SHOWING KINDNESS &

RESPECTFebruary Character Education 2017

Learning Target• I can show kindness to others by

• Being empathetic• Listening• Being more accepting• Respecting differences• Doing random acts of kindness for others

Being empathetic means…

• Getting outside of yourself!• Have you ever been in a place with hundreds or thousands of

people?• Have you ever traveled to another country?• Have you ever been on an airplane and looked down to see big

cities and landmasses?• Have you ever realized how many people are in our state, our

country, or our world?

Time to Reflect… and share!• There is a reason I ask these questions. Have you ever thought to

yourself…

• “What makes my beliefs, my opinions, my experiences, my perspective right, but other peoples’ wrong?”

• “Is my thinking the only way, or are there other ways to perceive things?”• “Am I open to hearing what other people think and believe?”• “Is my life any more important than someone else’s?”• “What kinds of things contribute to my life experiences, opinions, beliefs?” • “How might mine be different from other people?”

Being empathetic…• Means trying to understand what it is like in someone else’s shoes.

One of the best ways to be empathetic is to listen and learn. It’s very difficult when you have not experienced something yourself, but you can try to imagine what it might be like.

• When you learn about different cultures, ideas, belief systems, experiences… you can better understand why people do, say, behave the way they do.

• This helps us be more kind to people – knowing that we don’t know what types of situations they have seen, lived, or experienced. Their life is very different from yours.

For example: Let’s learn about Haiti• Learning about culture and other people can help us be more

empathetic and more kind… especially as we take on Hearts for Haiti

• When France occupied Haiti in the 1800s, the colonists built Fort Dimanche along Port-Au-Prince Bay. The fort was converted into a prison in the 20th century by the brutal president François Duvalier, who crammed political opponents into 12 square foot cages and subjected them to torturous conditions, resulting in 3,000 deaths. Since being converted into a national monument in 1987, however, the story of Fort Dimanche has become no less grim.

Cookies made from mud…• Today, the area surrounding the fort is filled with vendors selling

dirt cookies, a circular morsel of hardened clay, locally known as Bon Bon Tè. Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, and food prices continue to skyrocket. In the slums the situation is so dire that one of the major sources of food are these cookies made from mud. 

Fort Dimanche• While the process of making dirt cookies takes place all throughout

the city’s slums, one of the main epicenters is the area surrounding Fort Dimanche. Vendors line street after street, carrying large canisters of dirt to the streetside, where they mix salty water with the clay. The cookies are then patted down into small circles and left to dry in the sun before being sold to local families living around Fort Dimanche, who use them to temporarily stave off their children’s hunger. 

Nutritional Value?• Unfortunately, the health impacts of Bon Bon Tè are disturbing to

many of the nutritionists of the region. Although some people believe that the dirt is rich in vitamins and minerals, in reality the cookies provide little to no nutritional value, and worse, can be contaminated. 

Donate to Hearts for Haiti!• This is a great opportunity to get outside of yourself and donate

school supplies or money to help the children of Haiti.• Any amount helps! Bring your spare change… share your gently

used supplies!!!