An elementary school teacher is making sure that her students learn kindness from a young age. Natalie Ringold recently shared a video of herself on Instagram teaching her fourth grade class about being kind while using what she calls the “30 seconds or less” rule. “If somebody can’t change something about themselves in 30 seconds or less, then you shouldn’t be mentioning it to them,” she told her students in the clip.
Ringold even listed some examples of things that could be quickly changed, such as an untied shoelace or piece of lint on their shirt. “But if you comment on someone’s hair color or hair texture or hairstyle or body — they can’t change that in 30 seconds or less,” she continued. The teacher wanted her students to know the power of words, and demonstrated using a tube of toothpaste.
She compared squeezing the tube to telling someone something they can’t change about themselves in under 30 seconds, but just like the toothpaste, it can’t be taken back no matter how much you try. “So it’s very messy,” she said in her video. “Students being rude? Try this!” the teacher captioned her post, going on to discuss what her students should have taken away from the lesson including, “once our words & actions are out in the world, we cannot erase them or fully take them back” and “we can choose to fill other people’s ‘buckets’ or do the opposite.
” “I reminded my students that we did this lesson on the last day of school bec.
