During a recent project my middle school students worked on, I told them that they could choose their partner.  I wanted them to try to complete most of the work in class so that I could observe if students were working well together.  I  told the students that  different students could receive different grades- even for the same final product based on their daily effort.

When we were nearing the end of the project time frame, one of my students who was working incredibly hard, began to cry in frustration with the lack of time he had to complete his project to his (perfectionistic) standard.

This student became so frazzled that he was incapable of working.  In the meantime, his partner did something amazing- he continued to double down on the project and worked incredibly hard.  In fact, he got so motivated by his design concept that he continued to work on it at home and during his recess.  However, here is the amazing part of the story- this student came over to me and asked me to still give his partner an equally good grade as him because he had been working really, really hard up until the last day.

I was so struck by his generosity.  The next day I came to school earlier to ensure that I had time to speak with the frustrated student before class began. I was willing to modify the project substantially for him so he could get back on track and then something amazing happened- this student was all smiles and he said: My partner  worked really hard yesterday and got us back on track.  I’m not worried about this project anymore.  I know that we can finish it.  And so this student came back to class and continued to plug away and finish the project while his partner wasn’t in school.

What amazed me most about the story is how these two young middle school  boys were so supportive of each other.  We need more of these opportunities to ensure that students have ample opportunity to practice this skill of being kind and caring.