I was
recently a guest at a party to celebrate a family friend’s 16th birthday. The
gathering was pretty clearly divided, with the adults congregating in one area
and the teenagers peacefully keeping their own space in another. At one point,
I noticed a puzzled expression on my husband’s face as he watched the teens
chatting away. He remarked how rarely he is exposed this age group and how
quickly one can forget what it is like to be a teenager. I snickered, as I
often do when I want him to know how challenging my job is, and I thought how
opposite a high school teacher’s world is to other professionals.
Those of
us that work in high schools can’t escape the sights, sounds, and smells of the
teenage years. It has become the norm to coexist with all of their quirky
behaviors. I truly enjoy teaching this age group. I love that my students
can simultaneously LOVE and HATE everything, and that making a mountain out of
a molehill is as common as getting out of bed in the morning. Most of the time
I have patience for the stubbornness they throw at me; however, over the years
I have been consistently disappointed when students fail to show
gratitude.
I hold the
door open for them; they walk through. I hand out paper with really useful,
well-thought-out information for their growing brains to soak in; they groan. I
bring in a box of donuts to celebrate the end of a big project; they scarf them
down without ensuring that everyone received one.
My
knowledge of this age group armors me with empathy and understanding; however,
I find that hearing “thank you” is the least of my concerns. I fear that
students are having a difficult time feeling gratitude, never mind taking the
time to communicate it.
This
concern prompted one of the lessons in the Life
Skills unit of my Foundations of
Design curriculum. The physical end result of this project is a
sculptural card that uses symbolism to connote gratitude and hides an actual message
of appreciation to the person for whom it is intended. The lesson requires
discussion or it risks becoming a superficial exercise in merely saying “thank
you.” My goal is to give the students the opportunity to think about the things
in their lives that they feel grateful for in a deeper way than a common
Thanksgiving project.
Considering
Gratitude
I ask my
students to consider and discuss something that they can’t live without. I
encourage them to reflect on the reasons they would be so strongly affected by
this absence. More often than not, it comes down to a handful of people in
their lives for whom the students are thankful. The class discusses why people
fail to communicate their gratitude and how often we dwell on the negative
while neglecting to notice the abundance of good in our lives. The students
observe that there are little and big things that they can show gratitude for
and find that if they do it more, it tends to come back to them as well.
The Art
Problem
This
project can be as simple or as complex as you make it. The general criteria are
as follows: Brainstorm ideas about how to best illustrate gratitude to a
specific person or experience. Then, design a sculptural card that extends
outward into space in some way and that also hides a message to its recipient.
The card should use symbolism to illustrate the feeling of gratitude without
having to articulate it directly with the words “thank you.”
Students
have surprised me with some very creative results including a stethoscope with
a heart shaped “slit” large enough to fit a small note intended for a nurse. Another
student created a framed collage for his favorite art teacher with the hidden
message under the frame stand. Students have chosen people, places, and
experiences as the object of their gratitude and each has shown a sensitive and
deep connection to the inner feelings that are typically kept personal.
The result
of this project and the discussions that accompany it, may yield a slightly
more polite group of teenagers with really cool sculptural cards or it’s
possible that you may help a few kids get through their teenage years feeling
really grateful for their mountains and molehills.
Kari Giordano teaches art,
design, and photography to grades 7-12 at Mount Everett Regional School, Southern
Berkshire School District, Sheffield, Massachusetts.
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