Roots of Empathy. Mary Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ children emotional literacy and developing their capacity to take the perspective of others are key steps towards collaboration and civility; they are indispensable steps towards preventing aggressive and bullying behaviours. This is borne out by the research that has been conducted on the effectiveness of the Roots of Empathy program. When children learn to draw the curtain on cruelty, they will not condone classmates bullying o t hers. It is remarkable to see children standing up courageously to a bully. There are no onlookers or bystanders in the program, as children realize they have a responsibility to one another because they understand what it feels like to be frightened or humiliated or even physically hurt. As children develop empathy it seems to come ready-made with courage and imagination. Children understand marginalization and issues of social justice in a clear and uncluttered way.

      At one school I visited, ten-year-old Jessie was lining up with the rest of her classmates to go out for lunch when one of the boys grabbed a hat right off the head of another boy. It’s the kind of behaviour that is repeated every day, in every school, in every community. As adults, we often ignore it or simply sigh with exasperation. But the truth is, it has the effect of making the other child feel helpless and making him a target for ridicule.

      If you have empathy, you understand how that victim feels. In the midst of a crowd of onlookers, he has to either work up the courage to retrieve the hat or ignore the taunting boy, and carry the humiliation and loss of dignity silently into the playground. Jessie stepped out of the line-up and confronted the young fellow who took the hat and said, calmly but firmly, “Give him back his hat.” The boy looked around the line-up, weighing the reactions of the others. What he saw, I imagine, was that others in the group empathized with his victim; it could just as easily have been them. Finally he said, “Oh, take your stupid hat,” and gave it back. Not the most gracious response, perhaps, but a moral victory had been won. Jessie had acted on her feeling of empathy and the human right of that child not to be humiliated. Every child in the class had been given a new promise—that these small acts of cruelty would not be tolerated, and that they would find support if they, too, were victims. An incident like this prompts us to see that sometimes the bravest advocates wear size three sneakers.

      The seeding of citizenship in the classroom is aimed at creating a level of civility in the community and building the foundation for breaking intergenerational cycles of indifference and apathy. They may be students in the classroom but they are the parents, policymakers and electorate of the future. Roots of Empathy creates the conditions for good citizenship to grow in much the same way that farmers who are not responsible for manufacturing crops are responsible for creating the conditions under which crops can thrive. The interactive, emotionally validating conditions of the Roots of Empathy classroom create the safe backdrop for children to become all that they might be.

      There is an unexpected magnificence in our children and an underestimated power in their ability to change our world for the better. It is through our children that we can go beyond the frontiers of science and technology to explore the recesses of the human heart. We have managed to harness the power of the wind, the sun and the water, but have yet to appreciate the power of our children to effect social change.

      A major cause of many of the conflicts in the world is our intolerance of difference. On the world stage, differences provide the justification for genocide and war, or failure to respond in times of disaster and disease. Over the ages, differences in religion, nationality, race, culture or language have been the cause for condoned slaughter. On the playground, differences become a target for bullies, for in the difference lies the vulnerability. Bullies capitalize on differences in their victims, whether it is that the child is shorter, fatter, less popular or less athletic. The current epidemic of bullying across schools and communities in North America is on the radar screen of parents, educators, children’s mental health workers and the justice system.

      Roots of Empathy is a pedagogy of hope, because in our children we have an opportunity to create a new order where our differences can be acknowledged and respected but our similarities will be our uniting force. The program coaches children to build a caring classroom as they become able to see their shared humanity—the idea that “what hurts my feelings is likely to hurt your feelings.” The program is based on the idea that if we are able to take the perspective of the Other we will notice and appreciate our commonalities and we will be less likely to allow differences to cause us to marginalize, hate or hurt each other.

       The Roots of Empathy Year

      When Tomas, whom you met at the beginning of this chapter, visited the classroom, his visit was just one of twenty-seven sessions that make up our program. There are nine themes and each theme revolves around three classroom visits each month led by a trained and certified instructor. The centrepiece of each theme is a visit from the Roots of Empathy family. This visit is preceded by a preparation session with the instructor, and is followed by another class to discuss the visit and work on activities that reinforce what the children are learning in each theme.

      Our curriculum is specialized for four different age groups: kindergarten, Grades 1 to 3, Grades 4 to 6, and Grades 7 to 8. For example, five-year-olds will learn the language of their feelings and be given many opportunities to be involved in physical activities. This part of the program respects the five-year-olds’ need to be actively engaged and to speak about their own experiences. Ten-year-olds also learn the language of their feelings, but in addition they learn about the contagion of feelings, and the confusion of having many feelings at the same time. Ten-year-olds revel in understanding the mystery of competing emotions, but five-year-olds would not be able to understand the concepts.

      The visits with the baby are naturally greeted with high levels of enthusiasm by the students;¹ however, the rich content of the pre-and post-family-visit classes engages students in discussions and activities related to themes such as emotions, safety and communicating. In the pre-family-visit class the instructor introduces the theme, links it to the stages of baby’s development and elicits from the children predictions about what their particular baby will be able to do when she comes to visit. After the visit, the students consolidate what they have learned. This includes group discussions, art work, drama, journal writing or perhaps a math exercise. In a pre-visit session, for example, the students might practise ways to hold a baby, using a lifelike doll. In a post-visit session, they might discuss their own experiences with childhood fears or their memories of favourite lullabies. The program draws out the generosity of children as the activities in the curriculum invite them to use art, music, drama and song as vehicles for presenting the baby and parent with classroom gifts.

      The Roots of Empathy curriculum aligns with the regular school curriculum in many areas of learning. The work the instructor does with the students, particularly in the sessions held before and after the baby visit, touches on social studies, art, science and mathematics. Perhaps the strongest curriculum link of all is the way the program reinforces the school’s literacy goals through the many discussions and writing assignments built into each session. The instructor uses well-known children’s literature to illustrate emotions such as loneliness and sadness and to underscore themes such as inclusion and bullying. And, without fail, the stories stimulate perspective-taking and open a floodgate to rich discussion and enhanced understanding. During many of the pre-and post-visit sessions, the instructors read aloud the books that have been chosen to prompt deeper discussion around the theme for the month. In some instances, picture books are used even with Grade 7 and 8 students. With students of this age, the focus is on coaching them to take the perspective of the younger children in the stories; instructors are trained to use the theme and drama of the books as jumping-off points for older children to explore the issues that concern them.

      Music is an important element, too. The children sing welcome songs and good-bye songs at the beginning and ending of each visit, and take part in action songs (such as “Itsy Bitsy Spider” or “This Little Piggy”) as they interact with the baby. Even for older children, any self-consciousness they initially feel about singing a nursery song soon falls away as СКАЧАТЬ