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Uploaded by Research Collaboration on 2016-06-20.

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Young Peace Leaders: Overview | PBS LearningMedia

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Discover the components of the Transformative Teaching Collection-videos on empathy, gratitude, forgiveness, and self-acceptance from The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values-that help students develop core values through art, writing, performing, and other activities.

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3 Videos on the Importance of Empathy | Edutopia

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These three videos on the importance of empathy will help inspire a conversation in the classroom and beyond.

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It could be said that all books teach kids to have compassion for others by helping them understand the lives of others who are different from themselves, which is why making this list of chapter books that teach empathy could include hundreds of books. However, I have grudgingly narrowed it down to eleven and I encourage you to leave your own recommendations in the comments.

These books are all considered middle grade novels, and in general are appropriate for ages 8 and up. However, I think 10 and up might be a better range for some of them. Not because the material is inappropriate, but because 10 year olds will probably get more out of the stories and see more correlation with their own lives as they prepare to enter the tween and teen years.

I chose a mixture of new and classic titles, but stuck to more contemporary stories, rather than delve into history. I've even included a novel in verse, an epistolary novel, and a graphic novel to spice things up. ( That list is coming soon!) There are links to more useful book lists at the bottom of the post. As always, you can find our index of over 100 book lists here.

(Note: all book covers and titles are affiliate links.)

Lost in the Sun. Since reading Absolutely Almost, ( on my list of 5th grade summer reading, but which would fit right in on this list) Lisa Graff has become one of my favorite middle grade authors. A freak accident earlier in the year has left Trent as the town pariah and he is struggling to figure out how to redeem himself, in his own eyes as well as in others. His new friendship with Fallon, a girl with a mysterious scar, acts as a catalyst for his willingness to make better decisions. Trent's relationship with his brothers, his father, step-mother and his mother are all artfully drawn and nuanced. Graff's ability to draw us into the lives of her characters is superior.

InWarp Speed we meet the same cast of characters that were introduced in the first of four companion novels, Millicent Min, Girl Genius (o n my list of books for 10 year olds), and all four are worth reading. I just finished this book about Marley, a self-described geek and loser. Marley is getting bullied at school, he lives in a run down old movie theater that his parents own and is a major Star Trek fan. When his AV teacher takes ill, he is transferred to a home economics class. Changes start to happen and Marley makes a few new friends, finds joy in running and figures out a way to stand up to the bullies. Marley's self-deprecating and humorous narration will make this book appealing to kids and Lee avoids pat and trite resolutions.

El Deafo is a graphic novel memoir narrated by Cece, who loses here hearing due to spinal meningitis. A very funny and charming book about the experiences, imaginings and wishes of a deaf girl ( actually everyone is a rabbit). Although the story will help hearing kids to see challenges of the deaf, they will also see similarities.
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It could be said that all books teach kids to have compassion for others by helping them understand the lives of others who are different from themselves, which is why making this list of chapter books that teach empathy could include hundreds of books.

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Mark Ruffalo and Murray talk about the word "Empathy". If you're watching videos with your preschooler and would like to do so in a safe, child-friendly environment, please join us at http://www.sesamestreet.org Sesame Street is a production of Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit educational organization which also produces Pinky Dinky Doo, The Electric Company, and other programs for children around the world.

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How Empathy Affects Learning, And How To Cultivate It In Your Students

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How Empathy Affects Learning, And How To Cultivate It In Your Students

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"The education system forces people to unlearn the empathy they were born with. It's a system based on always seeming strong, contributing to the economy, and being number one. Being number one is the rule of game, and how we relate to others is fundamentally dismissed." -Bernard Amadei, Ashoka Fellow and founder of Engineers Without Borders USA
More than two decades ago, scientists made a discovery that fundamentally altered the way we think about empathy. While observing monkeys, they noticed that certain brain cells responded both when a monkey performed an action and when that monkey watched another monkey perform the same action. The same cells can be found in the human brain. These cells, called mirror neurons, fire when we see something happening to someone else that we could imagine happening to ourselves, from stubbing a toe to winning the lottery.

The discovery of mirror neurons was a significant breakthrough because it revealed that our brains have evolved in a way that enables us to recognise and understand the emotions and intentions of others not just by thinking but actually feeling. It sent ripples through a number of scientific disciplines and challenged our understanding of everything from language and philosophy to psychotherapy-and certainly of empathy. Neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran has argued that these neurons allow us to learn complex social behaviors and has called them "the basis of civilization."

