When I see the students duplicating what they're seeing, that's gold.
In classrooms across America, a quiet but deliberate effort is underway to teach children not only how to read and calculate, but how to care. Kindness 101, a partnership between CBS News and Drake University's Character Counts!, offers free lesson plans built around stories of human goodness — reaching over 100,000 teachers and millions of students. It is a recognition, long overdue, that character is not caught by accident but cultivated with intention, and that the measure of an education may ultimately be found not in test scores, but in how children treat one another.
- American schools have long prioritized academic fundamentals while leaving character development to chance — Kindness 101 challenges that imbalance directly.
- A Minnesota third-grade teacher watched his students stop talking about kindness and start practicing it, giving up recess to organize food drives and community service.
- The program removes the most common barrier to adoption by making all curriculum materials completely free, available to any educator willing to download them.
- What began as a single classroom experiment has grown into a district-wide training effort, a national teacher recognition award, and a program reaching millions of children worldwide.
- The first Kindness 101 National Teacher of the Year award signals that emotional intelligence is no longer a soft afterthought — it is becoming a recognized pillar of serious education.
In a third-grade classroom in Red Wing, Minnesota, Neil Lahammer uses CBS News stories not to teach reading or math, but to teach something schools rarely put on a syllabus: kindness. It is the premise of Kindness 101 — that character can and should be taught as deliberately as multiplication tables.
The program pairs stories from CBS News's "On the Road" series with lesson plans developed by Character Counts!, a nonprofit at Drake University in Iowa. All materials are free, downloadable, and designed so that any teacher can use them without cost or complication. More than 100,000 educators have done exactly that.
For Lahammer, the proof is behavioral. When students begin duplicating what they see in the videos — organizing food drives, giving up recess to help others — he knows something real has taken hold. He founded a Kindness Club at Burnside Elementary that has grown into what he calls an "army of kindness superheroes," and he now trains fellow teachers across his district to carry the program forward.
The program's architects were deliberate about access. Scott Raecker of Character Counts! made clear that keeping the lessons free was a matter of principle — the goal is to elevate the best of human behavior, not to profit from it. Millions of children worldwide are now learning through Kindness101.com.
In April, Lahammer became the first-ever Kindness 101 National Teacher of the Year, honored at a gala in Des Moines. The award is now annual — a sign that embedding emotional intelligence alongside traditional academics is no longer an experiment, but a commitment. As one of his students put it simply: "He makes me smarter and he makes me happier. He's my whole world."
In a third-grade classroom in Red Wing, Minnesota, Neil Lahammer watches his students absorb a story from CBS News about someone doing something good in the world. The story isn't part of math or reading. It's part of something called Kindness 101—a curriculum designed to teach character the way schools teach multiplication tables.
The United States spends hundreds of billions annually on the fundamentals: reading, writing, arithmetic. But kindness? That rarely appears on a syllabus. Kindness 101 exists to change that. The program pairs stories from CBS News's "On the Road" series—narratives about ordinary people doing extraordinary things for others—with lesson plans developed by Character Counts!, a nonprofit housed at Drake University in Iowa. The result is free, accessible material that any teacher can download and use.
Lahammer is one of more than 100,000 teachers who have adopted the curriculum. When asked how he knows the lessons are actually working, he doesn't hesitate. "When I see the students duplicating what they're seeing in the videos," he says, "that's gold." It's the language of a teacher who has learned to recognize the moment something clicks—not just intellectually, but behaviorally. One of his students put it more simply: "It just makes me want to be a better person."
The impact extends beyond individual classrooms. Lahammer started a Kindness Club at Burnside Elementary, where students voluntarily give up recess at least once a week to organize food drives, glove drives, and other acts of service throughout the school. "It's just amazing the way these kids want to help out others," Lahammer observed. What began as a curriculum experiment has become something closer to a movement within his building—what he calls an "army of kindness superheroes." He now trains other teachers in his district on how to implement the program effectively, multiplying its reach.
The program's creators understand the value of removing barriers to adoption. Scott Raecker, executive director of Character Counts!, emphasized that the lesson plans are free precisely because they want educators to focus on teaching, not on cost. "The idea that we could develop curricular resources around these stories that elevate the best of our country," he said, "and we're going to do all this so that educators don't have to pay to get them." The lessons are available at Kindness101.com and are being used by millions of children worldwide.
The expansion of Kindness 101 has not gone unnoticed. In April, Lahammer was named the first-ever Kindness 101 National Teacher of the Year, an honor presented at a gala in Des Moines. The award is now an annual tradition, signaling institutional commitment to recognizing educators who embed emotional intelligence alongside traditional academics. One of Lahammer's students captured what his presence means: "He makes me smarter and he makes me happier. He's my whole world." That's the measure of what happens when a teacher takes kindness seriously enough to build it into the day.
Notable Quotes
When I see the students duplicating what they're seeing in the videos, that's gold.— Neil Lahammer, third-grade teacher at Burnside Elementary School
The idea that we could develop curricular resources around these stories that elevate the best of our country, and we're going to do all this so that educators don't have to pay to get them.— Scott Raecker, executive director of Character Counts!
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does kindness need to be taught in school at all? Isn't that something families should handle?
Families do teach it, but not all families have the same resources or language for it. School is where you reach every child, regardless of what's happening at home. And it turns out, when you make kindness visible and structured—when you show kids stories of real people being kind—they start doing it themselves.
But doesn't adding another subject just crowd the curriculum more? Teachers are already stretched thin.
That's the real insight here. Kindness 101 doesn't add burden—it uses stories teachers would want to tell anyway. The lesson plans are free and ready to go. It's actually removing friction, not creating it.
What's the evidence that this actually changes behavior? One teacher's enthusiasm isn't proof.
You're right to be skeptical. But Lahammer isn't alone—over 100,000 teachers are using this. And his students are giving up recess to do food drives. That's not performance. That's choice. When a kid volunteers their free time, something has shifted.
Is this just feel-good programming, or is there something deeper happening?
It's both. The feel-good part matters—it makes kids want to show up. But the structure matters too. By pairing stories with lesson plans, by recognizing teachers who do this work, by making it free and accessible, they're saying kindness is as important as math. That's not feel-good. That's institutional commitment.
What happens to these kids when they leave Lahammer's classroom?
That's the question, isn't it? The hope is that kindness becomes a habit, not just a lesson. But the real test is whether other schools, other districts, other states pick this up and make it stick. One classroom is beautiful. A movement is different.