When you enter a classroom running a Roots of Empathy programme, you might find the teacher looks a little different to normal. Sure, he might be wearing an official T-shirt that reads “Teacher”, but he’s also as likely to be having a quick nap or looking for a snack. In this lesson, the teacher might be just a few months old, but don’t let the adorability factor fool you. This baby is here to help primary school students learn how to manage their own emotions, read physical cues and understand the concept of empathy, a characteristic that Roots of Empathy founder Mary Gordon believe is the functional key that can determine either a good life or a difficult life, for both the students themselves and those around them. “As children develop empathy, they become more adept at finding the humanity in one another. Without empathy, we can’t get to conflict resolution, altruism, or peace,” she writes in her book Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child.
The charity, Roots of Empathy, launched in Mary’s native Canada in 1996, but its ties to New Zealand run deep: we were the first country outside Canada to pick up the programme, in 2006. Helen Clark, then prime minister, met with Mary and was a supporter of the programme from the beginning.
Mary’s message is that if you can teach children how to manage their own emotions, rather than fear them, they learn in turn how other people feel. And it’s harder to hurt people if you know that their hurt feels just the same as yours. The idea came from Mary’s work as a teacher, particularly with teenage mothers. Some of these young mums faced a litany of issues: addiction, domestic violence, incarceration, poverty. Mary created a network of Parenting and Family Literacy Centres in Toronto, which has now been adopted by the provincial government.
This story is from the February 2020 edition of Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
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This story is from the February 2020 edition of Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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