Learning Emotions – Empathy

Roots of Empathy is an educational program designed to help children develop empathy and recognize empathetic behaviors in themselves and others.

Roots of Empathy was established in 1996 by Mary Gordon – educator, speaker, author and parenting expert. Mary believes that empathy can be learned by contagion and that by teaching today's children about empathy, care and love, one is ensuring that the adults of tomorrow will live more peaceful and fulfilling lives.

Roots of Empathy
The Roots of Empathy educational program has spread to become active in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland. At the heart of the program are classroom visits by a parent and a baby. The children observe the interaction between the parent and the child and learn to discern between different emotions exhibited by the baby.

If a baby cries, the children are asked why it is crying and what is it trying to convey. "That is its way of talking," observes one child. The children watch the facial changes, the movement of its arms and legs and the noises the infant produces. "Now he sounds happy," another child says as the baby gurgles with evident pleasure.

One of the aims of the program is to teach children to be more self-aware and to better identify one's own emotions. If a child can learn to empathize with a baby, it will be far easier for them to empathize with another child or with their own emotions. "After the Roots of Empathy visited the classroom, there was far less bullying among the students," one of the teachers observes.

Learning Empathy to Enhance Emotional Literacy
Empathy can be introduced as part of any curriculum. It can enhance an arts class, an English language class, an acting class or a study of behavior and social interaction. Children who witness the facial expressions of a baby can then learn to mimic those expressions or identify the emotions of others from photographs, movie clips or from observing the behavior of other children.

According to Mary Gordon, "Empathy cannot be taught but it can be caught." She explains that watching the interaction between a parent and a baby teaches children about responsibility. Having been through the Roots of Empathy program, they are more likely to understand what it means to be a parent and to wait until they are ready to have children themselves.

The program also teaches the children about problem solving. When a baby cries, there is a need to respond and to find out what is bothering him or her. A parent will try to find out whether the baby is hungry, thirsty, too hot, too cold, or has it been startled, frightened, or does it need to be changed. All these considerations then cause the witnessing children to reflect about their own needs and the needs of others.

Empathy as a Community Concern
When a parent and a baby are introduced into a classroom as part of the Roots of Empathy program, they continue to visit the school throughout the nine months of the academic year. That way the children can follow the infant's progress and they adopt the child, often referring to him or her as "our baby." This helps build a community spirit among the pupils and teaches them about diversity, since often the visiting family will be from a different ethnic or religious background.

The Roots of Empathy program has already reached more than 325,000 children worldwide and the influence is spreading to more countries all the time. The organization has been recognized by the World Health Organization and Mary Gordon has been invited to share her parenting expertise in South Africa, where she was invited by the Nelson Mandela Children's Foundation.

Reference:

Gordon, Mary. Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child. The Experiment, LLC. New York

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