by year 6. Their stories were mounted on handmade paper, accompanied with each child's art work (lino cut style prints on metallic paper) with a dramatic paper cut out front cover. The effort the children put into their work was immense, and the results were stunning as a result. The anthology has been enjoyed by parents and other pupils and the children's pride in their work is clear to see.

Meaningful planning

Where possible, learning in English is linked with subjects within the creative curriculum we follow: the international primary curriculum (IPC). Well in advance of teaching, teachers collaborate and share their ideas for planning through a mind mapping process. Meaningful, creative activities are planned for, ensuring that all staff members know exactly what the children will be learning and why.

Focused on strategies

The teaching of reading is not easy. As children's fluency in reading increases, it's hard to know what reading skills need to be taught, and when. We ensure that specific reading strategies are modelled explicitly to the class; this provides children with a holistic bank of skills to draw upon. This could include scanning a text, making an inference, predicting or creating a mental image. Our teachers use 'think aloud' statements to model to the children how these skills are used, and how they can help them become better readers. These strategies are then shared as a class, and then assessed in follow up guided reading activities.

Inspirational learning environment

Take a trip to our school and you'll find classroom environments that inspire adults and children alike. Not only is the children's work displayed creatively, but there is a range of learning prompts to inspire and support all pupils. We want to encourage our children to discover new texts, genres and authors, so our reading areas are inviting, well resourced and highly organised. Pupils can choose from an exciting array of reading material: newspapers, classic texts, reference books as well as the children's own published stories are just some examples of what book corners might offer.

Drama to engage and inspire

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The use of drama is such a powerful tool. Taking the lead from our drama specialist, all teaching staff use a range of techniques to promote the exploration of characters, situations and historical events. This process expands the pupils' imaginations, and provides them with the ideas they need to give their writing that extra spark and flair.

Rigorous teaching of spelling and phonics

In the infants, phonics is streamed, so all children can benefit from tailored teaching, making maximum progress as a result. All phonics and spelling activities are fun, multi sensory and as physical possible, the aim being to meet all learning styles in the class. In the juniors, we try to make homework lists as personalised to the child as possible to ensure that the spelling patterns stick in a meaningful way.

Grammar concepts taught creatively

Grammar cannot be taught as a stand alone activity. What's the point of that? Children begin to understand grammar concepts, and start to apply them in their own writing, when they start to read with a writer's mind. Punctuation rules and techniques are drawn from shared texts; texts which the children have already been immersed in and have a good understanding of. Exploring these, and embedding them creatively is how the learning takes place.

Peer and self assessment

What child doesn't love marking somebody else's work? With a clear marking key, success criteria and purpose in mind, children set about assessing either their own, or a partner's piece of writing. Modelled through the teacher's own formative marking, pupils know what the expectations are. They are well trained in searching for successful examples of the learning intention, articulating their responses to the work, checking the writing matches any targets and giving constructive feedback. Seeing the children learn from each other in this way is hugely positive; you know you've done your job well.

Note:
1. Original text https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/feb/14/teaching-english-creatively-outstanding-results
2. The pictures were taken from google

The art of reflection: how to become a more thoughtful educator

Jamie Thom

 Reflecting on how you’re doing in the classroom can help you take ownership of your teaching and identify areas for improvement

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2018/feb/10/the-art-of-reflection-how-to-become-a-more-thoughtful-educator

In an effort to improve my teaching practice, I’ve made some pretty unattainable teaching resolutions in the past. I’ve told myself I’ll conquer all behaviour management issues; work-life balance will be my new middle name; and the marking pile will be seamlessly controlled. But such resolutions are usually made during the holidays, and it doesn’t take long for them to dissipate once I’ve returned to the classroom.

 

Most teachers are passionate about what they do. But research suggests that after the first few years of teaching they can begin to stagnate in their practice. It’s easy for frustrations about making the same mistakes to creep in, and we often look for quick fixes. As Dylan William suggests: “Teachers are like magpies. They love picking up shiny little ideas from one classroom; taking it back to their classroom; trying it once, and then moving on to the next shiny idea.”

Read more

So how can teachers energise themselves and become more thoughtful educators? I’ve found that taking control of my development through regular reflection and follow-up actions has helped me take ownership of my teaching and better understand how I can improve. Here are four tips for doing the same.

  Ask yourself how you want to improve
Teaching is a remarkably complex, multifaceted skill, and there is never a sense of having “mastered” it. While this could be an intimidating idea, it’s actually one of the most energising and exciting things about the profession.

