Priya's List — Counting the Good
Priya had decided that Year 8 was the worst year of her life. In the space of a single term her best friend had moved interstate, she had been dropped from the netball starting seven, and her family had squeezed into a smaller flat closer to her dad's new job. Every morning she woke up with a heavy feeling in her chest, as though someone had quietly stacked bricks on it during the night. All she could see was the long list of things that had gone wrong.
One wet Tuesday, her PDHPE teacher, Ms Okafor, noticed Priya staring out the window while the rest of the class worked. After the bell she asked her to stay behind for a moment. Priya braced herself for a lecture, but instead Ms Okafor slid a small blank notebook across the desk. "This isn't homework," she said. "It's an experiment. Every night, before you sleep, write down three good things from your day. They can be tiny. Give it two weeks and tell me what you notice."
Priya almost laughed. Three good things? Some days she could barely find one. But that night, sitting on her bed, she opened the notebook and forced herself to think. The rain had stopped just as she reached the bus stop. Her little brother had saved her the last of the mango. A song she loved had come on the radio. She wrote them down, feeling slightly silly, and closed the book.
The first few nights were hard. She scratched out ordinary, almost boring things — a warm shower, a joke in maths, a text from her old friend. But slowly something shifted. Because she knew she would be writing her list later, Priya started noticing the good things as they happened, catching them like coins before they slipped away. The heavy feeling in her chest did not vanish, but it began to share the space with something lighter.
By the second week, her lists had grown longer than three. She wrote about the way the afternoon light fell across the new flat, which was smaller but somehow cosier. She wrote about coaching the Year 7 netball beginners at lunch, and how much she enjoyed it even though she was no longer starting for her own team. She wrote about her dad coming home tired but smiling, glad to be closer to family.
When she showed Ms Okafor the full notebook, the teacher smiled. "You didn't change your life," she said gently. "You changed what you were looking at." Priya realised she was right. The losses were still real, but they no longer crowded out everything else. Gratitude, she understood now, was not about pretending things were perfect. It was a quiet daily habit of counting the good — and she had discovered that the more she counted, the more there was to find.
Your turn — short-answer questions
- At the start of the story, Priya could only see what had gone wrong. What did Ms Okafor's notebook experiment help her do differently?
- Priya learned that gratitude is a daily habit, not a feeling that arrives on its own. Describe three good things from your own day and explain how noticing them made you feel.
For the classroom
Teacher notes — activities, reflections and assessment for this story.
Discussion: Priya's problems didn't disappear, yet she felt better. What does the story suggest about the difference between changing your circumstances and changing your focus?
Activity — Three Good Things: Have students keep a gratitude journal for two weeks, recording three good things each night, then discuss what they noticed changing.
Activity — Gratitude Letter: Ask students to write a short letter of thanks to someone who has helped them, and, if they feel comfortable, deliver or read it aloud.
Reflection: When is it hardest to feel grateful? What small habit could help you notice the good on a difficult day?
Assessment — Gratitude Journal: Students maintain a gratitude journal across the term and submit a written reflection on how the practice affected their mood, relationships and outlook.
Jayden's Thank-You Chain
Jayden could find the flaw in anything. The bus was late, the canteen sandwiches were dry, his older sister hogged the bathroom, and homework was a waste of time. In Year 9 he had quietly earned a reputation as the boy who was never quite satisfied. He didn't think of himself as ungrateful — he just noticed what was wrong far more easily than what was right.
The Gratitude Guardian appeared on a grey Thursday, while Jayden was mid-rant about a cancelled excursion. "You're very good at spotting what's missing," the Guardian said. "I wonder if you're just as good at spotting what's already here." Jayden shrugged. It didn't feel like there was much. The Guardian handed him a challenge: for one week, thank one person a day — properly, to their face, for something specific.
The first thank-you was awkward. Jayden mumbled to the canteen worker, Mrs Petrou, that her cheese rolls were actually really good. She looked so surprised and pleased that he felt something warm and unfamiliar. The next day he thanked the bus driver for waiting when he ran late. Then his sister, for lending him her charger. Each time, he had to look for the good thing first, which meant he had to notice it.
By midweek the habit had changed the way he moved through his day. Instead of scanning for problems, he found himself scanning for things worth thanking someone for. He thanked his maths teacher for explaining a tricky topic twice without making him feel stupid. He thanked his mum for the dinner he usually ate without a word. Every thank-you seemed to hand a little warmth back to him.
The strangest part was how people responded. Mrs Petrou started saving him the freshest roll. His sister stopped snapping at him. His maths teacher checked in on him more often. It was as though noticing the good in people made more good appear. The complaints hadn't all vanished — some things really were annoying — but they no longer filled the whole screen.
At the end of the week the Guardian returned. "You started a chain," it said. "Gratitude is quiet when you keep it in your head, but it's powerful when you say it out loud." Jayden understood. Counting the good was a start, but sharing it was where it grew. He kept the thank-you habit long after the week was over — not because he had to, but because he liked the person it turned him into.
