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By: Caroline Diehl
So often in education, academics become the primary focus. The most common conversations in staff meetings or with parents’ sound like this:
Is my child on-grade level?
What benchmark data indicates their current performance level?
What targeted interventions or enrichments are you using in your classroom?
What instructional practices are you using to close identified learning gaps?
How can we accelerate their achievement even more?
While these questions matter, they often overshadow an equally essential dimension of a child’s development: their well-being, sense of belonging, and capacity to thrive as a whole person.
Students learn best when they feel emotionally safe, connected, and known (Eckert, 2020). Academic growth is not separate from well-being—it is built upon it. When children experience belonging, trust, and relational stability, their cognitive engagement deepens, their motivation increases, and their ability to take academic risks expands.
The same is true for teachers. How are educators sustaining their own well-being? Too often, new initiatives or expectations are added to teachers’ plates without thoughtful consideration of their capacity. Instead, the perspective should shift: What can we remove or streamline so teachers can show up as their best selves for students? Supporting teacher well-being is not an “extra”—it is essential for creating conditions in which students can flourish.
Personally, what fuels my own well-being is time spent with God. Spending time in the Word and sharing His love is what refreshes my soul. It recenters and reminds me that my worth is not defined by people-pleasing, teaching performance, or social status, but by who He says I am. Judah Smith (2016) shares it so simply when he explains that, just as we all have physical homes, God is the home for our souls. The Baylor MA in School Leadership program prioritizes this kind of reflection, encouraging myself and other leaders to consider how our faith shapes our well-being and our approach to leading others.
There are many ways to cultivate belonging and support well-being for both students and teachers. In my classroom, two practices that have been especially meaningful include creating a class mission statement and implementing a bucket-filler routine, and beginning and ending each day with a morning meeting and closing circle.
Creating a Class Mission Statement
To preface, at my school, each class adopts its own class name. Mine is called The Secret Garden, a name that reflects both our small yet cozy, plant-filled classroom and the sense of wonder I want my students to feel each day.
During the first couple weeks of school, I posed the question: What do we want to be known for? When others see The Secret Garden, how do we want them to remember us? Each child wrote a single word on a sticky note in response. As a class, we discussed and combined all our ideas to craft a mission statement that reflected our shared values. We proudly landed on:
“In the Secret Garden, we are kind, honest, and hard-working leaders who like to have fun and learn.”
Each student signed the mission statement, committing to embody these characteristics as a class. Later, we added hand motions and memorized it so we could recite it without reading it. This tradition strengthens students’ sense of belonging as they reflect on the kind of impact they want to have on our classroom community each day.
How Full Is Your Bucket?
Early in the year, we read How Full Is Your Bucket? For Kids by Mary Reckmeyer and Tom Rath, a book that introduces the idea that everyone carries an invisible bucket representing their emotional well-being and how our interactions affect other people. Kind actions fill others’ buckets, while unkind actions take away from them. The language of “bucket-fillers” and “bucket-dippers” quickly became part of our daily vocabulary.
This fall, we were making cards for Veterans Day and someone mentioned how it would fill veterans’ buckets. Another time, we were drawing pictures and cards to deliver meals to elders as part of a service project field trip. We emphasized that these cards would fill someone’s bucket, so we needed to slow down and make sure we were doing our “personal best” for them.
Moments like these helped students see that kindness isn’t just something we talk about—it’s something we practice. Using the bucket language made it easy for them to recognize how their choices affect others and how they can help create a classroom where everyone feels seen, supported, and connected.
A few weeks later, we began a routine called “Bucket-Fillers.” Using a jar as our class bucket and pom-poms as drops, each student can share how a peer filled someone’s bucket that day. This simple practice has increased empathy in my students and allowed them to gain a different perspective geared towards kindness. We end each afternoon with this routine along with a closing poem. Each day, the kids are bursting with bucket-fillers as I hear them say “I have a bucket-filler to share today” or “Do we have enough time for A LOT of bucket fillers today?” This routine lends itself to a perspective shift to see the good in everything we do.
Reflecting and Moving Forward
Focusing on the whole child—and the whole teacher—has been a guiding principle for me this year, and it has shaped how I plan, interact, and reflect as an educator. As I look ahead to next year, I want to continue growing in my own well-being so I can show up fully for my students. One way I plan to do this is by implementing the FEW (Feedback, Engagement, and Well-Being) survey, which will give me a clear understanding of how my students are feeling and allow me to make intentional choices to support their social-emotional growth alongside their academic development.
This work is important because creating a culture of belonging and kindness does more than improve behavior or compliance—it builds a foundation for lifelong learning, empathy, and resilience. When students feel seen, valued, and capable of contributing positively to their community, they are more willing to take risks and embrace challenges within the classroom and world around them. Similarly, when teachers care for their own well-being, they model the value of self-reflection and balance, creating a classroom climate where everyone can thrive.
