Jenni Mahoney noticed one of her middle schoolers was having a rough day. She pulled out her stationery and wrote her an encouraging note.

The message she wanted to share was simple: “I see you. You’re doing good things.”

She wanted to cheer up her student with a little handwritten pep talk. The girl didn’t say anything to Mahoney, an eighth grade English language arts teacher in a suburban St. Louis school district. But Mahoney noticed the girl kept the note in the front of her binder for the rest of the year.

That was almost three years ago. Mahoney started writing notes to other students if she saw one of them having a bad day. The small gesture seemed to make a difference. At the start of the next school year, she was thinking about ways to incorporate more praise and positive feedback into her teaching.

Mahoney resolved to write two to three notes for each of her students throughout the year whenever good behavior or effort caught her eye. She has 60 students. Would she really be able to write 180 notes, on top of all the regular teaching, planning and grading?

For the past two years, she’s made it happen by incorporating the practice into a weekly routine. She picks three students from each ELA block, writing nine notes weekly. Additionally, at the end of the school year, all 60 students get an individual note she writes over the course of four days when the students are taking the state-required standardized tests.

“I follow the same format,” she explained. She begins by focusing on specific positive traits she sees in the student and noting the things he or she does well. She tells them she enjoys having them in her class and mentions something specific from their time in her class.

One note might say, “I can tell you are really loyal” or “kind-hearted.” Another might include something the student is working hard to improve. The letters at the end of the eighth grade year also include encouraging words about starting high school in the fall.

It seems like an incredible amount of extra work for a teacher to take on. I asked if it’s been worth it.

“I think the payoff is huge,” she said. It helps develop her relationships with all the students over the year.

“They see that I know them,” she said, “and that I enjoy having them in class.”

This message is especially powerful for students who don’t typically get that kind of recognition or reinforcement at school. Parenting experts say the strategy of praising good behavior is a powerful way to change children’s actions and attitudes. 

But this is middle school. Surely there are some difficult students who are disruptive or rude or slackers. How does she find something praiseworthy for the students who chronically misbehave?

“I always have to think about the positive traits they have,” she explained. She might consider the friends they have. Sometimes, she compliments a great sense of humor or how a student gets along with his or her friends. “It can be hard sometimes, but I always find something.”

She doesn’t say anything to the students when she gives them the notes. She simply leaves them on their desks. Most of the time, they won’t say anything in response to what she’s written. For middle school students, it can be uncomfortable if a teacher approaches them in person. Genuine praise said aloud might be greeted with an eye roll or cause embarrassment in front of their peers.

“This is a quick way to tell them without making it uncomfortable or weird for them,” Mahoney said. Even if they don’t acknowledge it directly, she notices that many students keep the note in their binders. She overhears students ask one another if they’ve gotten a note yet. And a handful of times, students have written her kind letters in return.

Those are the things that motivate her during that marathon week of letter-writing near the end of the year.

“I’ll write 10 at a time, then take a break and do something else,” she said. “My hand hurts for sure, by the end.”

She’s found a way to teach an important lesson without saying a word.

The minute my daughter passed her driver’s test, I entered the ethical quagmire of stalking.

We downloaded the location-based tracking app Life360, both to see if she’s driving safely and to give her the additional security of help arriving quickly in case of an accident.

At that level, it seems as rational as using a baby monitor for an infant in a crib. But the idea of being able to follow her movements also makes me uneasy.

I surely wouldn’t have wanted my own parents to have this technology when I was a teenager. Isn’t part of growing up learning from mistakes and learning how to navigate tough situations?

Before this, I had never used a monitoring device on the kids’ phones, focusing instead on talking to them about the pitfalls of today’s technology.

But driving feels different.

Car accidents are a leading cause of injury and death for teens. It felt almost negligent not to take advantage of a resource that could give us peace of mind and possibly make her a safer driver.

I’m not alone in this decision, however reluctantly I came to it. There are 50 million families who use the Life360 app. Millions more use features like the iPhone’s Find Your Friends feature to keep track of their family members’ whereabouts.

I asked a dozen of my closest mom friends whether they used some kind of tracking app. Only one said no: She expects her kids to stay in touch with her via their phones, and they do a good job with it. She wants communication to be a two-way street between them.

The rest said it gives them peace of mind or a sense of security. After all, sometimes teens don’t or can’t respond to their parents’ texts. Phone batteries die. Practices run late. Plans with friends change at the last minute.

One mother with three teenage daughters with hectic schedules said that tracking them is better than having to nag them all the time via text to see where they are.

