This is a photo of Emily when she graduated from college. That's a long way from where I met her in 1997. I was a principal and I was teaching fifth grade math in the South Bronx. Every Saturday, I hosted tutoring for kids who hadn't mastered that week's objective. So while their friends went to dance or sports or orchestra, yeah well, they came to me for math. Good times. Actually, I loved those mornings and I did everything I could to make it fun for the kids. We made up a game called racing for donuts. The first student who got the problems right with complete accuracy got to choose from a box of donuts I brought in. You may remember these boxes of donuts. There were the chocolate, the powdered sugar, and the old fashioned. Now the first kids who finished, they always took, yeah, they took the chocolate. The next set of kids, yeah, they always went for the powdered donuts. And then, the next set of kids, even when they could've chosen the old fashion, they just left those behind the boxes for the teachers. Emily was also super eager to try. She was the type of kid who always raised her hand confident that she was right, even though, quite often she wasn't. She was a joy to teach. Even though there were many, many tears as she worked to master the math, but there she was. Saturday, after Saturday, after Saturday. I'll never forget that Spring when she finally had the chance to earn the powdered donut. The last powdered donut. She was laughing and smiling, and like a fifth grader, the powder was everywhere. It was like a blizzard, a snowstorm on her cheeks and her forehead. She was so happy that she had earned her powdered donut. Emily had found the grit. Had found the ability to work through the frustration. The ability to stay focused on a task for an extended period of time. She was able to succeed in Saturday tutoring, which then led to success throughout the year. And then, in high school, in college, and a masters degree in social work. And, I can't help but note that today Emily works at a KIPP school in New York and hosts her own tutoring session. Although, word on the street is that she's using fruit instead of donuts. I believe that what we have created for Emily, that's Chris Peterson's definition of a positive institution. It was a place that helped her identify, use and grow her characters strengths to flourish. Positive institutions facilitate the development of individual character strengths which, in turn, facilitate positive subjective experiences which, in there turn, are essential for PERMA. Potential positive institutions are everywhere, schools, classrooms, community organization. Sports teams, houses of worship, family dinners, homes. Our job is to make these institutions positive. By now, I hope you've ranked the 24 character strengths for your students, completed the VIA and compared the two. Over the past five years, I've done this activity with at least 1,000 teachers and principals. We always have a good time doing it. Here's an example from a recent group. They, like many groups before them, ranked grit as the most important strength for kids. But when we average their VIA scores, we found that for a group of adults, it was the ninth highest strength. Love tops their VIA results, but they ranked it ninth for kids. And how bout self-control? The adults ranked self-control as number four for students, but the VIA showed it was the lowest collective score for that group, 24 out of 24. This always brings plenty of laughs to the group. We're often asking kids to do things that we don't enjoy or choose to do ourselves. This doesn't mean we don't ask. It just means we should ask with empathy.
