Gunther, Chelsea Gunther (think: Bond, James Bond)

 For Father’s Day, my family spent the day pretending we were spies and secret agents. It was really cool. We went to the International Spy Museum in DC and then went to Escape Room Live. At Escape Room Live, the hosts prepped us my explaining that our friend is locked up for a crime he didn’t do; he was framed. We are to enter his office, where he left behind a bunch of clues as to who framed him. BUT upon entering his office, we trigger a security alarm. We have 45 minutes to find/decode all the clues we can, figure out who framed our friend, and then find a special key to get out of the room. It was so much fun! We didn’t get out of the room in time but we did figure out who framed our friend! That counts for something, right?!

    

Now that I’m on this secret agent kick, I want to share a “Secret Mission” themed school counseling idea I have heard about. 

This idea is called, “SECRET AGENTS OF KINDNESS.” This could be a good way to kick off “Random Acts of Kindness Week” (second week of February) OR to help spread kindness if I start to notice my school’s climate is a little bitter. The idea is to present students with the idea that they are secret agents with a secret mission. Their secret mission is to spread kindness- it’s even better if they are able to spread kindness without anyone knowing it was them.

I also like how many ways this activity can be tweaked to fit small groups, a class, or an entire school. If I had a small group to do this with, I would make it look pretty legit to get their cooperation. I would create a “TOP SECRET” envelope for each group member that contained their “Mission,” a way to keep track of their acts of kindness, and some ideas (the examples below are from the fickle pickle).

To get this activity to take off as a school-wide initiative, I would give a large envelope or bag labeled “TOP SECRET” to each classroom teacher. Inside the envelope/bag, I would include slips of paper with the “mission” already written on it. The classroom teachers will be able to let their students pick secret missions to complete. It is the students’ responsibility to complete their missions and then come to me once it is completed. I haven’t come up with a way to monitor if a student really completed the mission or not but since there isn’t an external reward or any recognition involved, I think kids would be honest. I would love to hang up a wall of anonymous stars to represent every completed mission, a nod to the wall of anonymous heroes.