Of post-its: they can help you be a better person

I had a great class. 

It feels so great to say this. 

And my class really touched me in many ways: as a teacher, I felt proud and accomplished: they learned what they were supposed to.

As a human being, I felt like I made a difference.

I was assigned to teach about development: social development, product development, urban development, personal development, and other kinds of development. The focus of the class was verb patterns and compound words. 

But anytime I start talking about development, my affluent students immediately think of material development. Capitalism, which I love, sometimes can get on the way. But I wanted them to see beyond that; I wanted them to see what can be built without being seen. 

I wanted them to focus on personal development.

So I elicited what they have been doing to grow, as people. Amazingly, they were aware of what they can do to grow as people, but had no idea on how to get there. They wanted to help other people but didn´t know how.

I kept two classroom movements in mind in my lesson plan: MakerSpace (thanks Clarissa Bezerra) and Collaborative Learning (thanks Giselle Santos). 

Then I came up with this class: I gave them a chance to do something; to learn first-hand about personal development: I told them that they could change a person's life.

With only one post-it! 

So we had a project. And, like any project, we needed a plan of action. 

First, we had to create a survey about life, to find out how satisfied people were with their lives. Having done that, they needed to go around in the school and ask people to take the survey. They were so excited about it!

Then they had to analyse the data: how happy were the people they asked? 

After careful analysis on the results, they found out that people were mainly tired, stressed and hopeless; they wanted to be happy but they didn't have any motivation; they just couldn't see the silver lining. 

Then came the real work: they had to show them the silver lining. They were responsible for making everyone smile again. For that, they had to discuss and think of messages to write on post-its and post on a wall, right by the main entrance of the school. 

That way, everyone would have a chance to read the post-its, and the one that made them happy, they could take with them, or give to someone they thought of. 

In theory, the idea was great. But the end result was surprising: it started a movement bigger than I thought!

They were already planning to do it in their communities, in their homes, in their high-school. They were ready to make their world a happier place.

Yes, I wanted them to be aware that they were responsible for their own personal development. 

But what I didn't know was that by making them aware, I would be helping them grow and develop. 

So, I wanted to steer from the obvious when talking about development, and I ended up developing better people. And I learned so much with them. They helped me grow, too.

It was a great class.