Roots of Empathy. Mary Gordon
have an impact on their own well-being and security. They will learn how an understanding of temperament and gaining insights into their own emotions and those of others leads to empathy and builds rich human relationships.
Sowing Seeds of Empathy
Darren was the oldest child I ever saw in a Roots of Empathy class. He was in Grade 8 and had been held back twice. He was two years older than everyone else and already starting to grow a beard. I knew his story: his mother had been murdered in front of his eyes when he was four years old, and he had lived in a succession of foster homes ever since. Darren looked menacing because he wanted us to know he was tough: his head was shaved except for a ponytail at the top and he had a tattoo on the back of his head.
The instructor of the Roots of Empathy program was explaining to the class about differences in temperament that day. She invited the young mother who was visiting the class with Evan, her six-month-old baby, to share her thoughts about her baby’s temperament. Joining in the discussion, the mother told the class how Evan liked to face outwards when he was in the Snugli and didn’t want to cuddle into her, and how she would have preferred to have a more cuddly baby. As the class ended, the mother asked if anyone wanted to try on the Snugli, which was green and trimmed with pink brocade. To everyone’s surprise, Darren offered to try it, and as the other students scrambled to get ready for lunch, he strapped it on. Then he asked if he could put Evan in. The mother was a little apprehensive, but she handed him the baby, and he put Evan in, facing towards his chest. That wise little baby snuggled right in, and Darren took him into a quiet corner and rocked back and forth with the baby in his arms for several minutes. Finally, he came back to where the mother and the Roots of Empathy instructor were waiting and he asked: “If nobody has ever loved you, do you think you could still be a good father?”
A seed has been sown here. This boy, who has seen things no child should see, whose young life has been marked by abandonment, who has struggled to the age of fourteen with scarcely a memory of love, has seen a glimmer of hope. Through these moments of contact with the uncritical affection of the baby, an adolescent boy has caught an image of himself as a parent that runs counter to his loveless childhood. The baby may have changed the trajectory of this youth’s future by allowing him to see the humanity in himself. For eight years now I have seen the lights go on for children in Roots of Emathy classes as we give them a working model of loving and responsive parenting and an opportunity to interact with an infant in the first year of life.
Roots of Empathy is a program for school-aged children that involves them, right in their own classrooms, in the human dynamic of the parent–baby relationship. It is a program that has the capacity to instill in our children a concept of themselves as strong and caring individuals, to give them an understanding of empathic parenting and to inspire in them a vision of citizenship that can change the world. The program puts relationships at the centre of what creates a civil society, whether that society is a small classroom, the whole school, the community, the country or our ever-shrinking globe. The relationship story is made real for children as they connect with a baby and parent who are regular visitors to their classroom during the first year of the baby’s life. The relationship between the parent and child is a template for positive, empathic human relationships. What the children learn here has universal and far-reaching implications: it shapes how they deal with each other today, and it lays a foundation for their future as parents and citizens.
The children involved in the program and the adults who support it invariably come to know what can only be described as the wisdom of the baby. The baby’s behaviour and the emotions she expresses are spontaneous and pure; they are not hidden behind layers of socialization and the biases we acquire as we grow up. To the baby every child in the class is a new experience and she is ready to engage with all of them. In her world view there are no popular children and no nasty children. What the baby does see, over and over again, are the children who are unhappy or troubled, and she usually reaches out to them. Children who have felt alienated or excluded are drawn into a circle of inclusion through the empathic contact made by the baby.
Roots of Empathy places babies in the role of teachers because babies love without borders or definition. Babies respond intuitively to love. They are blind to differences as defined by the world. It is only when young children learn from the adult world that some are more worthy than others, because of some perceived difference, that we see the unfolding of the intergenerational legacy of racism, classism and a host of other “isms.”
David was nine years old and had a form of autism. His parents shared with me that David had never been invited to a birthday party by any of his classmates until the year that Roots of Empathy came into his classroom. During this year he was invited to three birthday parties. Also in this year David’s feelings about himself and school took a 180-degree turn. No medicine ever affected his life as much as the inclusive response of his classmates. This changed behaviour comes from the children’s new understanding of the pain of exclusion and the importance of including someone who is different. This is the transformative power of the Roots of Empathy program.
Of all the literacies of childhood, emotional literacy is the most fundamental. Feelings define our similarity as humans. Our emotions are universal. The ability to find the humanity in one another will change the way that were late to one another. It can have a huge impact on the family, by interrupting patterns of child abuse and neglect that are so often repeated through parenting in the next generation. It can have an impact on policies that lead us into conflict or compromise. It can have an impact on our very identity as citizens of the world.
Teaching 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,