By Susan Kovalik, Did you know?
As I drove past shopping malls watching people trying to find parking places and hurrying in out of the rain, I could only imagine the frenzy of activity within stores.
I paused to consider what it means to “give” a present. In looking up the meaning of “give,” I encountered 22 definitions, the first being the one we are most familiar with: To give as a present. This is hailed as a season of giving and we do it on a number of levels with good intentions; however, is it probable that a year from now, many of the presents given will be outdated, lost, broken and otherwise forgotten?
Think of last year’s most wanted gift by someone in your family. Where is it now? Some may be valued and treasured, but which are the ones that keep on giving, perhaps even for a lifetime?
Four stand out as truly everlasting: Love, experiences, time and character. An e-mail received this past week by a teacher friend from a young woman, a former student currently in the Navy and stationed on an aircraft carrier, brings character to the forefront of my thinking. Seven years have passed since that eighth-grade class. The girl had been on her own from age 14, struggling successfully to escape a drug- and alcohol-filled home that consumed her parents.
Her note expressed this sentiment: “I want you to know you are the only person I want to make proud. It’s kind of corny, but I’m so hard set on making something out of myself because you always believed in me. The life skills you taught me in the eighth grade really impacted my life.”
The “life skills” to which she was referring are a collection of 18 character attributes that were the foundation of my friend’s classroom — characteristics we can all recognize in those we respect and admire. They include: Integrity, resourcefulness, effort, initiative, courage, patience, caring, cooperation, common sense, sense of humor, friendship, pride, flexibility, organization, curiosity, perseverance, problem solving and responsibility.
Throughout her time in eighth grade, these characteristics were modeled throughout the day, in classroom interactions both by the teacher and then by the students with real examples and discussion as they worked through their curriculum.
Modeling (mirroring) behavior is something we have been doing since birth. Babies are born with the ability to engage in the environment in which they are born with “mirror neurons” designed to read behavior in others and to mimic or respond accordingly. Remember smiling at the baby and they smiled back, or sticking out your tongue and they followed suit? This is how we make sense of the immediate world around us; we watch others and repeat the behavior.
There is now speculation that in children with autism, the mirror neurons are not functioning as they should. They do not mimic and have a difficult time understanding the behavior of others. As we grow older, the challenge is to decide which behaviors around us are the ones we should be mimicking. Remember the first time your preschooler came home with language and behaviors he had not learned from you?
Clearly other character attributes can be added to this list, but the value in a defined list is that if we begin to model for our children/students/employees these attributes, they will be able to see them in others and work on them personally. And what if the home and the school and the business community began to expect these levels of personal accountability? How might it look? Mirror neurons are always at work picking up the behaviors of those around us — good and not so good.
There are many opportunities today to see the exact opposite of these behaviors on television, the Internet, video games and day-by-day experiences. We must consciously choose to model behavior as parents, teachers and employers that best creates a working/learning/home environment that brings us joy and satisfaction.
As the season continues to intensify and the actual time of gathering together with family and friends is here, notice the individuals who stand out as memorable — those you would aspire to be like both in their personal interactions and their ability to connect with the world at large. The gifts that keep on giving are those examples that empower you to believe in your own possibility, and are grounded in characteristics that support creating a meaningful life while expecting it of others.
Open carefully.
Think about it.
Susan J. Kovalik is an educator, international consultant and author in Federal Way. She is founder of The Center for Effective Learning in Federal Way: skovalik@kovalik.com.