Regularly recording your thoughts can help you track progress and make informed decisions about how to move forward

Realising this begins to remove the stress and competitive element of the job. The goal becomes more simple: to be one step better than you were before. Ask yourself what aspect of teaching you want to improve on. How will you do this? Consider the impact of any changes you’re making in the classroom. Picking a pedagogical focus for each half term is a useful approach: last term I focused on the impact of refining different questioning styles.

Track your progress

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Regularly recording your thoughts can help you track progress and make informed decisions about how to move forward. Writing a diary is one option, or you might prefer to join the huge number of teachers sharing their ideas more publicly with online blogs (anonymous or otherwise).
If you are dealing with stress, for example, recording your thoughts over time could help identify the source of the difficulty and what you might do to cope. Or in looking at your students’ understanding of your subject, you might reflect on your ability to give clear explanations, and then experiment with the pace and words you use.
I’ve found that taking 10 minutes to write at the end of the school day is useful for understanding interactions between myself and my students.

Read around your subject

Individual observations can only go so far. There are a range of educational books and a growing body of educational research that can help to fuel this more thoughtful approach to teaching.

Read more

Last year, I decided to read 12 books to guide my efforts towards self-improvement. I had to make time in a full timetable, but the process helped me think more clearly about what I wanted to change.One book a term can provide a roadmap to stimulating reflection; as you read you experiment in your classroom and consider the impact. It can be very motivating to see the small gains in your teaching as your repertoire of skills continues to develop.

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Find a coach

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Coaching can help too. Primary assistant headteacher Aidan Severs has written about how his school’s coaching model is inspiring teachers to fine-tune their practice.
If your school doesn’t have a formal coaching structure, you could look at starting an informal coaching relationship with a colleague. Sometimes we need others to guide our thinking through questioning and probing, and a coaching relationship can motivate you to improve.

8 Important Reasons For Teaching Kindness in Schools

https://edarticle.com/8-important-reasons-for-teaching-kindness-in-schools/ 

Most people have heard the phrase ‘random acts of kindness’, which refers to a selfless act of giving resulting in the happiness of another person. Terms like this are increasing in popularity around the world, as more people identify a deficiency in their lives that can only be fulfilled by altruism.
It seems we just can’t get enough of those addictive feel good emotions and with good reason.
Scientific studies have shown that kindness has a great number of physical and emotional benefits, and that children require a healthy dose of the warm and fuzzies in order to flourish as health, happy, well-rounded individuals.

Patty O’Grady, PhD, is an expert in the area of neuroscience, emotional learning, and positive psychology with special attention to the educational arena. She believes that “kindness changes the brain by the experience of kindness. Children and adolescents do not learn kindness by only thinking about it and talking about it. Kindness is best learned by feeling it so that they can reproduce it. Kindness is an emotion that students feel and empathy is a strength that they share.”
A great number of benefits have been reported to support the theory of teaching kindness in schools:

1. Happy Children

Science explains that the good feelings we experience when being kind are produced by endorphins that activate areas of the brain that are associated with pleasure, social connection and trust, and it’s proven that these feelings of joyfulness are contagious, encouraging more kind behaviour by the giver and recipient.

2. Increased Peer Acceptance

Research on the subject has determined that kindness increases our ability to form meaningful connections with others. Studies show that kind, happy children enjoy greater peer acceptance because they are well-liked and that better than average mental health is reported in classrooms that practice more inclusive behaviour due to an even distribution of popularity.

3. Improved Health and Less Stress

It’s widely documented that being kind can trigger a release of the hormone oxytocin which has a number of physical and mental health benefits as it can significantly increase a person’s level of happiness and reduce stress. More recently though, it’s been found it plays a significant role in the cardiovascular system, helping protect the heart by lowering blood pressure and reducing free radicals and inflammation, which incidentally speed up the aging process.

4. Greater Sense of Belonging and Improved Self Esteem

Studies show that people experience a ‘helpers high’ when they do a good deed, a rush of endorphins that creates a lasting sense of pride, wellbeing and an enriched sense of belonging. Even small acts of kindness are reported to heighten our sense of wellbeing, increase energy and give a wonderful feeling of optimism and self worth.

5. Increased Feelings of Gratitude

When children are part of projects that help others less fortunate than themselves, it provides them with a real sense of perspective and helps them appreciate the good things in their own lives.