"If kids had four or more adverse childhood experiences, their odds of having learning or behavior problems in school was 32 times as high as kids who had no adverse childhood experiences."

Many species display empathy in some form, including rats, and chickens, and dogs, among others. But primates, and especially humans, have a more sophisticated capacity thanks to a more developed neocortex and a huge working memory. In fact, human beings are hard wired for empathy: it's part of what makes us deeply social animals, and distinct from other animals on the planet.

We now recognise empathy as the driving force behind much of human behavior, from social bonding and prenatal care to morality and human rights activism. Only recently, however, have we come to conceptualise empathy as a driving force for learning (and we're not talking emotional intelligence here).

In 2012, researchers at McGill University in Montreal found a direct connection between empathy and learning capacity. Studying parent-pup interactions among rats, they discovered that certain mother rats, called "dams," who, in their laboratory, tended to lick and groom their pups more, especially in stressful situations, reared pups with higher IQs. The rat pups that got a little T.L.C. from mom in their first few weeks in the lab were not only more confident and less fearful than the pups who did not, but they were also better at mazes.

So there you have it-people who receive empathy from others, especially from an early age, develop a higher capacity to learn. Part of the reason for this is that empathy is an especially effective antidote to stress. In humans, stress negatively affects learning and brain development in children, mostly affecting the prefrontal cortex which manages non-cognitive skills like self-control along with memory and reasoning. Poor children, who are at greater risk of adverse childhood experiences, are disproportionately affected.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who opened a clinic for poor minorities in Bayview-Hunters point in San Francisco, has studied the effects of stress on young minds.

"For our kids, if they had four or more adverse childhood experiences, their odds of having learning or behavior problems in school was 32 times as high as kids who had no adverse childhood experiences."

Empathy can help reduce the damaging effects of repeated stress in human children

The idea of a secure attachment relationship, a concept that's been around since the mid-20th century, comes into play here as well. Secure attachment in rat pups is built through grooming, but in humans it is provided by an adult (usually a parent) comforting a child during tough times.

Researchers say that in American, for example, about two-thirds of kids have a secure attachment, and one-third don't. The two-thirds with a secure attachment are more socially competent and confident through their lives. They're better at dealing with other people and making friends. They're better able to deal with setbacks. They're more likely to be engaged in their studies. They're more likely to graduate high school.

Empathy can help reduce the damaging effects of repeated stress in human children just like it did for the rat pups in the McGill University laboratory. This has huge implications for teacher education and training, and turns old notions of punishment and discipline on their head. And empathy isn't just something for youth, either.

It's a skill that can transform a community and build social capital, as we'll see below.

Does Empathy Really Improve Academic Performance?

The capacity to empathise is a revered trait in most societies across the world. Empathy is considered a motivating factor for unselfish, prosocial behavior, whereas a lack of empathy is related to antisocial behavior. But empathy isn't just about hugs and pats on the back. It is a skill that can make young people more productive in work environments that require cooperation, and in a global economy that becomes more complex with each passing day. It is what turns today's students into future leaders.

Here are just a few cognitive benefits associated with empathy:

1. Fosters insight into different perspectives and promotes genuine open-mindedness

2. Discourages hasty and superficial problem examination

3. Facilitates construction of more fully elaborated and frequently novel problem models

4. Discourages belief rigidity

5. Encourages cognitive and personal flexibility

6. Practices persistent probing, engaged examination of an issue in alternation with flexibility (Gallo)

As you can see, there's a strong link between empathy and critical thinking skills.

" Distributed and collaborative learning, with its emphasis on mindfulness, attunement to others, nonjudgmental interactions, acknowledgment of each person's unique contributions, and recognition of the importance of deep participation, can't help but foster critical thinking skills and greater empathic engagement," says Jeremy Rifkin, social theorist and author of The Empathic Civilization. "In that sense, collaborative learning transforms the classroom into a laboratory for empathic expression, which, in turn, enriches the educational process."

And there is hard evidence that this is the case. Empathy and academic outcomes research shows a remarkable correlation between students' empathetic understanding and their academic performance. For example, researchers (e.g. Bonner and Aspy) have identified significant correlations between student scores on measures of empathetic understanding and their grade point averages, and a review of research related to empathy training/instruction indicates that this instruction enhances both critical thinking skills and creative thinking (Gallo, 1989).

