The Beauty of Kindness and Compassion

"Be kind and compassionate to one another" - Matthew 5:32

"Compassion is the radicalism of our time" - Dalai Lama

"Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty" - Anne Herbert

Taking the initiative to do something kind and compassionate...this is beauty. Looking with eyes of empathy and sympathy, searching for ways to make an immediate positive impact, adding value to the lives of people within our circles of influence...this is beauty.

It is an extraordinary privilege to work in a profession filled with caregivers. I'm surrounded by people who show kindness and compassion every day just because that's what they do. It's the educator's mindset. It's how we're wired, and it's who we are. From the outside of the education world looking it, this profession can have the illusion of simplicity. We teach content, skills, and standards, and our effectiveness is determined by how well our students perform on tests. From the outside looking in, we're a bit like animal trainers or factory workers. Teach the kids tricks and keep the assembly line rolling. But the real job of an educator is a caregiver. We understand that we need high expectations, but we must also show kindness and compassion to kids, and parents, and colleagues. We spend our days guiding and nurturing students' social, emotional, and academic needs while working in an extraordinarily complex, living system of human interaction. Quite often, these acts of kindness go unnoticed, and that's okay. It's relatively easy and much more satisfying to make an immediate positive impact than to worry about how they will score on some arbitrary test sometime in the future. Right now matters more. And great thing about having a "right now" mentality is that we can always find small ways to make big impact with a little kindness.

We all have a circle of influence. We are surrounded by people who need empathy and sympathy. People who could really use a kind word or a compassionate act. Look around today and search for your "right now" moment and make an impact. Your kindness and compassion may seem a little random or maybe even senseless. But that's the beauty.

Enjoy the day!