6. Better Concentration and Improved Results

As it increases serotonin, which plays an important part in learning, memory, mood, sleep, health and digestion, kindness is a key ingredient that helps children feel good. Having a positive outlook allows them greater attentions spans and enables more creative thinking to produce better results at school.

7. Less Bullying

Two Penn State Harrisburg faculty researchers, Shanetia Clark and Barbara Marinak say, “unlike previous generations, today’s adolescents are victimizing each other at alarming rates.” They argue adolescent bullying and youth violence can be confronted through in-school programs that integrate “kindness — the antithesis of victimization.”
Many traditional anti-bullying programs focus on the negative actions that cause children anxiety and often with little impact. Teaching kindness and compassion in schools, not only fosters the positive behaviour that creates warm and inclusive school environments, but helps children feel that they belong. It’s documented that the effects of bullying can be significantly reduced by integrating kindness based programs in schools.

8. Reduced Depression

Dr. Wayne Dyer, internationally renowned author and speaker, says research has discovered that an act of kindness increases levels of serotonin (a natural chemical responsible for improving mood) in the brain. It’s also found that serotonin levels are increased in both the giver and receiver of an act of kindness, as well as anyone who witnesses that kindness, making it a wonderful natural antidepressant.
Maurice Elias, a professor at Rutgers University Psychology Department says that “as a citizen, grandparent, father, and professional, it is clear to me that the mission of schools must include teaching kindness. Without it, communities, families, schools, and classrooms become places of incivility where lasting learning is unlikely to take place.
We need to be prepared to teach kindness, because it can be delayed due to maltreatment early in life. It can be smothered under the weight of poverty, and it can be derailed by victimization later in life. Yet despite these and other travails, the receipt of kindness and the ability to show kindness through service are both growth enhancing and soul cleansing.
Kindness can be taught, and it is a defining aspect of civilized human life. It belongs in every home, school, neighborhood, and society.”
It’s become quite clear that modern education must encompass more than just academics, that in order for children to develop into happy, confident, well-rounded individuals, matters of the heart must be taken seriously and nurtured as a matter of priority.

Character Education

Five Ways to Reignite Your Passion for Teaching

Amy L. Eva, Ph.D. 

The education content specialist at the Greater Good Science Center.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/five_ways_to_reignite_your_passion_for_teaching 

Even the best work can wear us down. How do we find inspiration and purpose again?

What gives you a sense of meaning in your work, even on the tough days?
When I posed this question to a group of teachers recently, no one focused on academics. Instead, their responses centered on their students’ engagement, the sense of participating in something larger than themselves, and the deep satisfaction they gained from relationship building.

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“When my students make me laugh, and when they do that ‘oooooooooohhh’ sound that kids do when they finally ‘get’ it,” confessed a fifth-grade teacher. “Knowing the work you do is bigger than yourself is what keeps me motivated,” said a university professor.
A 20-year veteran kindergarten teacher said this: “It’s still the relationships I build every year that give me the most meaning. … Even now I get in the car at the end of the day and think, What was great about today? What was hard? How can I improve tomorrow?”
If you are feeling a bit worn down right now and need some inspiration, here are five practical ways to pause, reflect on your work, reconnect with your role and purpose. It hopefully goes without saying that these tips aren’t just for teachers—they can be adapted by almost anyone who needs to reignite his or her passion for work.

1. Revisit your story

Researchers remind us that having a purpose in life is crucial for our health, longevity, and well-being. At the Greater Good Science Center’s Summer Institute for Educators, we invite educators to reflect more deeply on their purpose and identity in the following activity, which you can do at home (in your pajamas with your favorite beverage):

• Create a brief timeline of several major events, turning points, and epiphanies that made you the person and education professional you are today.
• Choose two or three of these events and reflect on each one. What feelings do you associate with the event? What lessons emerged for you? What obstacles and supports did you encounter? Did you learn anything about your strengths, weaknesses, motives, and values from this event?
• Overall, what story does your timeline tell about who you are?

According to psychologists, we all have an internalized narrative that explains how we became the person we are today and where we are headed tomorrow. As we revisit our story, it can help us to understand how and why we became an educator. It may also help us to answer the question “Who do I want to become?”

2. Celebrate a favorite teacher or mentor

Here is another simple exercise to try at home or in a staff meeting. If you try this activity with colleagues, partner up and stand back to back while listening to each question read aloud; next, turn and face each other as you share your responses. The process of pausing, reflecting, and then listening to your partner, in close proximity, may help you to focus more on the words and emotions shared.