It’s true that many teens have more demanding schedules than we did at their age, and we live in a more anxious parenting age with the near-daily news of mass shootings.

Parents say their children also use the app to keep track of them, especially when they are late picking them up from somewhere. One mother tracks when her son leaves work and when he’s on his way home from school. Her daughter keeps track of her mom the same way.

The question becomes where we draw the line.

“I like to know that my college-age kid made it back to his dorm room at night,” one parent said, who continues to track her college-aged son’s whereabouts.

Another said she got a discount on their car insurance by installing a physical tracker on her teen’s car. It monitors speed, hard braking and other driving patterns. It gives the family a weekly driving grade, and their insurance rates are tied to the scores.

But do we feel comfortable knowing that these apps and tech companies are eventually selling all this data to make even more profits off tracking our movements?

Some of our children may call us dictators, or protest that they are living in an “authoritarian state,” as my teenager initially did, but I’m living under the same conditions. This is perhaps a more in-your-face reminder of how much of our privacy we have given away for convenience and security. It’s an uncomfortable reminder that our thoughts, relationships and consumption habits -- expressed through our search histories, social media posts and online purchases -- are tracked, stored and sold, often in ways we don’t even know. Now, we can add our very movements to the list.

At the end of the day, maybe we won’t even need this particular tracking app too much. Our daughter’s younger brother, who she now drives to school, seems to view his new commute as a daily gamble. He sends us a reassuring text upon arrival: “She got us here safely.”

Of course, we had checked our apps, and already knew.

Dear School Principals,

Parents tend to get excited about the start of a new school year. We’re ready for our kids to be back in the swing of learning. But there’s an issue we need to talk about before the school year begins.

We know principals are juggling lots of moving parts, academic and administrative, before the hallways get filled with children. Teachers are working on learning new ways to help their students achieve higher goals. School staff may be planning ways to deal with the traumas students bring with them and looking for additional resources to better serve them. And that’s not to mention the hiring, budgeting and scheduling that come together at the last minute.

We know that among your top priorities is to keep the young people in your charge safe -- physically, emotionally and socially. Many of us say a prayer when we send our children into those buildings. Every mass shooting brings another wave of fear.

This year, we have another urgent plea: Please pay attention to the world outside the school building and think about how it’s going to impact the students you serve. You know as well as we do that bullying related to race and ethnicity has increased since the last presidential election. Students have parroted hateful language as taunts on playgrounds, and racial slurs have shown up in students’ social media feeds. Studies are starting to bear out the stories from families who have experienced this fallout firsthand.

Researchers studied the rate of bullying in middle schools in Virginia and found that in 2017 teasing and bullying were significantly higher in schools located in districts that had voted for Donald Trump compared with districts that had voted for Hillary Clinton. This difference in the rate of bullying based on districts’ voting patterns didn’t exist before the last election. This upcoming election season is shaping up to be even worse.

Some of your students will bear the brunt of this politicized rhetoric.

Your students of color walk into their classrooms knowing that a white supremacist just massacred 22 people in El Paso. When one of their classmates uses the “n-word,” or draws a swastika on a bathroom stall or says “go back to where you came from,” think for a moment how that might feel against this backdrop.

In addition to insulting, it may feel threatening. Unsafe.

We know privacy laws prevent you from discussing consequences when students are disciplined, but have you thought of ways to address the incidents that hurt a community without singling out a specific child? When principals refuse to name or discuss these problems it feels like they are being swept aside, that the safety of some kids isn’t really a priority. When principals refuse to act by saying an incident happened “outside of school hours,” it sounds like a cop-out.

You are responsible for setting the tone of the school’s culture, and most schools teach values like respect and responsibility. When those values are tested this year, we want to hear you clearly say: This is hateful and racist. This is hurtful. This is not who we want to be.

How will you use these moments to teach the aggressor empathy and help him or her understand why these words and actions are destructive? If their parents push back, will you have the courage to stand up for what you know is right?

I believe most educators get into this profession because they care deeply about students. And in this time of deep division and rising acts of bigotry, we need to hear louder voices from the principals who lead our nation’s schools.

It takes courage to admit that adults may also say things they shouldn’t. It takes heart to recognize the hurt when a student or parent shares such an incident. The way you respond will reverberate throughout the school. Others will take their cue from you.

Teachers will watch how you respond. Students who want to be allies for their friends will watch how you respond. Parents will watch how you respond.

We are trusting you to know that racist harassment hurts more than the person targeted. It hurts the entire community.

Every student should know their principal has their back.

We are counting on your courage.