We all have lessons in school that'll stick with us forever, whether its the English lesson that made us fall in love with a certain book, the PE that we broke our record time in or the art lesson where we painted a canvas good enough to rival Picasso.
But students from Karen Wunderlich Loewe's class are bound to remember one lesson for the rest of their lives - and it's all to do with sharing.
Advert
On the first day back after the summer holidays, Karen Loewe, an English Language Arts Teacher at Collinsville Middle School in Oologah, Oklahoma, asked her students to write down something that was bothering them, without putting their names on the paper.
They were then asked to scrunch it up and throw it across the room.
Karen then got her students to pick up a piece of paper, and one by one, they were asked to read them out. The student who wrote it was offered to speak about their problems - and lots of them did.
"I'm here to tell you, I have never been so moved to tears as what these kids opened up and about and shared with the class," Karen wrote in a Facebook post that has since been shared over 500,000 times.
Advert
"Things like suicide, parents in prison, drugs in their family, being left by their parents, death, cancer, losing pets (one said their gerbil died cause it was fat, we giggled:grin:) and on and on.
"The kids who read the papers would cry because what they were reading was tough. The person who shared (if they chose to tell us it was them) would cry sometimes too."
Karen Loewe, who has been teaching for 22 years, told PRETTY52: "I chose to do it because I've seen the lack of caring for one another go down over the years."
Advert
After what the teacher has named the 'Baggage Activity', instead of throwing the pieces of paper in the bin Karen decided to collected them up and hang this in a bag on her classroom door "to remind them that we all have baggage."
She added: "It was an emotionally draining day, but I firmly believe my kids will judge a little less, love a little more, and forgive a little faster."
Karen told PRETTY52 she believed the difficult the lesson was all worth it, with one parent telling her "years of therapy" couldn't have helped her child realise what she did "in a 45 minute classroom setting" with Karen.
If this is the impact the Baggage Activity had on one class, we think should be added to the school curriculum.
Featured Image Credit: Karen Loewe