Teacher’s Exercise Has Totally Changed Her Classroom

One teacher in Oklahoma has started a powerful emotional lesson for her seventh and eighth-grade students. She decided to try an exercise in empathy called “The Baggage Activity”. Since she’s shared her exercise on social media her post has been shared more than 500,000 times. Teachers all over the world have begun to implement similar activities in their own classroom. Here is the story.

The Baggage Activity

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Karen Wunderlich Loewe posted on Facebook, “This starts my 22nd year of teaching middle school. Yesterday was quite possibly one of the most impactful days I have ever had.”

Judge A Little Less

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“I tried a new activity called “The Baggage Activity”. I asked the kids what it meant to have baggage and they mostly said it was hurtful stuff you carry around on your shoulders.”

Love A Little More

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“I asked them to write down on a piece of paper what was bothering them, what was heavy on their heart, what was hurting them, etc. No names were to be on a paper. They wadded the paper up, and threw it across the room.”

Forgive A Little Faster

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“Things like suicide, parents in prison, drugs in their family, being left by their parents, death, cancer, losing pets (one said their gerbil died cause it was fat, we giggled????) and on and on.”