Sticky Notes
As a custodian, it is never fun to walk into a classroom only to see paper and trash littered everywhere. One classroom had sticky notes all over the floor, on the desks, and in the trash cans. These little pieces of paper with adhesive do not like to be sucked up by a vacuum, so I had to go around and pick up each individual piece of paper – not happy.
Not happy, until I read what was on these pieces of paper and noticed what was written on the board at the front of the room. “That’s Gold Jerry! Gold!” I almost yelled to the empty desks.
These students were dividing up their lives into different categories and creating questions they could ask others in order to help them know the beat of each other’s heart. This sounded familiar:
How would you or your students title the slices of their lives? Here are a few categories I noticed these kids were using:
School
Friends
Personal Identity
Pets
What questions would you come up with? What would you ask to better understand the beat of your students’ hearts? What questions would the other volunteer youth leaders come up with? How about the students themselves?
Here are a few of my favorite questions that these students developed:
Do you often feel alone?
Do you have a pet at home that you sleep with?
Do you feel pressure from your peers to perform well?
Does spending time with friends relieve stress?
Do you feel that school prepares us for the real world?
On a scale of 1-10 (hard to easy) how hard is it to find the motivation to do your homework?
Do you feel like there are people you fit in with at school?
Do you feel comfortable sharing personal thoughts with at least one parent?
How many days do you eat breakfast in an average week?
How does social media effect your mental health?
Send me an email: mark@cadremissionaries.com to see the full list. I will also share with you how I’ve used questions like these to create activities to help build community within our youth group.