Your turn — short-answer questions
- Jayden was "very good at spotting what's missing." How did thanking one person a day change what he noticed each day?
- The Gratitude Guardian says gratitude is "powerful when you say it out loud." Who is one person you could thank this week, and what specifically would you thank them for?
For the classroom
Teacher notes — activities, reflections and assessment for this story.
Discussion: Jayden didn't think of himself as ungrateful — he just noticed the negatives more easily. Why is it often easier to spot what's wrong than what's right?
Activity — Thank-You Chain: Challenge students to thank one person a day, out loud and specifically, for a week, then share what they noticed changing in themselves and others.
Activity — Gratitude Shout-Out Wall: Set up a class wall where students post short notes thanking classmates for specific kind or helpful actions.
Reflection: Jayden found that saying thanks handed warmth back to him. Describe how it feels to give, and to receive, genuine thanks.
What Hamza Would Miss
Hamza's afternoons ran to a timetable, and none of it was his. School finished at three; by twenty past he was at the primary school gate collecting his little sister, Yusra. By four he was home boiling the kettle for his nan, who had moved in with them after her stroke and could not be left alone for long. By half five he was cooking, because his mum left for her night shift at the hospital at six. His homework happened at ten at night with his eyes half shut. So when the school taped bright posters along B block for gratitude week, every one of them saying COUNT THE GOOD, Hamza thought it was the stupidest thing he had ever read.
He wasn't sad, exactly. He was angry, and the anger was comfortable, like a jumper he had worn so long he had stopped noticing it was on. His mates went to the skate park on Saturdays and had quietly stopped asking him. One Thursday his mum asked him to put a load of washing on before bed, and something in him gave way. "I didn't ask for any of this," he said, much louder than he meant to. She didn't argue. She picked up her keys and went to work, and the flat afterwards was very quiet. Hamza sat on the back step in the cold, feeling completely right and completely awful at the same time.
"You think we're asking you to lie," the Gratitude Guardian said, settling onto the step beside him as though it had been there all along. "To write a happy little list about a life you didn't choose." Hamza said nothing, because that was exactly what he thought. "Then don't count forwards," the Guardian said. "Count backwards. Take one ordinary thing out of your day — in your head, just for a minute — and look at the size of the hole it leaves behind. Don't argue with yourself about whether you ought to feel grateful. Arguments never work. Just look honestly at the gap."
So that night he took his nan out of the flat. No radio muttering in Arabic from the corner. No arguing with her sister on the phone at nine every evening. No one to show him, three times, exactly how much water the rice needed. The chair by the window with nobody in it. It landed harder than he expected, and he sat with it for a while. Over the next fortnight he did it with everything he resented: the gate at twenty past three with no small hand grabbing his sleeve; the fridge with none of Yusra's drawings on it; his mum's job gone, and with it the flat and the car and everything that job quietly paid for. Every subtraction left a hole in a shape he recognised.
The hardest part came a fortnight after that. The practice was useless if it stayed in his head, because the person he had aimed all the anger at still had no idea. He waited up for his mum on a Sunday morning and it took three goes to start. "Some of this is really hard, Mum, and I'm tired," he said. "And I worked out this week what our life looks like without you doing it." She put down her bag, sat at the table and cried a little, which he had not planned for. Later they worked out that his aunt could sit with Nan on alternate Saturdays. He lost something in that conversation and he knew it: he could no longer be the one who had been wronged.
His timetable did not change much after that. He still collected Yusra at twenty past three and still cooked at half five, and there were nights when he was flat-out exhausted and resented all of it again. But the take-one-thing-out habit stuck, and he noticed it worked in both directions — that once he had seen the hole a person would leave, he started seeing the person while they were still there. Gratitude, Hamza understood now, was never a polite way of being told to be quiet. It was a daily habit of counting the good, forwards or backwards — and the more he counted, the more there turned out to be.
Your turn — short-answer questions
- Hamza thought a gratitude list was insulting, but counting backwards worked. Explain the difference between the two, and why the Guardian said arguments never work.
- Choose one ordinary thing or person in your day that you barely notice. Take it out of your day in your head, describe the gap it would leave, and explain what that tells you.
For the classroom
Teacher notes — activities, reflections and assessment for this story.
Discussion: Why can being told to "count your blessings" feel dismissive to someone doing it tough? What does Hamza's story suggest is the difference between real gratitude and forced positivity?
Activity — Count Backwards: Students list five everyday things they never think about, then write one sentence for each describing what a normal day would look like without it, and compare which gaps surprised them.
Activity — Say It While They're Here: Students identify one person whose absence would leave a large hole, then write and, if they choose, deliver a specific sentence telling that person what they do.
Reflection: Hamza had to give up his grudge to be honest with his mum. Describe something in your life that is genuinely hard, and one thing you would badly miss if it disappeared tomorrow.
Story 3 is part of the full pack
Unlock every hero's third story — plus all worksheets, quizzes and assessments — with a trial or a licence. Already have access? Open the link from your email on this device.