Thanks Gifting

We must find the time to stop and thank
the people who make a difference in our lives.
—John F. Kennedy

Many years ago, at my previous school, my brilliant friend and colleague, Paige—who was then serving as our 9^th grade academic dean—had an inspired idea:  use the last advisory time before the Thanksgiving holiday break to write thank you cards to the adults in the community.  Simple templates were printed onto standard 20 lb. copy paper, passed out along with pencils to the students, and during the 30-minute period, each advisee was asked to write a short card to any three grownups in the school of their choosing to share why they were grateful for that particular individual.  They could write to more than three adults, but they had to identify at least three to whom to express their gratitude.  Cards were collected, sorted, and placed in mailboxes (or delivered in person when it was a member of the maintenance or cafeteria staff).

It quickly became an annual tradition at the school, and what started out as three cards from each child to any three adults soon morphed into cards for other students (after you had thanked your three adults!), which morphed into the each child getting a thank you card written by one of the adults…until the last advisory before Thanksgiving was practically this festival of gratitude!

Little did we know at the time that we were lowering everyone’s stress and cortisol levels (right before exam time!), improving everyone’s immune responses (right before the height of flu and cold season), and causing everyone’s brains to release lots of the feel-good neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine (right before the darkest days of the calendar year).  However, neuroscience about the impact of gratitude on the brain and body is now quite extensive, and all of it is positive.  Today, we know that the simple act of offering thanks for and to the other people in our lives is enormously beneficial for all involved, and gratitude journals are now even part of the psychiatric toolbox for treating clinical depression.

What’s more, an act of gratitude does not have be some kind of grand gesture or involve only the most intimate people in our lives.  A few extra words of kindness to your local barista or a short, unexpected text thanking a colleague for help with a task have been shown to lower blood pressure, induce feelings of calm, and focus attention. And in the hyperpolarized, frenetic, overstressed, crisis-driven world we live in today, we can each of us use all the calm and focus we can get!

Which brings me back to where I started.  I remember still how much gladness the sight of that small stack of notes in my school mailbox brought me, and I have even kept a few of those cards for those days when almost nothing goes well and I need to be graceful with myself.  But at the school where I am now, they have not had this tradition. So I am bringing it along with me a little at a time.  During zoom year, of course, there could be no cards, and there was also pretty minimal contact with my fellow colleagues that fall. Thus, I had to have my advisees e-mail teachers for whom they were grateful instead and didn’t really have the chance much to spread the idea to the other adults.  But this past year, another teacher joined me, “simply loving the idea!” and that gave me the impetus this year to share the idea with the administrative team in charge of our advisory program, planting the seed in the hope of bearing fruit.

And this recent Monday, fruit was born! My readers can well imagine the smile on my face as I witnessed several other teachers walking across our quad toward where faculty mailboxes are located, each carrying their own stack of cards for delivery, and it was a smile that only grew when—for the first time in four years—my own mailbox revealed two cards waiting for me.

Including one highly unexpected one from a student whom I would have said was not a big fan of me or my class she’s currently taking.  Yet there it was in writing, words of gratitude for my efforts to make learning interesting and appreciation for what she described as “your unassuming sense of humor”—who knew I had one??—and I was once again reminded of two important things as an educator:  first, we can never really know the full extent of our impact on those we teach or the larger world into which we send them out, and second, it can be the greatest gift of all to know about the positive impact we have had.

Thus, on this national day devoted to giving thanks, I encourage everyone to consider giving the gift of thanks.  Reach out to that someone—maybe some teacher or mentor—who has made a constructive contribution to informing who you are and thank them directly.  Share with them what they did that added value to your life, let them know how grateful you are.  Even if it is only a simple text or a brief e-mail, I can assure you that you will giving a gift with lasting impact.

And who knows? Your blood pressure might improve in the process as well. 😊

References

Emamzadeh, A. (July 21, 2021) The Benefits of Texting Your Gratitude. Psychology Today.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-new-home/202107/the-benefits-texting-your-gratitude.

Fox, G. (August 4, 2017) What Can the Brain Reveal About Gratitude? University of California at Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_can_the_brain_reveal_about_gratitude.