This Sandy Hook Elementary Teacher's Paying America's Kindness Forward | Education on GOOD

This Sandy Hook Elementary Teacher's Paying America's Kindness Forward | Education on GOOD:

This Sandy Hook Elementary Teacher's Paying America's Kindness Forward

As I fled Sandy Hook Elementary on the morning of December 14, 2012, clutching two of my student's hands tightly, I thought, "thank you, thank you." From that moment on I realized it is not the moment that defines you, it is how you react to the moment that defines you.

As I reflected in the days following, I knew we had to make a choice for ourselves, our students, our nation, and our world. If we were going to choose love, kindness, compassion, empathy, and hope after such terror and destruction, then we needed to teach this to our students. But at this point, I still had a large question to answer and that was how?

We returned to our new school at the beginning of January. One of the most uplifting aspects of being back at school—next to the joy in seeing my students' smiling faces—faces that at one point I didn’t know if I'd ever see smile again—was the outpouring of generosity from around the world. So much love came into our school and