A particularly interesting study from 2013 found that empathy works the other way around, too, increasing as a result of academic advancement.

The study, "Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind," was carried out at New York's New School for Social Research, where researchers paid participants to read excerpts for only a few minutes before taking computerized empathy tests. Some read literary fiction. Some read bestsellers (selections by Rosamunde Pilcher, Robert Heinlein, and Gillian Flynn). Some read nonfiction, taken from Smithsonian Magazine. Some read nothing. This was accompanied by four other experiments.

According to the study, the results clearly show that "reading literary fiction temporarily enhances [Theory of Mind]. More broadly, they suggest that ToM may be influenced by engagement with works of art." And by Theory of Mind, all the researchers really mean is a sort of cognitive empathy: Theory of Mind, or "mind-blindness," is an inability to see things from any other perspective than one's own.

"Our contention is that literary fiction, which we consider to be both writerly and polyphonic, uniquely engages the psychological processes needed to gain access to characters' subjective experiences," the researchers write. "Readers of literary fiction must draw on more flexible interpretive resources to infer the feelings and thoughts of characters. That is, they must engage ToM processes. Contrary to literary fiction, popular fiction, which is more readerly, tends to portray the world and characters as internally consistent and predictable. Therefore, it may reaffirm readers' expectations and so not promote ToM."

In other words, by forcing you to think, empathise, and assume instead of handing you prototype characters whose actions and personalities can be squarely understood, literary fiction is "literally making you a more caring and emotionally intelligent person."

Perhaps even more telling than studies like these is the neuroscience that underlies empathy and learning.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which lies at the front of the brain, is responsible for the regulation of both emotional responses and decision-making. People with damage to this area tend to exhibit antisocial behavior, impaired moral judgment, and in some cases a reduced capacity for critical thinking and other learning mechanisms.

Although most of their intellectual ability is preserved, patients with bilateral lesions of the vmPFC develop severe impairments in personal and social decision-making. They have trouble choosing between options with uncertain outcomes, and have an impaired capacity to learn from their mistakes, making the same decisions again and again even though they lead to negative consequences. These patients choose alternatives that give immediate rewards, but seem to be blind to the future consequences of their actions.

Scientists have confirmed a direct link between empathy deficits and reduced capacity for Theory of Mind. Why is this important? Because Theory of Mind has been shown to enhance academic performance

Interestingly, damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex has also been connected to deficits in detecting irony, sarcasm, and deception. Subjects with damage in this area have been found to be more easily influenced by misleading advertising. This has been attributed to a disruption of a "false tagging mechanism" which provides doubt and skepticism of new beliefs (read: critical thinking skills).

Especially relevant to the discussion on empathy, people with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex are more likely to endorse self-serving actions that break moral rules or cause harm to others. This is especially true for patients whose damage occurred the earliest in life.

At the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, scientists have confirmed a direct link between empathy deficits and reduced capacity for Theory of Mind. In one study, seven of nine patients with damage to the right ventromedial cortex showed both impaired empathy and TOM. This was contrasted with patients who had damage to another part of the cortex (the dorsolateral), slightly less responsible for empathy regulation, and who showed no reduction in TOM capacity.

Why is this important? Because Theory of Mind has been shown to enhance academic performance, too. A 2013 study in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology tested a group of 49 kindergarten students and found that Theory of Mind correlated with accademic performance over the course of the school year. And this is nothing new-countless studies before this one have confirmed the same thing: Theory of Mind predicts learning gains.

It's not difficult to follow the path of logic from here. If empathy and Theory of Mind are inextricably interwoven on a neurological level, then empathy and learning must be too.

How to Cultivate Empathy for Learning

The challenge we all face isn't why but how to cultivate empathy in ourselves and others, so that we thrive as individuals, as a society, and as a planet. Thankfully, the science increasingly suggests that cognitive empathy in particular is a skill that can be learned and mastered, and we are gaining a better understanding of just how to do so.

1. Practice Role Playing.

One of the primary methods of empathy training is encouraging a student to take the role of another. The National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families defines empathy as "the ability to imagine how someone else is feeling in a particular situation and respond with care." Teachers act as important role models in showing their students how to empathise with people. Through their own actions and behaviors, educators can teach their students how to recognise, understand, and react to the feelings of others.

Facial recognition, emotion skits, memory match, and empathy charades are just a few examples of the many role-playing games you can try.

