For the next couple weeks I will be posting the Gratitude Journal prompts that are being given to my students and my response post.

I’m not entirely sure what they mean by “a small detail … that make you smile, but no one else seems to notice.” Are they not noticing the smile or the detail? I get the idea of a private joke, if that’s the idea… Working with middle school students, there’s a lot going on that will set the paths of most of these children. And as much as there is no comparing my own middle school experience with whatever these students are experiencing, I have to believe that they are as clueless and mistaken about so many things as I was in my early and later adolescence. 

It’s not nice, but all of us want to imagine that we understand or “know” much more than we really know, at most stages of our development/maturation.  So, I do find myself smiling when a student makes an observation or declaration based on the weakest of reasonings from the slimmest of “experiences.” Yeah, we all began with the same flimsy foundation… the tragedy is when one lives a whole long life and never grapples or questions these beginnings. The world is so much bigger than we can even image but we so want it to make sense such that we’re driven to assume that our experiences and observations are universally valid. I love their passion and sincerity and I smile.