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Empathy and: Animals, Education, Learning, Teaching, Work, Health Care, Justice, etc
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Please do suggest web and article links for this topic of how to teach empathy and compassion in the education system.
At a young age, Amit’s speech impediment made him acutely aware of the harm of bullying. My Name, My Story is a movement that Amit started, through school clubs and leaders, stories of inspiration, and live events, to spread the meaning of empathy. Amit feels that the key is to have youth show other youth the support systems they have available. The movement’s motto is “Hope, Believe, Succeed, and Inspire” and so far, 120 stories have been shared, 20 school clubs have been created, and 200 youth have volunteered to help lead the movement. As Amit says, “In the fearing society we live in today, the lack of empathy is the root of all evil. My Name, My Story has a simple plan to inspire empathy within the community.”
The common denominator of all types of bullying is a lack, or erosion, of empathy. Nurturing empathy, a potential that is present in almost all children, is therefore at the heart of interventions to reduce bullying. (Bazelon’s book is itself a model of empathy - not only for victims and their families, but also for the families of bullies, for kids who are wrongly accused, and for educators struggling to do the right thing, even when their responses are ineffective.) In the end, Bazelon raises a larger question: What can we do, asparents, to nurture qualities of empathy and kindness in our children? How can we reduce the risk that they will get caught up in hurtful teen-age drama? How can we help them become “upstanders,” not bystanders, to meanness and cruelty? by Kenneth Barish, Ph.D.
May 10-12, 2013 – Cultivating Compassion in Daily Life. In this 4 session seminar we will explore the benefits and cultivate the tools of of practicing compassion. Compassion is not the feeling of sadness for others, it is in desire to remove suffering. The practice of compassion is an active one – actively removing suffering in oneself and the world.
She created the classroom initiative Roots of Empathy in Toronto in 1996. It is now taught around the world There is a story Mary Gordon tells about Roots of Empathy, the education program she created that brings infants into classrooms to teach schoolchildren the basic value of fellow-feeling. It involves a teenager named Darren, a boy who had survived a violent childhood and numerous foster homes. At 14, he was still in Grade 8, the only kid in his class with the beginnings of a beard. As with all Roots of Empathy classes (the program began in Toronto in 1996 and has spread around the world), a mother brought her infant to meet the students over the course of a year, so that they can use the baby to identify and understand emotions.
Teachers, parents and others underestimate the true pain felt by victims of bullying. Unless they've experienced it firsthand, people underestimate the social pain endured by victims of bullying, a new study finds. This so-called "empathy gap" can be devastating, the researchers say, because it means victims often don't get the support they need. For instance, a teacher who doesn't truly "get" thesuffering involved in being teased or excluded would be less likely to punish the perpetrator or give support to the victim. Jeanna Bryner
In my work as a systems change specialist in schools and other learning communities, here are the practices I encourage instructional leaders to promote: 1. Teach listening as a core skill and expect it as a cultural practice.Start by being an active listener yourself and give people the time they need to reflect. Time not made for someone is time wasted. 2. Make dialogue a primary team, group or classroom practice. Dialogue opens the doors to exploration—what Peter Senge in his guide “The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook” calls “skillful discussion,” where thoughtful decisions can be made that honor all participants (or, in business, stakeholders). 3.Identify roles, not organizational charts. When people are able to articulate their role, what they need to be successful and what gets in the way of their success, an empathic understanding is present and the beginnings of a healthy team, class or group takes shape. 4. Lead with consistency, authenticity and honesty. Be clear as to why you are doing what you are doing. Do not lead or manage through personality but rather through articulation. To articulate is to clarify. by David A. Levine, the director of the School of Belonging Training Institute at Creative Response to Conflict (CRC)
Via Edwin Rutsch
How teachers are key in helping us understand bullying. Daniel Favre is a teacher, teacher trainer and professor in both neuroscience and education. His work studies the process of youth violence. It also shows how supporting teachers in cultivating empathy can break the cycle of youth violence and improve maths results. His 50-hour programme trains educators to minimise students' fear of learning and dogmatic perceptions. Regardless of their subject, teachers learn six different skills: to clearly distinguish error and fault when giving feedback to students, encourage emotional literacy, facilitate team work, emphasize our common humanity, establish a non-violent mode of authority, and strong personal listening skills and empathy. “Empathy”, says Favre, “is central to the whole programme, and our research shows that through training, most teachers' behaviour changes, and young people copy this change. Over a period of two years their empathy increases and their results in maths too.” By Vinciane Rycroft
A recent study by Northeastern University’s David DeSteno, published in Psychological Science, takes a look at what impacts meditation has on interpersonal harmony and compassion. Several religious traditions have suggested that mediation does just that, but there has been no scientific proof—until now. In this study, a team of researchers from Northeastern University and Harvard University examined the effects meditation would have on compassion and virtuous behavior, and the results were fascinating.
