“Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes
We have embarked on the adventure of empathy in the education of our society through a child’s compassion…commonly known in Canada as the organization Roots of Empathy. For anybody that knows me, you would find that I am a self-described optimist. I love human evolution, adore the concept that we can aspire to something greater and have ultimate faith that it will eventually happen. So partnering with Roots of Empathy seemed a natural fit for our families life.
So far we have been matched and introduced to our class and discussed their predictions for a 5 month old infant. We have started charting many things such as weight, length, emotional and physical development and observed behaviors. We have a full school-year to go with this teaching exercise, one that encourages understanding and empathy and I’m sure will teach us just as much as it does the children! This program only exists in Washington state so far but hopefully it will spread to all the rest of America’s children so we can help counteract all the bullying and increasingly alarming behaviors of older children, adults and society in general.
We try to walk our talk as best we can. Fortunately Roots of Empathy allows us another avenue of social participation (and maybe evolution) just by being us!
