School kids get choice of reward for good behavior, response stuns teacher

A third-grade teacher was left beaming after her pupils made the most heartwarming of picks for a whole class reward.

Maren Hanson told Newsweek: “They make questionable choices, yes. They might be holding trauma, yes. They might have tough moments or days, yes; but overall, they are good people.”

The first seven years of a child’s life are considered crucial in their development. Data published by researchers from Harvard University has previously identified this as the period when the brain is developing at its most rapid pace.

By the age of 3, more than 1 million neural connections are forming in the brain every minute, establishing a mapping system that informs the way they communicate and process with the world around them.

Between the ages of 6 and 8, the CDC notes that children are expected to begin to separate from primary caregivers and establish friendships of their own. They seek peer acceptance, think about the future and try to understand their place in the world.

That puts Hanson in a very privileged position. For the past 11 years, Hanson has been a third-grade teacher, educating children between the ages of 8 and 9 as they begin to experience this newfound sense of independence.

Though there are times, of course, when her class tests her patience, Hanson is a firm believer in the idea that, “inherently, kids are good inside.”

Hanson got a reminder of that recently during a class celebration event that she held to celebrate their good behavior over the course of the term.

“Five years ago, I started doing a Secret Student behavior system where, if a student is doing their job throughout the day, I’ll drop hints about who it might be, i.e. ‘the secret student has all their materials for math and is sitting quietly,'” Hanson said.

“At the end of the day, if they got less than three redirections, I reveal who it was and if not, their name goes back into a bag unidentified to avoid shaming.”

After all 24 students in the class had their names revealed, Hanson offered them the chance to vote on a way to celebrate.”I tossed out options like McDonald’s Happy Meals, pizza and donuts,” Hanson said. She also offered her class another alternative: the chance to meet her children.

Their choice caught Hanson completely off guard. “They picked meeting my kids,” she wrote. Hanson shared a snapshot of the encounter, alongside the story explaining how it happened, in a video posted to her TikTok @maren.theteacher.

“Their meeting was the sweetest. It felt special that they wanted to do something that was important to me,” Hanson said. “They have a stake in my life outside of the classroom and vice versa.”

Hanson’s video has already been watched over 1.3 million times with fellow parents and teachers sharing stories of similar heartwarming stories in the comments.

“My kindergarten daughter talks about her teacher’s baby like he is a prized possession and they’ve never met!” one wrote.

Another posted: “One year I was talking about my grandma being sick and finally getting better. For their reward they asked my grandma to come in. So my 93 year old grandma came in to read. They loved it.”

A third added: “My daughter’s teacher is a male and the class asked for his wife to come in LOL [laugh out loud] she made cookies for them and brought them in they were so excited like she was a celebrity.”

It is a reminder of what Hanson firmly believes: “Kids are inherently good people.”