(KJRH) – An Oklahoma middle school teacher is giving her students a very valuable lesson.

Karen Loewe asked her 7th and 8th graders to write down some of the things they were struggling with in life, and then to leave it in a bag at the door.

During class, she read some of their anonymous notes aloud, so that other students were aware of all their classmates were dealing with. Things like abuse, divorce, suicide, deaths and drugs.

Loewe plans to keep the bag hanging outside the door for the rest of the school year to remind students not to dwell on the negative.

“The leave it at the door means like don’t let that past define you, let it, you know, it happened, it made you who you are, but don’t dwell on it forever and ever, you’ve got to move past it,” Loewe said.

A post about the baggage activity got thousands of shares on social media.

But Loewe says what’s most important is that her kids learned not to judge others, because you never know what someone else is going through.

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