Students work together in small groups on the previous activity to generate examples of meanness and kindness. They may be able to see, once they report out, that there are more examples of meanness, so teachers can pivot from this exercise to practices that cultivate kindness and self-compassion.

There are several kindness practices in the T theme .

One involves writing a letter to oneself about how to practice greater compassion using a prompt from the manual.
Students seal and address the letter; depending upon circumstances, teachers can mail letters to students or hold them unopened for a period of time before giving them back.

Another way to practice kindness toward others is to have students write a short kind message that would be appropriate for anyone in the group to receive.
These anonymous messages can be placed in a container (bottle, basket), and students can take one before they leave.
Note that kindness shown to others comes back to benefit you.

A third activity intentionally cultivates the wholesome quality of gratitude.

Practicing gratefulness has been shown to related to health, wellbeing and happiness.

This writing practice is adapted from a journaling technique called ‘writing across the page’ where writers keep writing, even re-writing an entry, until something new enters conscious awareness, without editing or changing anything. The result is a ‘stream’ of ideas that serves to make the feelings of gratefulness stronger.