The Gift Of Gratitude

Let's talk gratitude. A month or so ago, I was invited by Shelley Burgess to guest moderate a Twitter Chat {#satchatwc}. When I selected a November date, I just knew my topic would have something to do with thanks-giving. 

Today, I'm sharing how that chat yesterday went.

Click {here} to read the archives; enjoy these highlights.

First, I asked participants to introduce themselves and share a favorite quote, thought, or reflection about gratitude. Here's mine.

There were SO many inspirational quotes shared,

like this one from my Principal friend, Beth Houf.

After about 7 minutes of sharing, I posed the first question on this beautiful picture of last week's rainbow, taken by my friend Jen.

Here are just a few of their awesome answers:

Seven more minutes passed, and then came question two.

I shared this infographic from the Templeton Foundation:

After we talked about the benefits of gratitude, we moved on to

question three, which asked participants to share their promising practices for nurturing gratitude in their students.

From students, we went on to showing gratitude to faculty & staff.

Someone shared this cool idea for a staff WoW journal.

Then I challenged my Tweeps to go deeper ... 

... and deeper.

Some of the answers were heartbreaking.

Gratitude through cancer.

Gratitude through student suffering.

Gratitude through broken trust.

And yet, gratitude has gotten them through the tough times.

Now that's thanks-living.

And our final question:

Did you know there's an APPreciation app? 

Check out Gratitude 365.

Then it was action time. The Challenge:

How will you make gratitude a verb?

It was so much fun to come up with these questions and then experience the generosity of these gratitude gurus.

Click to learn more about The Zen Teacher book.

So today I'm celebrating the gift of gratitude and I thank you, dear reader, for being in my Corner. I'm grateful for you. Every day.