Help Students to Understand Their Strengths

In addition to teaching curriculum content in subject areas such as math, science, reading and social studies, many schools and teachers also see the value in character education. Whether you use a specific curriculum that your district has selected or whether you choose to include lessons or moments of opportunity to help students become good citizens and kind people, teaching valuable social, emotional and life skills is part of most teachers’ agenda.

Character education helps students understand themselves and others.  They learn to be civic minded people who engage in their communities.  Character education also helps the classroom learning environment.  Students who are kind, helpful and know how to work together often learn better and accomplish more. Teachers also enjoy teaching in a classroom environment that is positive and uplifting.

Students who understand their strengths have an increased sense of well- being, more confidence, decreased anxiety and less depression. When students understand their strengths, they can also call upon those strengths when they experience challenges or need to solve problems.

Here’s an easy and fun activity that helps students understand their strengths.

Write a list of character strengths on your marker board, whiteboard or on a handout.

Here are some examples:  honesty, fairness, sense of humor, hard- working, perseverance, humility, kindness, appreciation of beauty, curiosity, teamwork, bravery, and helpful.

Keep the list positive, rather than focusing on undesirable character traits.  Choose fewer or more traits and label the traits in a way that is age appropriate for the students you work with.

Ask students to look at the list and choose their top 3 strengths.

Then ask them to write or discuss which strength they are most proud of and why.

Finally, ask students to write or share examples of a time when they have used their strengths.

This activity offers a chance for a good discussion about how we all bring different strengths to the world and that we can all shine in some way. Discuss how your classroom can become a better learning community when you understand each other’s’ strengths.

If students know each other fairly well, you can extend this discussion by creating a secret strengths list.  Have each student write their name on the top of a piece of paper. Collect the papers and pass them out randomly. The student who receives the paper writes what they see as one of that person’s strengths.  Then have them fold the paper up so the next person can not see what they wrote.  Continue until each student has several different comments.  Then return the papers to the original owner and let them reveal what others see as their strengths.

This activity doesn’t work with students who do not know each other well as it will result in superficial lists.  It is also best done after you have already done some of the previous discussion around individual strengths.

You can follow up this activity by having students create a bulletin board about their strengths, or by having students write a journal entry or essay describing their strengths.

As a follow up on another day, you can have students identify their weaknesses.  Through discussion, students can learn that we all have challenges and that we all have areas that we can try to improve. Having honest discussion around areas for improvement requires a classroom environment that is emotionally safe.  If your classroom is not one where students feel free to share and to express their ideas without criticism or fear of rejection, save this for an individual activity.

Discussion of opportunities for improvement fits in well with the growth mindset philosophy that many schools are currently adopting. When students understand their challenges and make goals to improve in those areas, they developing their own growth mindset. If your classroom environment is one of trust and kindness, students can also help each other to grow in ways that will be meaningful and long lasting.

Does your school use a character education program or do you choose to do character development activities?  What results have you seen?   We would love to hear your experiences in the comments.

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