Teacher Uses Pennies To Teach Kids About Respect

By MEGAN MOWEN
The Herald-Mail of Hagerstown

BOONSBORO, Md. (AP) -- A Boonsboro music teacher took on the role of good Samaritan as she attempted to change the world one penny at a time.

Amanda Kline, 32, of Hagerstown, who has been the instrumental music teacher at Boonsboro Middle School for nine years, calls her project "Five Pennies a Day."

Kline said her inspiration came from a speaker at the Differentiation Instruction Conference in Baltimore that she
attended two summers ago. The speaker, Danny Brassell, told a story about using five pennies to teach children to be respectful and kind to others, said Kline, who teaches sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade band during the day and leads ensembles after school.

As part of the lesson, two pockets are placed on a child's desk, one in each corner. Five pennies are placed in the right pocket at the beginning of the day. During the day, a child does a kind act. The teacher moves one penny over to the left pocket. By the end of the day, if the child does enough kind acts, all the pennies are in the left pocket.

"I need to do this for myself, and I need to try this out. I need to see what is going to happen," Kline said. "How can I
change the world with five simple pennies a day?"

Kline committed herself to performing five acts of kindness every day for one year from July 10, 2010, to July 10 of this year. She chronicled the odyssey in a daily journal. Some of these acts include writing notes of encouragement, putting a piece of candy in a co-worker's mailbox, helping shovel snow for a neighbor and giving food to someone in need.

"You have to take time to go and make a connection to build a positive society," Kline said.

After she completed her project, she wanted to share her experience with others. On her blog, titled "Five Pennies a Day," she uses her journals as a guide for her posts.

"When I first found out she was doing this penny project, I had no idea what it entailed until I started reading about it," said Kline's co-worker Tonya Meadows, who teaches technology education.

 "It kind of makes me want to be like her or try to do something almost half as nice as she does, if that's possible," Meadows said.

While working on the project, Kline was forced to step outside her comfort zone and became more open to change.

"I am normally a quiet person and I like to keep to myself," she said. "I really learned that living in a society and wanting to make a difference, you have to connect to other people."

Kline said she believes her actions had an impact on others, including her 5-year-old son, Sean.

"We were at Borders, and I was getting a coffee and my son wanted a fancy cookie," she said. "He looked around and said, `Can we buy that person one, too?' I know that my son had picked up on what I was doing."

Kline also wanted to see people turning to help others as a result of her project. When it did not happen, she became
frustrated.

"I had to take a step back and realize that was not the goal of this," she said. "The goal was for me to go help people five
times a day."

She has her "ultimate penny," which holds a special place in her memory. She said she was running errands and getting dinner for her family when she saw a homeless man standing on the curb and holding a sign. She picked up an extra dinner for him.

The man told her the sandwich would feed not only him, but his wife and daughter. Kline went back to her vehicle and retrieved a bag of pretzels and two bottles of water for him.

Kline is planning her next project, "50 by 50."

"I want to see all 50 states by the time I turn 50 years old," she said. "But it's not a vacation. It is an education or
mission-based trip to each state."

Information from: The Herald-Mail of Hagerstown, Md., http://www.herald-mail.com

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)