Child advocacy in my passion as well as my avocation. How do we make a difference? Certainly by being teachers. As we know, there are those students whose only warmth in their day comes from you while in your classroom. How can we dig deeper to provide and effect real change? Here's one program that is making a difference, "one child at a time".
Seattle launched a program called "Roots of Empathy" to help teach children in ten public schools empathy in January of this year. I wonder how it is working? Does anyone know?
We can see a short video about their program here:
Roots of Empathy Video
One of our challenges as teachers comes about as parents become increasingly less involved in teaching these basic skills to their children. Some want to blame parents for this change, but we really need to take a second look. Most parents are forced to work more and more hours away from home in order to support their families.
Here's what one teacher with the Roots of Empathy in the classroom has to say about the program:
"My favourite moment was when our baby stared at my smallest fourth grade student for the whole class. This boy has several learning/behavioural issues, but with our baby's eyes on him, he fell in love. You could see the walls soften, and the self-esteem (hey, the baby likes ME! Nobody usually likes me!) shoot upward."
[quotes from Roots of Empathy website found at http://www.parentmap.com/content/view/875 ]
If you're looking for reasons to implement a program like this consider another great bit of information from this same site which tells us:
"They found that fully 50 percent of academic success is dependent on social and emotional literacy; the other 50 percent on traditional intelligence. Simply put: Raise your kid’s social and emotional competence, and you raise his test scores."
[quotes from Roots of Empathy website found at http://www.parentmap.com/content/view/875 ]
Consider reading Mary Gordon's book: The Roots of Empathy, Changing One Child at a Time found here on Amazon. This is a great Canadian site, "The Changemakers" about this program, which originated in Canada. We can all learn from this model. I hope you'll consider a social justice program modeled after this program in your classroom. Imagine what it might serve - to help students with emotional behavior disorders for example!
Here's what others have to say about this book, this program:
"...a comprehensive guide to fostering empathy and thus social responsibility among children and adults." (Quill and Quire )
"This brilliant program belongs in every classroom in every school in every country of the world, forever. There's no better way to teach empathy--the essential human trait." (Raffi Cavoukian, Singer, Author, Ecology Advocate ) [quotes, book, as found on Amazon ]
I hope you will join me in exploring this program, keeping tabs on the results, and making a positive difference in the lives of many children in the years to come.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"Be engaged. Be involved in what goes on around you. Be present in your own life. Find something you believe in passionately and get involved in it. Get outraged. Take a stand." ~ Tom Wales
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~ Anne Frank
"The best exercise for the heart is to reach down and lift someone else up." ~ Tim Russert
