Creating Positive Memories

By Christine Mason

Whether the issue is student mental health, teacher well-being, or even the most serious of issues such as teen suicide, there is something we can do starting right now to help others. It almost seems too easy. However, we have a very powerful tool – and one that is low cost. Based on neuroscience and neuroplasticity, it is something that we can do without elaborate equipment, without a specific curriculum package, and without extensive workshops and professional development.

Simple Strategies

The simple strategy is to find ways to “create positive memories” for everyone. What does this mean?  I ask you to begin by reflecting on one of your own positive experiences. Just now, what immediately came to mind for me was a vacation to Jamaica with my daughter who was just a toddler. I have a photo of the two of us wading in the warm Caribbean waters. I almost can feel the warmth of the water as I focus on that image.

What image came to mind for you?

I know that some of us practice “Gratitude” and we may engage in a similar practice of listing a few things we are grateful for each day. This is similar, however, I am asking you to first pause and reflect on a positive memory and as you reflect, give yourself permission to linger on your memory.

Helping to Create Positive Memories

The next step is to prepare to interact with students, staff, and families in ways that may just help to create positive memories for them. So imagine if you will a staff member, a student, or a family member. Could you imagine them smiling? Or laughing? Or perhaps even talking to a friend about the wonderful experience they just had. What might it be?

Now the tricky part is that not everyone will respond to the same scenario. For one student it could be extra recess, for another it might be time to listen to music, participate in a school play, or conduct a cool science experiment. So, we have to figure out what might work best for our students (or staff or families). You may need to play with this process a bit to land on the right activity for each person. 

Asking

To help you plan, you may even find that you can ask others about their passions - about their preferences – and about how they like to spend their time. You may find that in some cases, you might need to help provide options. Some people may not know that much about their own passions. I know I wasn’t even aware of the joy I felt when painting until I took an “Art in the Elementary School” class as an undergraduate student.  So, to help others discover their individual passions, you could even set out on your mission to collaborate with others on something such as a “Joy” project. Could you imagine that?

Creating Many Positive Memories

And finally, what can you do to create more than one positive memory for others? While one positive experience can lead to one positive memory, to help rewire brains so that there will be more of a tendency to automatically call up positive memories,  we need to help create a series of positive memories.

Perhaps you might begin with some type of diagram that will allow you to link certain students, families, or staff with particular activities (you might end up with a complex networked diagram). Or you may come up with a chart where you list activities, and guess at which students (families or staff) most enjoyed the activity. Or you could even ask for feedback, asking questions such as, “which activity did you most enjoy?”or “On a scale of 1-5, how high would you rate the activity?”

As you can tell this really isn’t too hard. Who knows? It might even be fun.