Roots of Empathy. Mary Gordon
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 they get caught up in the baby’s energetic reactions to familiar tunes.
The activities that are threaded through the program can be used in many ways, and often, long after the instructor is gone, teachers extend the Roots of Empathy learning experiences into regular classroom plans.
This program is given to the classroom teacher as a gift. The instructor who brings the program into the classroom is also often a gift—of agencies in the community of the school. These agencies fund the instructional time of the instructors, who are frequently on the staff of the agencies. The extensive training and mentoring provided to instructors by the Roots of Empathy organization is considered by the agencies to be valuable professional development. Classroom teachers have an opportunity to be with their students and observe them in a completely different light during the Roots of Empathy classes. Teachers comment on the emotional development of their students over the course of the year, in particular the kindness they witness, which had not been in evidence before. Many teachers tell us this is their most enjoyable time with the students and that the program positively changes the tone of the classroom.
The students witness the baby grow up in front of their eyes. They become solicitous of this baby and become advocates for all babies. They become part of an authentic dialogue with the Roots of Empathy parent and get insight into the joys and worries of being a parent. In the visits where the family is not present, students explore the connection between the baby’s development and their own development; the connections between the baby’s feelings and their own feelings. For example, when the baby struggles to sit up without support, and consistently falls over, the children discuss their frustration in baseball games as they try to hit the ball and can’t get the bat to connect fast enough. The shared experience of seeing the baby struggle also allows the instructor to draw the analogy with the frustration the children feel when their schoolwork does not come easily. The discussion held in the class room brings out into the open the negative feelings many children experience silently. The children develop strategies for helping one another, and give themselves permission to struggle openly, and to feel safe and not vulnerable when asking for help. At the end of the school year, as the school plans classes for the following September, teachers are keen to get students who have had our program because they cooperate and help one another. This anecdotal evidence of an increase in cooperation has been strongly borne out by research on the Roots of Empathy program.
The baby becomes a laboratory for human development—the development of a whole person, physical, social, emotional, intellectual, moral and spiritual. Students are coached in learning how to reflect. Every child is encouraged to speak out in the group, to find their voice, and to anchor the feeling of being a contributing member of a group in which there are no wrong