Cultivating Compassionate Classrooms

08/26/2020

Cultivating Compassionate Classrooms

Human resources are like natural resources; they’re often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they’re not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.
Sir Ken Robinson 1950 - 2020

Wendy Hinrichs, in an article that forms the basis of an Out of the Box Training Kit, provides the following examples, shared by early childhood educators, of ways children demonstrate compassion:

“Two four-year-olds were playing Pizza Restaurant in the dramatic play area. One child was tripping over the untied strings on his apron. Another girl tied the apron strings for him, saying, ‘There you go.’ — Theresa Rios

A child I was observing was sitting by another child whose head was hanging. 'My child' put her arm around the child and said, ‘Qué pasa?’ (‘What is wrong?’) — Allison Pike

Freddie offered his own special toy to another child who was showing distress. — Julia Urias”

The author asks us all this important question: “Do we make the most of these opportunities to facilitate compassion?”

Perhaps now even more than when this article was written, children need us to notice and nurture their inborn inclinations to respond to others with compassion.

Gryphon House - Building on Emergent Curriculum.

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