When You Ask Students to Affirm Each Other

Another year of the activity that leaves me humbled and inspired in myriad ways

I sit at my desk flipping through narrative poem after narrative poem—poems I have already read and given feedback on, but which are now filled with affirmation after affirmation from our classroom communities.

This poem when I initially read it: a deliberately-fragmented, staccato exploration of the exhaustion students face on a daily basis, experimenting with capitalization and enjambment to capture the roller coaster of high school and its numerous cliffs.

I was amazed by it, and said so to the student in my own feedback.

But now? This student’s brilliant words are surrounded by colorful celebrations from their peers—all focused on lifting up their classmate with their own words.

“This is all too familiar,” one writes, before another adds, “I relate to this feeling a lot and you described it so well.”

And then the hammer, from yet another: “We will get better ♡”

I can’t look away.

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“Reading other people’s poems was interesting because everyone has their own story. Everyone’s interpretation is different about life.”
—student debrief reflection

I wrote at length about this activity last year for Cult of Pedagogy along with a podcast discussion about how I try to go about facilitating it—so in this post I want to avoid going into the minutiae of the step-by-step (it’s all there in the original post, if you’re curious!).

Rather, I just want to share how once again students showed up and showed out for each other.

Like this:

…and this:

…and, yet again, this:

Looking through the poems from this activity yet again this week, I found myself returning to a simple conviction: why can’t we do this more often?

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“It was somewhat eye-opening, and even reassuring, to see that many people have struggles that I can relate to. It also just felt good to celebrate the things people value…”
—student debrief reflection

In their poems, students wrote about so many things—their past, present, and future, celebrations and anxieties, hopes and fears, poems of families and friends and, at times, foes. Sometimes all of these and more within a single poem.

Some included their name, and others chose to be anonymous. (As one appreciated in their reflection, “I had a veil of safety because I kept mine anonymous.”)

Both choices were okay and both were celebrated. As teachers, so often it feels like we are trying to find the balance between a safe classroom and a brave classroom, valuing both but knowing that “balance” looks different for every single student.

This space, though? That balance feels felt, fully.

Every year I am overwhelmed by the generosity of students in the words that they write in their poems, and then the words that they write in their other poems.

I mean, seriously—how cool is this?

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“I enjoyed this experience overall because it gave me a chance to honor my classmates’ work and stories, which is rare.”
—student debrief reflection

“—which is rare.”

Why, though? Why can’t we have more spaces like this?

In the past year since the original post on Cult of Pedagogy, I’ve heard from so many teachers replicating this activity in their classroom. Elementary classrooms to high school to numerous different time zones in the continental United States to Europe to Australia to India.

It has been inspiring each time I hear about another classroom re-creating this peer affirmation gallery walk activity (note: PLEASE keep letting me know if you bring this into your classroom, as students love hearing about the many other places that their generosity has been paid forward to), but I am also reminded that, at its core, it is a rather-universally-applicable, three-step process:

1. Create a space for students to write their own stories meaningfully

2. Set norms and examples of how to affirm meaningfully

3. Create another space for students to read and celebrate each other stories meaningfully

Rinse and repeat, as many times as possible.

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“It shows we are not alone in our struggles and there’s more to the people around you than just scores on a sheet.”
—student debrief reflection

This time around, I tried to create more space for students to debrief after—with small groups first, and then collectively as a classroom community.

Their pre-reflection question: “do you find it harder to be generous towards others or towards yourself?”

Students had a lot to say about this activity (along with numerous, quite-urgent demands throughout the week for a deadline on my end as a teacher for when they’d get their poems back!) and almost all of their reflections had to do with how different this space was from what they were used to: sustained silence, the affirmation focus, and the recognition of the skills and stories of their peers.

Ultimately, they had a space to be a bit more generous to each other, and in turn to be reminded of how they ought to be a bit more generous to themselves.

So I return again to what one student wrote in their reflection: “You realize how simple it is to give someone a compliment or good feedback, and we should do it more often.”

So yes, schools and teachers, let’s do this more often. Much more often.

As one student wrote to another, “we will get better.”

Let’s get better on our end by giving them more spaces like this.

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