It’s important to let people know you see them. It’s best to do this when you see them at their best.
One of the things I loved doing in the classroom was sending positive notes home to parents and students. It didn’t matter. At the end of the day, or on my planning period, I’d sit down and write out a couple of cards explaining all the goodness I saw in a student, and then I’d drop them in the mail.
It was a practice I learned from Hal Urban, and it was a wonderful way to end the day.
Any time I get to talk to a group of teachers, I encourage them to adopt the practice as their own. A few sentences each day to remind your students and yourself why you love the people in your classroom.
I realize getting the supplies together might seem like the biggest obstacle to sending these notes, so I’ve decided to do the leg work.
The PDF of the document I used to make the cards is here.
You can find Staples’s selection of card stock here.
My go-to invitation envelopes are here.
And, if you wanna go crazy, custom design postage from zazzle with your school logo, favorite quote or whatever here.
Having stamps on the envelopes and the cards printed and ready in my desk made all the difference.
Even last semester, as a student, I dropped a few cards in the mail to former students and to people in classes with me when I could tell the going was tough.
We find a million ways to tell people we see the things they’re doing just the wrong side of right. Maybe we could focus on the other side a bit more.