Rick
is a nationally recognized educator and speaker with 45 years of
experience working in and for schools. With a master’s in education from
Harvard University, Rick has devoted his career to building thriving
learning communities. Author, "The Genius in Children: Bringing out the best in
your child"
How to build culture of empathy?
'Children have empathy; the best way to educate it is to utilize it.
All good educators know empathy is one of their greatest
abilities, and the origin of some of their greatest passions. Their
brains are designed to know how others feel. They are wired with mirror
neurons; when someone else is hurt, they feel it. By eighteen months
they know that another person might want something different from what
they want, and are inclined to give them what they want, rather than
what they would choose for themselves.' Sub Conference: Education
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How can we build a culture of empathy/compassion?
The first move is to understand that children have empathy. They are designed by nature to map the realities of their environment
onto their brains—with especial sensitivity to the realities of their
social environment.
There have been experiments that show that children naturally want be
help—they want to be of value. You can get 2 to 4 year olds to do the
dishes if you play your cards right. They notice what adults say, and
they notice what they do and try to make sense of it. They are equipped
with mirror neurons so that they literally feel what others feel. So the
question is not how do we get them to feel what others feel, but what is
it that we want them to do with their empathy
create a culture of empathy!!!! If we want them to behave compassionately, it is best that they detect
that compassion is what others feel and that the game everyone is
playing is a compassionate game. In my home, for instance, everything
literally was a game. We played games with winners and losers. In that
environment, my empathy taught me that the feeling of winning was the
feeling everyone wanted and therefore, it is what I wanted.
In my schools the strategy was as follows:
Make the environment a safe place to be yourself. That meant
minimizing all measuring up factors. Making diversity one of the highest
values=--at the core of diversity is the concept of uniqueness—you are
supposed to be yourself—your own weird, unique, imperfect self.
Social problem solving was understood to be problem solving. In
Mary Gordon’s video where she talks building the teaching empathy into
the curriculum she says something very telling: she says: “This makes
the teachers happy because they see that their agenda is being addressed
while we teach the counter agenda of care.” Counter agenda!!! That is
the core of the problem. In our culture the agenda is measuring up to
standards, getting right answers, minimizing wrong answers, etc. The
social-emotional agenda is counter-cultural. As long as that is the
perception—it will stay counter cultural. I took schools that were in
trouble, and revived them by making the social-emotional agenda THE
agenda, for that was the context for doing whatever else needed to be
done (writing papers, preparing for tests, etc.)
Treat children as if they ARE empathetic naturally
and need
guidance—just as we all do—in negotiating particular conflicts or social
situations. How to treat other people is not a matter of formula, but
practice, practice, practice for all of us.
Helen was playing in the sandbox
in the park, when a brawl between a brother and sister broke out
near her. Helen looked up from her work to see them arguing over a
shovel, knocking each other to the ground. She watched intently for
a while then calmly looked around, found two more shovels, and
walked over to them. She handed one to the brother and the other to
his sister. The fighting stopped, the girl handed Helen the shovel
they had been fighting over, and they all went back to playing
happily in the sandbox.
APRIL 10, 2012 - Parents and Teachers Building Empathy in Children
"Children have empathy; the best way to educate it is to utilize it. As
Beth and all other good educators know, empathy is one of their greatest
abilities, and the origin of some of their greatest passions. Their
brains are designed to know how others feel. They are wired with mirror
neurons; when someone else is hurt, they feel it. By eighteen months
they know that another person might want something different from what
they want, and are inclined to give them what they want, rather than
what they would choose for themselves."
April 18, 2012 -
To Educate Empathy, Educate Imagination
"Allan’s vignettes are indeed about building empathy because they are
about building imagination. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes
requires imagination. Others are not thinking and feeling the way you
are thinking and feeling; they are thinking and feeling the way they are
thinking and feeling. That requires imagination—a lot of it."