When we see someone else, our child or a friend, suffering from abroken heart, we know exactly what to do for them. We know that compassion, patience and understanding is what our loved one needs from us during the dark days following a relationship breakup. As she is in the throes of despair and grief, we are seeing the situation from the outside and know that that simple understanding and kindness is the best medicine medicine we can offer.
by PHILLIP HERMAN o
"The 20 or so kindergartners are already well acquainted with Claire, a seven-month-old infant who visits the classroom regularly as part of the social and emotional learning program Roots of Empathy. Roots of Empathy, first started in 1996 in Toronto and introduced into U.S. schools in 2007, aims to build more peaceful and caring societies by increasing the level of empathy in children. In the last six years, the program has spread to California, New York and other parts of Washington." Also see my extended interview with Roors of Empathy founder: Mary Gordon http://j.mp/LDeQli
Via Edwin Rutsch
Oakland schools have launched programs to help students manage their emotions, establish positive relationships and resolve conflicts. One of the programs, Roots of Empathy, brings infants and their mothers into school to help students recognize emotions and experience empathy. We discuss the social and emotional learning movement, which aims to teach fundamental life skills in schools, and how it's being used in Oakland.
Midwest Center for Information Technology
ICT Educator Conference Program
Improving ICT Education with Empathy and Perspective
Carol Engler, Ashland University, Columbus,OH
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MNMS, Creating Empathy in Schools
The purpose of a My Name My Story (MNMS) School Club is to create a student run Social Leadership Organization that involves students, faculty and the community in the spirit of “inspiring the next generation of leaders” and all actions of the club, must be aligned with the philosophy of “Hope – Believe – Succeed – Inspire.”
The goal is simple and clear: to increase Unity, Tolerance and Empathy in the student body and community, while developing leadership skills.
This video focuses on Amit Dodani, founder of MNMS, talking at school events.
Dr. Anita Nowak, Director of the Social Economy Initiative, McGill University
About Us The CompassionLab is a group of organizational researchers who strive to create a new vision of organizations as sites for the development and expression of compassion. Our focus is on the expression of compassion in work and in the workplace, including emphasis on roles, routines, practices, relationships, teams, and structures that impact the experience of compassion in organizations. We are part of a broader community of scholars who are dedicated to developing a perspective on organizations as sites for human growth and the development of human strengths. We do high quality work on compassion in a generative setting, where we can’t wait to see what comes next. Our Principles We attempt to live in alignment with what we study, and our research has an inner life as well as an outer life.We transform ourselves and our professional practice through the stories that we tell.We represent organizations as vibrant and alive, and paint them in their full palette of colors.We create a context in which all of our research participants can benefit from their engagement in our work
Twenty-five kids sit in a large circle on bright red pillows on a Tuesday morning in Jonah Klein’s fifth grade class. They have a visitor this morning—a “teacher” wearing a tiny white t-shirt with the Roots of Empathy insignia on it. This teacher can’t talk yet; but he communicates curiosity and persistence as he scoots around the bright green blanket in the center of the circle, chasing a plastic ball. The students all focus intently on him, encouraging him and laughing in delight when he finally reaches the ball.
The tiny teacher is Jeremy Kao, 9-month-old son of Berkeley parents, Eliza Khuner (Class of ’92) and Harry Kao. Eliza and Jeremy have been visiting Jonah’s class once a month since September to help teach students about individual temperament and the importance of empathy in healthy child development. By observing Jeremy and his interactions with Eliza, the fifth graders have been learning how babies communicate feelings and needs to their parents, and how important parent empathy is in caring for a baby. At the same time, the students are learning about how empathy plays a role in their own social lives, helping them to negotiate early adolescence and middle school.
