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Points of Joy Make a Positive Outlook

Each week, Instant Meeting presents an idea or activity that you might use to make staff meetings more interesting, teacher-centered, educational, or fun.

Brief Description/Purpose

There's always room for more positive thinking and sharing in schools. See if sharing Points of Joy doesn't get your staff focusing more on the positive things in your school.

Materials Needed

None

Time Required


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Ongoing, 5 minutes per staff meeting.

"Instant Meeting" Idea

Challenge your teachers to find and record three "Points of Joy" each day. A Point of Joy might be a moment when a student finally "got it," an activity that went better than expected, a positive comment from a parent, or an Aha! moment -- a moment of when the light bulb goes on -- about something classroom related. Those are just a few examples.

You probably don't want this activity to be a formal or required responsibility. Rather, it's a simple way to encourage teachers to look at the positive things that happen each and every day. You might allow teachers to record their points of joy in any way they wish. Then, come staff meeting day, open up your meeting for 5 minutes to allow teachers to share a Point of Joy from recent weeks. You might

  • let teachers share randomly, their choice;
  • ask in your weekly staff memo for five volunteers to share a Point of Joy at the next staff meeting; or
  • ask five teachers (on a rotating schedule) to be prepared to share a quick Point of Joy at the next meeting.
You might even start a school-wide blog. Every teacher might log onto the blog once each week to share one Point of Joy from their week.

We all know that there is always room for more positive thinking and sharing in schools. See if sharing Points of Joy doesn't get your staff looking more carefully and consciously for those positive things that happen each day.

Follow-Up

Commit to doing this activity for a school year. Chances are it will become a "school tradition" that teachers will want to continue from year to year. It might even spur additional ways of employing the Points of Joy concept in more public ways with students, at school assemblies, in staff or parent newsletters