• Describe the teacher or mentor who had the most influence on you.
• How did you feel when you were with this person?
• How did you change as a result of this person?
• How did this person shape your life as an education professional?

Bonus: If we lean on each other for social support (and inspiration), we are less likely to be depressed and more likely to be resilient at work.

3. Connect with like-minded colleagues

When I talk with teachers, I often recall an image of myself during my first year of high school teaching. I would escape into my little cubby-hole of an office at lunchtime and lie flat on my back with the lights out. I felt totally overwhelmed and isolated that year; I was trying my hardest to meet the needs of 163 students every day, and I was physically and emotionally exhausted. The principal stepped into my classroom only once that year, and the teachers down the hall kept to themselves.

Teachers connecting at the Greater Good Science Center’s Summer Institute for Educators

We can’t do this alone. And there are lots of opportunities to connect (especially if you feel like you don’t have the time). I know groups of teachers who meet weekly at a restaurant or bar to grade papers and talk. I know teachers who run together, meditate together, and camp together.
There are also many more formal opportunities to grow professionally and personally, meet new colleagues, and develop networks of support. For example, you can take an online course at Mindful Schools, participate in the CARE retreat for teachers, or apply to join us for the Summer Institute for Educators here at UC Berkeley. A new year-long program called Transformational Educational Leadership is also inviting applications.
Bottom line, reach out (even when it’s tough). Nurture new friendships while pursuing new professional development options.

4. Prioritize your well-being

If you are a teacher, there are probably plenty of obstacles preventing you from engaging in self-care. We teachers are notoriously resistant to helping ourselves out. So perhaps the argument below might convince you that your personal and professional well-being must be your number one imperative.
A recent report by the Aspen Institute, “The Evidence for How We Learn,” makes it crystal clear: “For social, emotional, and academic development to thrive in schools, teachers and administrators need … support to understand and model these skills, behaviors, knowledge, and beliefs.” Children learn social-emotional skills by being exposed to adult behavior. “If a teacher doesn’t have a level of social-emotional competence … then he or she is sending mixed messages,” writes Patricia Jennings, in her book Mindfulness for Teachers.
In addition to seeking out social support, there are many other research-based strategies for self-care, including physical exercise, mindfulness, self-compassion, and cognitive reappraisal (reframing your thoughts in response to a challenging exchange with a student, for example). There’s also a place for just forcing yourself to get up and go to that party even though you want to curl up in a ball on the couch—a technique psychologists call behavioral activation.
“Self-care is not a luxury,” write John Norcross and James Guy. “It is a human requisite, a professional necessity, and an ethical imperative.”

5. Create a resilience plan

Of course, developing social-emotional skills takes time, and resilience is an ongoing, dynamic process of adaptation and growth. So, why not create a plan?

• Consider (or try out) some of the research-based practices above.
• Notice which ones seem appealing, enjoyable, or helpful.
• Think about how you might incorporate one of these into your life.
• Choose one self-care strategy or practice to implement in your daily life (or almost every day) for at least 5-10 minutes. (Keep it simple.)
• What kinds of obstacles and barriers might arise? How might you address those obstacles? How will you encourage yourself to prioritize this plan?

As you commit to a plan, keep holding on to the parts of your work that give you meaning. And remember the wise words of a teacher I know: “Care for yourself as hard as you care for those kids.”

Five Ways to Help Teens Think Beyond Themselves

 

 Amy L. Eva, Ph.D. 

The education content specialist at the Greater Good Science Center.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/five_ways_to_help_teens_think_beyond_themselves#gsc.tab=0 

Part of finding your purpose is connecting and contributing to something larger than yourself. 

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Teens can seem self-centered sometimes, can’t they?
Of course they can; they’re still supposed to be developing the capacity to see beyond themselves. They can also seem to lack a strong sense of purpose—and that’s not surprising either, because the ability to think about other people is developmentally linked with a sense of purpose.

“Purpose is a part of one’s personal search for meaning, but it also has an external component, the desire to make a difference in the world, to contribute to matters larger than the self,” write psychologists William Damon, Jenni Menon, and Kendall Bronk. Some researchers call this external component the beyond-the-self dimension of purpose: Why am I here? What role can I play in the lives of those around me?
A new study of adolescents and emerging adults confirms that many young adults simply do not exhibit a beyond-the-self dimension of purpose. In fact, a beyond-the-self intention is even “atypical” of adolescents, according to researchers.
That being the case, how can we as parents and educators help them to find that intention?
Here are five research-based ways to inspire teens to connect with something larger than themselves.

