They see beyond themselves, and it reframes their view of the world.”īella Franco, a senior in Mangahis’ class, took her participation to a whole new level in an act of meta-kindness. “It helps them to become aware of and more sensitive to the needs of others. After successfully piloting the program with only her seniors in 2016, she extended Secret Kindness Agents to her juniors the next year. The effect of these acts of kindness on the school community has been “tremendously positive,” Mangahis says. I have been surprised by the ease they had with the program and just how much it has unified us and made us a cohesive group.” “They become giddy with excitement for their jobs,” Mangahis says, “and how much fun they are having. They then select new jobs for the next week and begin the process again. At the end of the week, they write reflections on how their jobs have affected them and those around them. These are also the jobs with the highest rewards, notably the sheer happiness of brightening someone else’s day.Īfter selecting their jobs and verbally committing to honor the jobs they are about to do, students perform their acts of kindness every day for a week. The jobs that take the Secret Agents far outside of their comfort zones-for example, striking up a conversation with somebody new-come with the highest risk and vulnerability. Other jobs have included making teacher-appreciation posters, placing positive messages on Post-its on bathroom mirrors and smiling at everyone the Secret Agent sees. “One student made a job out of taking his friends to a school sporting event-girls’ basketball-that doesn’t get the support and crowds of other sports,” Mangahis says. Others require more effort, such as sharing lunch with someone the Secret Agent might not ordinarily talk to or writing letters of appreciation to school staff members who are rarely recognized for their work. Some tasks are as simple as picking up trash around the school and holding open a classroom door. The jobs the students create run the gamut of kind, selfless acts. Mangahis provides a list of possible jobs but lets her students refine, add to or delete from this list. The next steps involve the students brainstorming anonymous acts of kindness, or “jobs,” and selecting Secret Agent names for themselves. Their assessment of the risks ranges from worrying that their faces might hurt from smiling too much to a more serious concern that their acts of kindness might be rejected or that they might embarrass themselves. Most students agree the program will make the school a more positive place. “We then write down a list of about 10 to 15 potential positive benefits of Secret Kindness Agents and also make a list of the potential risks,” she says. Agents are able, in some cases for the first time, to see others when they hold up the lens.Įach year, Mangahis begins the program by showing Pearson’s TEDx Talk to the students and having a group discussion about the program. Essentially, the program creates a reverse-selfie effect: a camera facing out instead of facing in. Anonymity is a key element of the program, as it shifts the focus from the self to others and thus allows the “agents” of kindness to remove themselves from the equation-in effect, to become selfless, which is the DNA of kindness. The idea behind Secret Kindness Agents, which Pearson details in her TEDx Talk and in a book she has written about the program, is both simple and profound: to perform an anonymous act of kindness every day and, thereby, spread kindness throughout the community. When she learned about Pearson’s program two years ago, Mangahis knew immediately that she wanted to implement it in her own classroom. And, as a scholar of written and verbal language, she has always made it a priority to allow her students opportunities to deepen their vocabulary of awareness and empathy. She’s an astute observer of her students’ ability to practice inclusiveness and understanding of one another’s unique identities. Mangahis has spent almost half her life as a teacher and nearly all of those years teaching English language arts at Patrick Henry High School in San Diego. It was an intrinsic understanding of this concept that attracted Erin Mangahis to Secret Kindness Agents, a program founded by a fellow educator, Ferial Pearson. In this way, kindness benefits both the giver and the receiver. “Kindness,” Mark Twain said, “is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” Acts of kindness, however small, also have a way of dissolving the barriers that isolate us within our own worldviews.
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