Once a year, Noreen Meehan asks her fifth grade class to pour packets of sugar out on their desks, and then to get all of the sugar back into the packets. 

Students try all kinds of techniques, pressing their fingers against the sugar and shaking them against the paper packet, scraping the packet against the surface of their desks, but no one can ever get the sugar packets back to the way they were when Meehan passed them out. 

This activity serves as a powerful example of what happens when someone spreads a rumor.

Meehan starts by reading “Mr. Peabody's Apples” by Madonna to her class. The story follows Mr. Peabody, a teacher, who is falsely accused of stealing apples by a boy who sees him take one from a market without seeing him pay. The story teaches students that it is impossible to undo the damage of gossip and rumors.  

Meehan then moves into the next part of her lesson, handing out the sugar packets to the students. She shares with the class that this is a tactile style of learning, and encourages them to touch the sugar. 

“I liked the book,” said Kylie Feldner. “Doing things like this helps me understand the lesson from it more.”

The students spread the sugar out on their desks, drew shapes in it, gathered it into little piles and more, before they were tasked with getting all of the sugar back into the packets, making them look good as new.

“Some of the students were pretty insistent that they had it, but I went over and ran my hand on the table to find it covered in sugar,” said Meehan. “When we poured the sugar out, that’s the lie. And we can’t get it back in.”
“When you start saying mean things that are untrue, you can do things to take it back. It just will never go back to how it was,” said Feldner. “Being honest and kind will help you make a lot of friends. If you don’t tell lies, you're going to have a good reputation, you’ll make a lot of friends, you’ll have a lot of people who like you.”