share-link

Lessons on Listening and Respect

Lessons on Listening and Respect photo thumbnail181680
Bellmore students at C.A. Reinhard learned the importance of listening to other’s ideas and treating others with respect during an English Language Arts lesson. As a Leadership District, Bellmore teachers regularly infuse the district’s Leadership Principles and Core Values into core subject areas.

During March, Natalie Sicoli’s students are focusing on the Leadership Principle “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” and the Core Value of respect, writing their thoughts and observations in their Leadership Notebooks. In tandem with national Read Across America Day, the class read two books about the importance of listening, Cori Doerrfeld’s “The Rabbit Listened” and Howard Binkow’s “Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen.” Additionally, the students read “Yertle the Turtle” by Dr. Seuss and Diane Alber’s “A Little Respectful SPOT,” which focused on respect.

Each student then drew a turtle and placed their face on the rendering. In a speech bubble, the students told the character Yertle the Turtle his or her thoughts about respect, focusing on why they believed Yertle is not a respectful leader and how he could become a better leader. The activity also encouraged the students to further write down in their Leadership Notebooks personal thoughts about listening and respect and how it applies in their own lives.