on being happy: Mr. Kanamori

How was your home room?  Did you spend your days hearing announcements and then sleeping on your desk?  Did you dread the start to your day?  Did you even sleep in so that you could miss it?

Mr. Kanamori's class would never do such a thing.  They are a 4th-grade homeroom in Japan, and Mr. Kanamori has helped them set a goal for themselves:  to be happy.

To be happy?  Seems like a useless goal, doesn't it?  But this incredible teacher has thought of a way to bring meaning and understanding to this goal.  To be happy, they must share with others.  Only in revealing themselves can they help others understand that they are not alone.  Once they understand that they are not alone, the children let go of barriers that have stood for years, and the entire class grows in understanding, empathy, and love.

In the video that I saw, Mr. Kanamori's class writes notebook journals.  These journals are designed to be read tot the class.  In it, the students tell their stories, and the other students then write responses.  The responses pave the way for empathy, as well as give other students the ability to tell their own stories, bringing about the ability to heal.

One boy had been gone for several days.  His grandmother had died, and he wrote the class about the experience.  He wrote about it all, from the grandmother lying in bed upstairs to the family going on a bus to the crematorium to witness the grandmother's cremation.  Afterwards, many other students shared their sympathy; some also shared their own stories.  The children were not afraid to cry about their own experiences, and they also shed tears for the experiences of others.  One little boy had lost his grandfather recently; the tears were still fresh.

Then a little girl stood up.  She had lost her father when she was three, and she had never discussed his death with anyone.  She was afraid that she was the only one to have gone through this and thought that nobody would understand.  When her classmates shared their experiences, she realized for the first time that she was not alone and that it was safe to express her grief.  

A few days later, this same little girl brought a well-loved drawing to class. It had hung in her room since she was a tiny girl.  It was a drawing that her father, an engineer, had made of a machine that was going to be in a parade.  He died before it was completed, and even though the machine appeared, her mother was too afraid to see it.  For the first time, the little girl shared her treasure with her friends and smiled as she spoke of her father.  She was happy.

Happiness is a choice.  It is something that is given away.  It comes with sharing, and it usually comes when two or more are together.  I think that it's hard to be happy without sharing.  

Val, the older I get, the more I understand your wish.  I hope you are happy now--I'm pretty sure you are, since you're surrounded with God and his saints.  I know you made us happy.  I'm going to do my best to make others happy, too.

For a link to the video, press here:  .http://www.wimp.com/homeroomteacher/