Some American elementary schools teach children to be “bucket fillers.” Everyone carries an invisible bucket of good feelings. Filling it means “Actions or words that show that you care about someone.” Bucket dipping empties it. One example is “Making fun of someone.” A staff member at a Wisconsin school district wrote: “I also remind students every morning after the pledge” to fill a bucket that day.
Teachers trace the idea to the psychologist Donald O. Clifton’s “Dipper and Bucket” story. A 2007 educator’s edition of the book How Full Is Your Bucket? offers 18 lesson plans “for pre-K through 12th-grade students.” Carol McCloud’s books, which began with Have You Filled a Bucket Today? (2006), have sold nearly three million copies in English.