Jill Suttie
The common denominator of all types of bullying is a lack, or erosion, of empathy. Nurturing empathy, a potential that is present in almost all children, is therefore at the heart of interventions to prevent bullying. In the end, Bazelon raises a larger question: What can we do, as parents, to nurture qualities of empathy and kindness in our children? How can we reduce the risk that our children will get caught up in hurtful teenage drama? How can we help them become "upstanders," not bystanders, to meanness and cruelty?... Here is what I believe is most essential: Empathy begets empathy. As parents, we need to set aside time to listen patiently and empathically to our children and to repair moments of anger and misunderstanding. When we listen with empathy, when children know that their concerns and their grievances will be heard, we open a pathway toward emotional maturity. In these moments, children become less absorbed in defiant thoughts and argument, more open to compromise, and more caring toward others. Listening with empathy, however, is not always easy and should not be confused with permissiveness or indulgence... Kenneth Barish, Ph.D.Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology at Weill Medical College, Cornell University Culture of Empathy Builder Page: Kenneth Barish
http://j.mp/YnhHvz ;
"Over the last several months, those of us at Start Empathy – along with a core group of Ashoka Fellows, leading educators and partners – have worked to identify, distill, and categorize dozens of promising empathy building insights and activities. In short, we’ve been asking people: “What works?”
What we’ve received ranges from simple tips to group problem solving exercises to teacher training guides, and they all help advance our central goal: unleashing empathy as both an input and output of our education system.
Now we’ve compiled them into our “here’s stuff that works” guide, which we’re calling the Empathy Road Map. It’s by no means a comprehensive picture but rather a strong first step. It’s meant to be a living document – one that our community helps us enhance and refine over time." By Start Empathy
Sue Gerhardt provides a follow-up to the 60 Minutes "Born Good?" program, looking at the challenges in being empathetic outside of familiar social interaction. Born Good? challenged the dominant cultural idea that we are born selfish and individualistic. But although it established that we are an innately social and co-operative species, it also hinted at our limitations. In another experiment shown in the programme, young children were clearly not interested in helping unknown (and unseen) strangers. Extending helpfulness to those beyond our in-group probably doesn’t come so naturally. So perhaps this alerts us to the need to actively promote empathy, with programmes such as Mary Gordon’s Roots of Empathy in schools (now spreading here to the UK).
Can empathy be taught? Is it “natural” in humans? Recent research shows that educators are looking for pedagogical strategies for increasing empathy and compassion in students. Young people are in a particularly ripe developmental stage to develop compassion. “Empathy requires something called Theory of Mind,” educator Lara Mattox, Ph.D. says. “It is a concept that is developing in children ages 3 to 5 and entails being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes….Fortunately that’s not to say that those born with less natural empathy are doomed to have less all their lives. Empathy can be taught.” Proving that anyone can grow into an empathetic person, the Open Colleges wrote recently, “as we get more educated, we tend to show more compassion towards others,” and backed up their claim from research on the volunteerism in adult students worldwide.
With the passage of health-care reform, President Obama has turned his attention to reforming education in America. In his State of the Union Message, he called for a significant increase in support for his "Educate to Innovate" campaign, which puts renewed emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to ensure "our nation's economic competitiveness." The goal, according to the White House, is to equip every student with the knowledge that he or she needs to become a productive worker in the global economy. Maybe it's time to ask the question of whether simply becoming economically productive ought to be the primary mission of American education. Shouldn't we place at least equal attention on developing students' innate empathic drives, so that we can prepare the next generation to think and act as part of a global family in a shared biosphere?
Friday, I’m leading a design thinking in education workshop for teachers and community members in Burlington and Winooski, organized by the Partnership for Change. A growing number of educators are realizing that the skill sets core to design thinking — an innovative and human-centered approach to solving tough problems — are in fact just the sort of skills needed to prepare our kids for success in a changing 21st century world. After spending many years in innovation consulting at IDEO and learning and lecturing at Stanford University’s design program, design thinking has become a way of life for me. It is founded on two core principles — care deeply about the people you are designing for (empathy) and try out your ideas long before you think they’re ready (prototyping).
The Seeds of Empathy 3 minute promotional video was produced in partnership with Dowse Marketing + Design and Systematic Design Inc. The Seeds of Empathy program was created in 2005 and was designed for children 3 to 5 years of age attending early learning centres.' The program fosters social and emotional competence and early literacy skills in young children and provides professional development for Early Childhood Educators. The two key components of Seeds of Empathy are: learning to read and learning to relate.
Andy Haner accompanies his wife Layla and eight-month-old daughter Emory to a third grade class once each month as part of Roots of Empathy. The non-profit program teaches children about emotions and feelings through by following the growth and development of infants. While mostly mothers bring their babies to the schools, Andy is one of the few fathers to do so and explains why.
An award-winning teacher shares why and how to cultivate empathy. Pearson builds off this strong foundation to infuse empathy as part of the culture in her classroom. For example, she plans her literacy and classroom activities to address empathy and life skills. Pearson’s class also participates in Roots of Empathy. However, according to Pearson, the many small but deliberate actions she takes to show students they're cared for are perhaps the most important parts of her success. As Pearson told Start
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