2. Focus on Non-Cognitive Skills.

Chicago has a social program called One Goal which works with about 1,300 high school kids in the city, helping them to develop non-cognitive skills and leadership principles. Kewauna Lerma, once an aggressive 15-year-old girl who was arrested for punching a police officer, was one of the students helped by One Goal's social-emotional learning program.

As a freshman in high school she had a GPA of 1.8. On her first practice ACT, she scored an 11, which put Kewauna in the bottom one percentile of everyone who took the test that year. By sophomore year, after she enrolled in One Goal, her GPA had jumped to 3.4. She graduated high school with a GPA of 4.1 and scored a 15 on her ACT and enrolled in Western Illinois University.

3. Promote Emotional Literacy.

One interesting example of this is the Roots of Empathy project, begun by Canadian educator Mary Gordon, which has been introduced into first through eighth grades across Canada. A mother and her baby visit the classroom once a month for a school year. Students are asked to closely watch their interaction, especially how they communicate and respond to each other. Over the course of the year, the children experience the baby and her mother as unique people with needs and desires for affiliation and affection not unlike their own.

They become attuned to reading the baby's feelings and develop an empathic relationship with the baby and the mother. Children come to learn about emotional literacy, which Gordon defines as "the ability to find our humanity in one another."

"Putting students into direct emotional contact with the parent-child attachment process and empathic bond creates 'citizens of the world,' children who are developing empathic ethics and a sense of social responsibility that takes the position that we all share the same lifeboat," Gordon argues. "These are the children who will build a more caring, peaceful and civil society, child by child."

Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia who has studied Roots since 2000, said it is particularly important to teach social-emotional skills with at-risk youths.

"The evidence is so clear that when you do it, it doesn't interfere with test scores, but it actually helps them do better in school," she said. "It builds resilience."

Governments have helped subsidise the program's expansion in other countries, too, including Scotland and New Zealand.

4. Create a Sense of Community.

The aim of a program called Responsive Classroom is to create a caring educational environment through various research-based techniques, including modeling, role playing, teacher reinforcement, reminders, and redirection. These techiques result in increased social skills, cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control.

Particular strategies, which emphasise both social and academic learning, include an area that displays of student work, as well as a mix of whole-class, small-group, and individual instruction; morning meetings in which students exercise social skills through greeting, conversing, and solving problems; student participation in the development and enforcement of class rules; choice time, during which students can direct their own learning in both individual and cooperative group activities; guided discovery in which students have the opportunity to explore various learning experiences; and frequent assessment and reporting to parents.

An evaluation (Elliott 1992) compared the performance of students in a program school like this one with those in two comparison schools. It indicated that the program produced gains in students' academic competence and social skills as determined by ratings of teachers, parents, and the students themselves in the fall and spring.

"The realization that we are an empathic species, that empathy has evolved over history, and that we are as interconnected in the biosphere as we are in the blogosphere, has profound implications for rethinking the mission of education," says Rifkin. "New teaching models designed to transform education from a competitive contest to a collaborative and empathic learning experience are emerging as schools and colleges try to reach a generation that has grown up on the Internet and is used to interacting in open social networks where information is shared rather than hoarded."

Empathy curricula now exist in over 20 states across Australia and the US. In many schools, empathy curricula start as early as first grade. What will you do to be part of the movement?

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Learning Strategies to Cultivate Empathy in Students - Open Colleges

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Discover the impact of empathy on learning and explore effective strategies to foster empathy in your students. Enhance their academic and social skills.

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College and Career Competency Sequence: Empathy

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College and Career Competency Sequence: Empathy

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CCC Questionnaire Technical Report: Empathy

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CCC Questionnaire Technical Report: Empathy

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Active Listening - Katie Owens at TEDxYouth@Conejo

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Active Listening - Katie Owens at TEDxYouth@Conejo

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Active Listening: Katie Owens at TEDxYouth@Conejo

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Five Ways to Teach Your Students Empathy

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Five Ways to Teach Your Students Empathy

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Guest post by Emily Liscom
As teachers, we strive to push each of our students to his/her full potential. We have the responsibility to educate each student academically, emotionally, and socially. In my classroom, the single most important thing I can teach my students is empathy. If my students are able to understand the thoughts, feelings, and needs of others, they will be able to interact in a selfless manner. This will also help them to avoid physical and unpleasant conflict.

