The Classroom is no Place for Random Acts of Kindness – Or is it!

A random act of kindness is generally considered to be a selfless act performed by a person or people wishing either to assist or to cheer up an individual person or people. The Jewish concept of Mitzvah is used colloquially to mean a good deed or an act of kindness.  Martin Seligman (2002) in writing about happiness proposed that doing something for others (eg RAK) was linked to increased self esteem and happiness.  The questions that arises is -why?

RAKS

“The very first day I met Ai remains vivid in my memory. It was a chilly day in November 1977. I went down to a room in the basement of the institute. There were no windows and no light except a bulb hanging from the ceiling. A tiny chimpanzee was sitting on a bench. I looked into her eyes. She looked back into mine. We held each other’s gaze, and what surprised me most was that she showed signs neither of fear nor of threat. In my experience with monkeys, I had learned that a direct gaze had clear aggressive connotations – a Japanese monkey would, in response, open his mouth in an attempt to threaten, or retract his lips and reveal his teeth, in a grimace that signals fear of a stranger. However, this infant chimpanzee continued to look into my eyes. I had nothing with me; no gift to give the tiny newcomer. Then, I noticed that I happened to be wearing arm warmers over my lab coat. I took off one arm warmer and showed it to her. She received it and paused for a while. Then, she suddenly pulled it up over her arm, and played with it for a while, moving it up and down along her arm. Eventually, she extended her arm and gave me back the arm warmer. I took it. All the while, she continued to look into my eyes. At that moment, she touched my heart, and I touched her future” (Tetsuro Matsuzawa,1978).

Understanding Kindness (see Curry et al, 2018)

(i)              Kin & Family: Natural selection favours kindness to genetic relatives or to immediate family members as reflected in parental care expressed in terms of love, compassion and sympathy.

(ii)             Community: Natural selection highlights the advantages in a community and group context in relation to coordination, collaboration  and kindness  to others where there is  a common interest eg  team mates, group members, coalition partners.  Benefits here include the advantages of collective defence or group hunting. This is most obviously seen in the development of ‘clubs’, ‘gangs’, ‘sects’, or ‘nations’ often involving rivalry.

(iii)            Reciprocity: kindness may be understood in relation to sympathy for others who are in  some kind of need or  as an expression of gratitude  or perhaps more simply as part of one’s friendship network. Reciprocity as an expression of kindness may also arise when  an individual expects to  see the other again.

(iv)           Competition: Kindness may also be understood  as an attempt to impress others and/or to attract a partner.

Random Acts of Kindness in the Classroom: Explain to the students that a random act of kindness (rak) is a selfless act performed by a person or people eg  either to assist or to cheer up an individual person or people.  Then introduce the idea of ‘The Random Act of Kindness Challenge’. The challenge is then to list as many things that could be thought of in 5 minutes that would be a rak. Eg ‘offering to help another student’, ‘picking up rubbish in the classroom’ . Set up a process for introducing rak’s into the classroom and school & a procedure for discussing with the students in the following week how the RAK challenge is going and whether there have been any differences in the classroom that have been noticed.

Application of RAK - School Bullying

Random Acts of Kindness (RAKs) may be an interesting way to help promote pro-victim attitudes amongst students.  That is they may provide a means for helping peers understand  and empathise with the victim (Slee, 2017).

For further information please  visit our websites www.caper.com.au and https://bigtalkslittlepeople.com/

References

Curry, O.S.; Rowland, L.A.; Lissa, C.J.V; Zlotowitz, S,; McAlaney,J.; &  Whitehouse, H. (2018).Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,76, 320-329.

Seligman, M.E.P (2002).Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. New York, NY: Free Press.

Slee, P.T. (2017). School Bullying: Teachers Helping Students Cope. Routledge,

London.