How I Taught My Middle Schoolers The Value Of Everyday Heroism

  Perhaps you've been in that meeting where the principal/district administrator/some other person who is not in a classroom declares that you are going to solve all the problems of middle school by integrating some form of social emotional learning into the classroom. Likely, this was accompanied by some form of internal or external groaning, as you realized that you had one more thing to do in your already over-stretched class.

    This blog is going to focus a lot on how social emotional learning can actually be the basis for an extremely rigorous and fulfilling curriculum. Turns out, that administrator may have been right 😃 Reading, writing, and discussion can lead to better citizenship, more empathy, and just generally better human beings.

    Today's post will not focus on rigorous reading or writing, however, but will again ask students to work on building their discussion skills (see posts about teaching academic discussion skills here and here). One of the first tasks I ask students to do as a community building exercise is to complete and present a Pyramid of Heroism.

A completed Pyramid of Heroism.

 This task asks students to evaluate various activities, to determine just how heroic they are, with levels ranging from "Everyday Hero" to "Superhero." I leave the definition of heroism broad, so that students have a chance to debate this within their groups. Students will have to evaluate, negotiate, and come to a final agreement about where each activity belongs on the pyramid. There are also blank slots where students can add in their own ideas for heroic activities. At the conclusion of this activity, students share three of their placements with the class. I like starting the year with this activity for several reasons:

1. It gives students a chance to practice their academic discussion skills. For this activity, I generally ask students to focus on using their contradiction and elaboration sentence stems from their academic discussion cards.

2. It lets students know that heroism, big or small, will be valued and a focus within this room. I want students to know that their character is just as important, if not more so, than their academics in this room. I use this activity to introduce our "Heroic Deeds" cards, which students can fill out for peers and attach to our Heroic Deeds board. I try to read off a few of these each week.

3. It gives students a chance to practice presenting and listening early in the year. Presentation and audience skills are incredibly important in the modern world, and both need to be explicitly taught if we expect our children to be successful.

4. It is a chance to show students that there isn't always a right answer. One of the most shocking things I ever tell my students is that there isn't always a right answer, and that, if they can defend an answer well with text evidence, I sometimes change my answer keys. This is one of the first activities we do where there just isn't any correct answer.

I hope this activity helps build as much community in your room as it did in mine!

Cheers,