Teaching students empathy can be extremely difficult, but it is very rewarding. When your students can practice empathy, it will benefit your instruction because your students will be in tune with the content you are teaching. It will also benefit your community, because your students will feel safe because they have the tools to solve conflicts.

1. Use Reading Standards that focus on character to teach empathy.
Most reading curriculums include at least one standard that focuses on character and that's where you can sneak in a few lessons on empathy. If you are teaching the CCSS, Anchor Standard Three specifically deals with character. As grade levels increase, that standard narrows its focus to a character and his or her actions in response to an event. Using this standard is the perfect opportunity to assist students in understanding how characters feel and react to different situations. This is a great way to teach empathy, especially for those teachers whom have a tight academic curriculum with little time to incorporate extra learning activities into their curriculum.

2. Allow your students to share their personal stories from the beginning of the school year.
This helps all students gain a better understanding of who they are personally and why they act as they do. The more students know about each other, the easier it is to understand their actions and/or emotions that may arise throughout the year. This will also help you to understand each of your students.

3. When there is a conflict, have a plan for solution driven conversations.
I have a go-to conversation stem for my students to use when they have a conflict. For example: "When you _________________ it makes me feel _________________. I don't like to feel _________________ because _________________. Next time, I would like you to _________________."

Because the conversation stem includes a part where the child can tell why they don't like to feel a certain way, it really lets students understand that particular emotion.

4. As a class, take the time to focus on one feeling at a time.
When you introduce one feeling at a time, your students will be able to identify and understand each emotion separately. For each feeling, I will create an anchor chart to guide our class discussion. To encourage participation and ownership, I will have each student write or draw a picture on a sticky for when they felt that way. I will have them put the sticky notes on their desks and then students will participate in a gallery walk around the room to observe pictures. Students then place their sticky notes on the anchor chart. After I finish the lesson, I always hang the anchor chart in a visible place.

5. Accept each student for who he or she is, as an individual.
Show love and compassion for your students, and they will learn to show it towards each other. Be patient and model respectful conversation and problem solving. Students will not learn this in a day. You are one of their most influential role models so use it to your advantage and know that each interaction you can model is helping build a community of caring students.

Emily Liscom is currently a first grade teacher. She is the author and owner of the website Education to the Core. She loves to share ideas and resources that are both effective and purposeful.

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Five Ways to Teach Your Students Empathy

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In my classroom, the single most important thing I can teach my students is empathy. If my students are able to understand the thoughts, feelings, and needs of others, they will be able to interact in a selfless manner. This will also help them to avoid physical and unpleasant conflict.

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ทรูมูฟ เอช " การให้ คือการสื่อสารที่ดีที่สุด " TrueMove H : Giving

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Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World

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Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World

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Michele Borba, author of Unselfie,
Topic: Why empathetic kids succeed in our all-about-me world.
Issues: The hidden advantage of empathy and why it matters for children; how to develop empathy; what empathetic kids do that non-empathetic kids don't; developing moral courage; becoming an empathetic leader

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-about-Me World

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Michele Borba, author of Unselfie, Topic: Why empathetic kids succeed in our all-about-me world.

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Empathy in the English Classroom: Broadening Perspectives Through Literature

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Empathy in the English Classroom: Broadening Perspectives Through Literature

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Return to Article Details Empathy in the English Classroom: Broadening Perspectives Through Literature

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The Recipe for Improving Social Skills Begins with Social Thinking

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The Recipe for Improving Social Skills Begins with Social Thinking

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If a 4 year old child has a tantrum in a classroom, we barely blink an eye. If a 10 year old child has the same tantrum; we are likely to call it a behavior problem.

If a 4 year old child calls the person they just met for the first time their "best friend", we think it's adorable. If a 10 year old child calls the person they just met their best friend, we think they have a social problem.

Parents of children with social learning challenges in mainstream education who have behavior and/or social problems are often told that their children need to learn better "social skills". In "social skills" treatment, the child often participates in behaviorally-based programs that focus on teaching specifically how to behave in different social situations at school, at home and in the community. For example, while in the doctor's waiting room: sit relatively still on a chair, keep yourself occupied with a quiet activity such as by reading a magazine, don't talk to the other patients beyond possibly greeting them, don't ask the receptionist personal questions... etc. But in reality, is the solution so simple as to teach the child a manual of how to behave in each situation?

