“Giving is itself a voluntary sign of recognition. And returning out of gratitude (reconnaissance), is a gift that echoes the first giver’s recognition (reconnaissance)”       Margaret Visser (Howells, 2012, p. 77)

I was very relieved to read this quote by Margaret Visser in Gratitude in Education: a radical view (Howells, 2012), because it was a belief I mentioned in my first blog, but one I had begun to question over the first five weeks. Two events happened, in quick succession, that reinforced my belief in the cyclical nature of gratitude.

The first: Christmas in the East, which I mentioned in my last blog.

The second: A teacher, from a feeder high school, returned from a visit to the toilets and showed me a picture she had taken on her phone. It is the picture in this blog, of a random act of kindness (RAK), which has affirmative messages for the person using the toilet, to take and enjoy or pass on. I made a mental note to go and take a snap myself but it took me a few days to get around to it. When I went to look, I couldn’t find the sign and thought it may have been removed. I had recognised the handwriting, so I called into M’s office. She mentioned that the sign was inside the cubicle…but then told me the story behind the RAK. In the ladies toilet of the Melbourne City Hall (which apparently is a pretty aesthetic toilet, which M visits each time she is in Melbourne), she came across this concept. Someone had left a message saying that she loved living in Melbourne, and that she wanted everyone who visited the toilet to share her joy, and had left cards with affirmations for them to take and share. M was so grateful for this random act of kindness (and it something she celebrates and performs regularly) that she decided to pay it forward, to ‘return out of gratitude’ the gift she had been given. I see her actions as being as Carol Rodgers and Miriam Raider-Roth stated “the ability to respond with a considered and compassionate best next step” (Howells, 2012, p. 83). M experienced the joy that this display of gratitude engendered in her, and decided to take the ‘best next step’ to give another the opportunity to experience that gratitude.

Howells, K (2012), Gratitude in Education: a radical view. Rotterdam: Sense.