1. Support teens’ beyond-the-self interests

Get to know the passions of the teens in your life. Do they love caring for little children or animals? Do they talk a lot about sustainability? Is there a political cause that they want to support?

• Join the Purpose Challenge

  Want to help high schoolers find purpose? The GGSC's Purpose Challenge for students, educators, and parents incorporates cutting-edge science into videos and interactive exercises. High school seniors can discover their purpose, then inject that purpose into their college essays and submit that essay to win up to $25,000 in scholarship money. Contest deadline is Feb. 1, 2018.
  

“Purposeful youth described getting encouragement for their interests rather than hearing the more general encouragement to get good grades and go to college,” says Stanford psychologist Heather Malin, director of research at Stanford’s Center on Adolescence. “Some reported getting material and social support for their beyond-the-self interests.” For example, parents or caregivers might buy them books relevant to their interests, give them rides to volunteer work, or invite their child to volunteer at their workplace.
When adolescents can find clubs or structured school activities that connect with their broader interests, they are likely to become more personally motivated and engaged in those activities. If we encourage teens in pursuing their beyond-the-self interests, they are also more likely to have a stronger sense of purpose in the world.

2. Discuss values and character strengths

Perhaps one of the most powerful ways to foster a beyond-the-self intention in teens is through reflection on their values and opportunities to act on those values.
“Purposeful teens talk about big, abstract values (equality, diversity, justice, community, etc.) more so than non-purposeful teens,” says Malin. It’s crucial for them to have “opportunities to write about or discuss the things that matter most, especially in terms of the values they want to live by.”
One way to get youth to think about their own values is through the VIA (“Values in Action”) Survey. This helps students to identify potential character strengths—such as kindness, teamwork, fairness, and leadership—and envision ways to act on those strengths.

• 

  Use Your Strengths

You might also share this Use Your Strengths practice with teens to help them focus on one personal strength each day for a week. For example, if kindness is a potential character strength, they might engage in a random act of kindness each day. Or if they choose to focus on teamwork as a strength, they might look for different ways to encourage teamwork at home or at school.

3. Facilitate activities that enhance empathy and perspective-taking

Another practical way to nurture beyond-the-self thinking is through learning experiences that focus on empathy. Researchers have linked empathic concern to prosocial behavior, while it may also play a role in decreasing different types of aggression.
Michele Borba, author of the book UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World, outlines multiple strategies for fostering empathy in kids as well as ways to teach perspective taking. She suggests keeping a journal in tandem with reading a novel, where students record immediate responses as if they were the book’s central character, literally stepping into someone’s shoes and imagining the perspective of the person who might wear them. Borba also proposes honoring “Hero Days”—a time when students dress up as an admired historical figure while speaking as if they are that famous person.

4. Expose teens to diverse perspectives

There is a powerful argument for diversity in schools and classrooms. A recent study of several thousand middle schoolers suggests that students feel safer, less bullied, and less lonely in more racially balanced classrooms.
But there may be other important benefits. If children and teens are exposed to a range of emotional styles and different ways of thinking and being, they may be more likely to engage in prosocial (kind and helpful) behavior. 
For example, we know that many ethnic groups (e.g., Mexican American, African American) demonstrate a more communal and collectivist way of thinking that counters the individualism that prevails in much of North America. There is also evidence that teens who identify more with religion may be more prosocial. Further, a new U.S. study suggests that people from a higher social class experience greater self-oriented feelings (e.g., contentment and pride), while those identifying as lower social class experience more other-oriented feelings like compassion and love.
Because teens, in particular, have an increased cognitive capacity for perspective-taking, this is an important time to expose them to many different ways of thinking and being. Teachers might consider inviting a range of guest speakers to the classroom, regularly planning for cooperative learning activities with mixed groups of students, and leading interactive, inquiry-based learning experiences that feature service learning activities in the neighborhood.

5. Model empathy and prosocial behavior as an adult

Finally, when parents and caregivers model empathy and find ways to contribute to their own communities, they encourage their kids to do the same. Thanks to a motivated network of moms at school, for example, my daughter has been able to make blankets for local refugees, participate in food drives, and regularly volunteer at an organization that provides diapers and baby supplies for families who need them.
In this divisive political climate, however, some of us may be struggling to engage in our communities. We may feel exhausted or discouraged; we may even feel like hiding. It can feel daunting to reach out in a world that feels topsy-turvy. If this is the case, it’s so important to nurture our innate capacity for care and attunement.