Kindergarten’s lesson began with the Character Counts terrific cheer (TRRFCC) - Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship. We watched a short video based on Aesop’s fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf and discussed the importance of telling the truth. The children finished their lesson by drawing pictures of people they trust.

First graders drew pictures of themselves being trustworthy.  Some students drew themselves cleaning their room or following instructions in class. Students learned that being trustworthy means doing what is right even when no one else is looking. Students were encouraged to take their drawings home and to share with their families what they had learned.

Second grade classes constructed a “chain of trust”.  Each student was given a strip of paper on which they wrote one action they could do to show trustworthiness.  One by one each student shared their ideas.  The first student’s strip was stapled end to end to form a circle. As the next student shared his/her idea his/her strip was then threaded into the link before to form connected paper links.  This continued until each students paper was added, forming a paper chain. Students were then given examples of untrustworthy actions. With each untrustworthy idea a link from the chain was broken. Students were told that similar to building a paper chain, trust can take a long time to build.  Likewise, untrustworthy actions and words can quickly break trust.  We also discussed how we can rebuild trust over time with trustworthy actions and words.

Third grade built a “Tower of Trust”.  The class was divided into two teams. Members of each team alternated drawing cards from a stack. After drawing a card the team member read it aloud for their team to decide whether the action was a “trustworthy” or “untrustworthy” action. In the beginning all cards in the stack demonstrated “trustworthy” actions. Teams were given building blocks for each trustworthy card.  Eventually each team had built a tower by stacking their blocks. Then the stacks of cards were switched to “untrustworthy” cards.  As each team drew cards that exhibited “untrustworthy” acts, blocks were taken away from the tower. Students learned that trust is built one action at a time, similar to building a block tower.  Likewise an untrustworthy action can weaken other’s confidence in us and several untrustworthy actions can destroy our tower (the trust others have in us). Students were told that we can slowly rebuild other’s trust in us over time with our trustworthy actions and words.

Fourth graders performed short skits demonstrating trustworthiness. Classes were divided into 4 groups. Each group was given a paper describing a situation such as, “The teacher is in the hall and you need a pencil. There are pencils in the teachers’ desk drawer”.  Each group worked together to decided what behavior demonstrated trustworthiness for each situation.  Each group chose a spokesperson to read the scenario to the class and share why the group made that choice.  The lesson ended with each student designing a personal sign using each letter in the word “TRUST” to describe actions that they could do to demonstrate trustworthiness.

We encourage you to talk with your student about what they learned and to encourage them to practice showing trustworthiness.  Our guidance lessons for the next six weeks will be over “Responsibility”.

Jennifer Carpenter, LCSW            Erica Robinson
School Social Worker                   Social Work Intern