Post #3...getting more excited!

The more I look into the literature, the more I research my question and think deeply about what exactly it is that is pulling me, I am realizing more and more that care ethics are a central part of what I care about and am interested in. Fortunately, care and social-emotional learning are really interrelated! With that information, I managed to broaden my search for articles to read that were written from a care ethics standpoint...and that has opened so many interesting avenues!! I am finding articles that I am excited to read--which is how it should be, right??

I am also very excited because I am meeting my new CT tomorrow, and I am really looking forward to getting to know her, and maybe starting to discuss my MA interests/focus with her to see if any of it resonates with her and sounds like something we could try out in the classroom together. She seems like a person I will really get along with, so maybe we will jive with my topic and I could get some really meaningful research!! Fingers crossed for that one.

Currently my question reads: What happens to student interactions (with peers and adults in the classroom) when I implement the practice of Rocks in the Basket?

This question excites me in ways the other drafts didn't quite accomplish--I liked them, but this is one that I am itching to try out! It might need some refining, but I feel like I have finally found the right niche! Whoo!

For anyone who is not familiar with the practice of Rocks in the Basket, it is a practice to get children to notice and recognize caring acts of others in the classroom. Anyone can add a rock to the basket. Coupled with this is a journal that states why the rock was added to the basket. It is meant to notice and celebrate both small and big moments of care. It's not an accomplishment basket, and it's not associated with a reward system. It is simply meant to make students more aware of caring acts in others, to be on the lookout for them, and to be performing them themselves. When the basket fills, the class has a celebration (which usually manifests as a discussion about why the rocks went in the basket, and what we have learned, etc). I still have to work on exactly how this part would look in my own classroom (it is a technique borrowed from another teacher...) but this is the gist!