Virtue of Kindness

This is a bench that is placed in the front foyer of my placement school in Burlington, ON. This bench serves as a pledge from students to live by these words each and everyday. I view this as creating a healthy community, one with promoting great values and characteristics in students.

This relates to the OCT standard of respect is intertwined with kindness. To treat someone with respect includes being kind. In order to be kind, you must respect, listen and care for others. There a few other pictures posted throughout the hallways which share the same message.


The caring and safe schools document states that a caring environment consists of; "a framework of common values that includes: respect for democratic values, rights, and responsibilities; respect for cultural diversity; respect for law and order; respect for individual differences; clear and consistent behavioural expect" (Caring & Safe Schools). I see this being emphasized in my school by all teachers and students especially the value of respecting individual differences. It is important to be kind and respect one another as it creates a comfortable and accepting learning environment.

In another, document titled "Growing Seeds", the author states that in order to make the students be caring and respectful, we must make them an essential part of the classroom. These values could be discussed with the entire class at the beginning of the year to establish definitions of each term as well as classroom rules. The picture above presents classroom rules of a grade 8 classroom I had the privilege of attending. On that day, some students began to act against their classroom rules and the teacher simply reminded them that at the beginning of the year the students signed a contract (the back of the rules) to live by the established rules, and that changed the students' behaviour immediately. The benefit of having students create these rules is that they develop an understanding of what respect and kindness are and they are held accountable for their actions.