April 1st, Random Acts Of Kindness Day

I was very nervous about April Fools Day looming on the third day back from Spring Break. I was worried that some of the students in the class would think it was funny to do ‘pranks’. I don’t like pranks- they don’t really fit in with our classroom guidelines of take care of yourself, take care of others and take care of this place. I did a short lesson the day before April 1 about “The Smile Lady” to introduce the idea of Random Acts of Kindness. We created a venn diagram comparing pranks and RAKs. Our class found that pranks mostly embarrassed people or created a mess. RAKs however filled buckets, made people smile and made people feel appreciated. What pranks and RAKs have in common is that they can both be unexpected and spontaneous.

This really helped me redirect some of the energy the students had. We spent a little bit of time creating proposals for RAKs. Some people chose to work alone and some people chose to team up with someone else in the class. Every person submitted an idea and had it approved by me. I set up a couple basic rules for RAKing someone

– the RAK should not embarrass the person

– the RAK should not create a mess

– the RAK should cost very little to no money

– the RAK should not disturb anyone during school time

I loved the creativity that followed… I could not stop smiling. Some people left short anonymous notes with kind compliments on them. Some people cleaned the classroom. Someone chose to put a tablecloth on the bleachers and prepare a nice snack for the class. The day was full of kind surprises for those in our class and around the school. We even RAKed an entire class together as a team! The best part was that the RAKs actually continued the day after as well- the students in the class have found that doing nice things for others (even if it’s something small) feels incredibly rewarding!

I’m proud to say that not one person from my class did any pranks this April Fools day.