Yesterday in third grade we read the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today?

It’s subtitled “A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids.” Though the illustrations and phrasing in the book are targeted towards kids, so much inside of it is really a guide to daily happiness for people of all ages,. The premise of the book is that everyone walks around carrying an invisible bucket (representing happiness, self-worth, and confidence). We can fill the buckets of others in big and small ways – increasing fullness. We can dip into the buckets of others – increasing emptiness. The only way we can contribute to our own buckets is by filling up others’.

Before, during, & after the reading we hit on the following themes together:

• We spend a lot of time together in the classroom. When we arrive at school each day we enter the building feeling varying degrees of light and heavy emotions. We communicate those with words, actions, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Some days we know why we feel a certain way, and some days we just can’t seem to get a handle on the cause.
• Sometimes the ways we act as “bucket dippers” aren’t as obvious as physical hurt or overtly mean language. Sometimes it’s a mean look with our eyes which is loaded with meaning. Sometimes it’s an edginess in our tone of voice. Sometimes it’s avoiding or ignoring someone.
• More often than not, people who dip into your bucket are carrying around an empty bucket of their own.
• Ways that we can be “bucket fillers” can be big (working on paying attention to adjusting something in our character that makes us better able to fill others up) or can be small and specific (saying hi to people using their name more often).

After we read we all took a small note card and wrote down two things we wanted to do to fill buckets. We folded the card, wrote our names on the outside, and stapled them shut. We sealed them in an envelope to revisit in a week or two. While I am absolutely ITCHING to take a peek at what they wrote, I recognize that there was something very meaningful about them putting their secret hearts down on paper, and want to honor that.

This concept extends beyond a morning read aloud intended to connect a classroom community together. As we look around at people around us: the impatient driver, the terse cashier, the stranger who provides a small kindness, the distracted person lost in their thoughts, the anxious parent….we are each deeply involved in our own experience, no matter our age. The buckets of children are no smaller than ours, and the fullness or emptiness they experience is no less real or powerful to their minds and hearts. They may not have the language to express it yet, or the experience to process it. However, as educators we can provide opportunities to learn the act of filling, to recognize the act of emptying and resolve it, and to value the importance of pursuing communities that are aware of how deeply emotional and connected the human experience is.

 “After oxygen, sleep, food, and shelter our most fundamental need is to be valued, appreciated, and respected. A threat to our sense of value is akin to being deprived of oxygen, so it’s no surprise we become less effective, think more narrowly, and radiate negative energy. The more we feel our value is being challenged, the more energy we spend defending and restoring it, and the less energy we have to create value. By telling yourself a more realistically optimistic story, you can maintain both your own value and the value of others.”

(The Energy Project)

One morning this week I had students share what they were thankful for (an unsurprising choice for a morning message activity). As students wrote and then shared their responses, I took note of the fact that not a single one had anything to do with material possessions (which may surprise those who think this young generation is going to hell-in-a-handbasket). Though in our conversation we could all acknowledge that we loved our iPads and lego sets and other “things”….when the moment came to identify what we were truly grateful for: every single one of us chose PEOPLE. Connections with others make the world go round. They move us, they break us, they weigh us down, they light us up. We are meant to care for others in community. I am thankful for those whose lives have touched mine. Happy Thanksgiving, all.

A day set apart from the many each year
to draw us towards our dreams more near.
We pause and choose each moment that
makes us more aware of the place we’re at.

We love, we live, our thanks we share.
We give, adore, made ever keenly aware
on a day when we can hold most dear
the ones we love, instead of the worst we fear,
our reality, instead of what might have been,
our life, instead of the never when.

It’s the times when life throws a hit you miss,
when you have to laugh at the ironic twist.
The phrases muddled that you once misspoke,
a favorite punchline of a botched good joke.
Our mords we wix when we get carried away,
yielding unbridled laughter on a favorite day.
A stubbed-toe to remind you are alive,
a small kindness lending hope to survive.

And there’s the day we wake, sky a deepest blue.
Or those ghostly grey and stormy too.
When your heart it breaks with love that’s lost,
with the reminder that each connection costs.
When you miss the people who have come and gone,
and your days seem to drag on and on…

…and we are saved by moments where a quiet peace
descends and offers sweetest release.
Like the quiet space as the first snow falls soft
a peaceful gift born from mystery aloft.
Silent, satin, cotton-laden white…
…for a blink each little thing is again made right.
Like a beloved movie with a glass of wine,
the lines embedded within your mind,
characters and lives that are much adored
provides escape we could no other way afford.

Laughter, tears, and annoyance all
give rise to moments large and small.
Whimsey, heartache, adoration, loss,
joy, despair, and the bridge across
the river that threatened to be our journey’s end
but rather grows us into a richer blend
of who we were and are in the now
believing we need not always know how.

So we find this day to count each gift,
for each blessing that our heart it lifts,
to give thanks as we now close our eyes,
for those who turn merely living
into days that thrive.

This is an interesting TED talk on what motivates and drives human decisions. Tony Robbins has identified six basic human needs and believes everyone is—or can be—motivated by their desire to fulfill these needs. While there are many different philosophies, identified needs, approaches, etc. out there in the world about motivation and meeting needs…these 6 (though maybe not comprehensive) are certainly valid and worth thinking about in relation to our work with children.

1. Certainty/Comfort. While there is no absolute certainty, how do we provide environments for children that are predictable? How do we structure routines so they find comfort in what can be anticipated? How do we clarify what is coming in their day and in their learning so they are certain about what to expect of their world at school and of what we expect of them?

2. Variety. How do we provide children with healthy experiences of uncertainty? How do we teach them to pursue meaningful, safe spice and adventure in their young lives?

3. Significance. How do we see, appreciate, and know children so that they feel they are important? How do we acknowledge them so that they know their presence in our school and in our lives has meaning and significance?

4. Connection/Love. How do we show children we care in large and small ways? How do we strive to connect them to the community around them so they feel a part of it? How do we work to not just care FOR them, but care ABOUT them and who they are and what drives them?

5. Growth. How do we inspire children to grow? How do we make the need for and importance of growth explicit so they are more driven to pursue it? How do we teach them to take healthy risks and manage fear of failure? How do we model and teach them to cope with failure?

6. Contribution. What opportunities do we offer children to contribute to each other? To their classroom? To TPS? To the local and global community around them? How do we foster a desire that contribution is important? How do we model and make transparent our own contributions?