When I was working as a speech language pathologist in a high school district in 1995 and most of the students on my caseload were those with "social skills problems", I had to re-think what I understood about teaching social skills. My students were worn out and frustrated after years of ineffective treatment. They told me that the "skills" that I, and many others before me, had taught were not helping them become more socially savvy in the real world.

They were right.

This dilemma led me to ponder fundamental questions: "what are social skills" and "what do we need to know to determine how to behave across different social contexts"? Without this knowledge, I felt ill equipped to teach my students the critical information they needed to learn in a manner that was acceptable to them.

Now, after working on these problems for the past 20 years, I wish I could have taught my old students what I know now.

"Social skills" are typically thought of as the behaviors a person demonstrates in a social context. Whether or not that set of behaviors is expected or unexpected (appropriate or inappropriate) in that context affects if others will judge that person as having "good" or "poor" social skills.

Our social behavior is the end result of a complicated and very fast thought process called social thinking. Our behavioral response in every social context is informed by our consideration of the thoughts and feelings of the people around us as well as how we intend to influence them. This means that in the context of going to the doctor's office (to use the previous example), our behavior may be slightly different each time depending on who is around us and what we perceive they are thinking and feeling in that moment. There is no one correct way to act in a doctor's waiting room because the social context is always a little bit different! Sometimes the receptionist may be happy to answer personal questions about herself, especially if you notice a new engagement ring on her finger. Sometimes you can converse with other patients, if they are showing certain signs that they are interested in talking to you. With this in mind, it suddenly becomes clear that for students to "behave well" requires that they be sensitive to the situation and the people in the situation in order for them to socially problem solve how to produce the "expected behavior".

3-step process to teaching social thinking and related skills:

For parents, professionals and students (who are high school age or older) we explain that there are three distinct parts to the process of socially engaging or sharing space well with others:

1. Engage in social thinking:

Social thinking is the ability to consider your own and others thoughts, emotions, beliefs, intentions, knowledge, etc. In other terms, it is the culmination of executive functioning, perspective taking, and self-awareness that enables you to interpret and understand the social situation and what behaviors are expected of you.

Remember that your behavioral-response is directly influenced by your social thinking. Social behaviors that align or fail to align with what other people expect in that situation determines how others judge your "social skills". Improving your social thinking ability is a life-long learning process, and the key to developing chameleon-like social skills.

2. Adapt your behavior effectively (social skills)

Based on the results of your social thinking, adapt your behavior to consider the thoughts and feelings of others, as well as to communicate your intentions in the situation. By doing so, people are more likely to react and respond to you in the manner you had hoped (see below).

3. Be aware of others' reactions:

People emotionally respond to our behaviors very quickly. If we feel a person has good social skills we may describe them as "polite" and "friendly"; if person has weak, awkward, or poor social skills we often describe them as "rude", "odd" or "impolite". The terms "polite", "rude", "friendly", "impolite", etc., represent how we emotionally perceive another's behavior. We are far better at summarizing our feelings (emotional response) than we are at describing intellectually the behaviors a person produced that swayed how we felt. How people respond to our behavior often leads to how they treat us in return.

In short, our social skills influence how people feel about us and how we, in turn, feel about them. This cycle also influences how we feel about ourselves and can directly impact our confidence and mental health!

Social Thinking encourages social problem solving:

As complex as all this is, we can drill this down to say that social skills are not simply rehearsed, memorized and produced based on a singular stimulus or context. Having good social skills simply means one is able to adapt effectively based on the situation and the people in the situation. Our social skills are part of our social problem solving. We use them when we are simply sharing space with others, as when we may be quietly sitting together in a room, or when engaged in more direct social interactions. We use our social thinking and related social skills any time we are around people, whether we plan to interact or not. We also use our social thinking even when we may not be in the active presence of others, such as when we are watching movies, shows, sports, the news, driving our cars, writing an essay, a text, an email, or reading a novel - all of which require you to think about other peoples' perspectives about the situation.

Social thinking impacts not only a student's social success, but his/her academic success, too. Classroom academic assignments frequently tap into our social knowledge, often without our noticing. It would be impossible for a student to meet academic standards (Common Core or State based) related to reading comprehension and written expression; or participate in group-based learning activities if they didn't have adequate social thinking skills to accurately interpret instructions or take the perspective of others.

Our social skills are not directly taught as much as they are a by-product of our considering our own and other's perspectives and our related social goals. Our ability to synchronize all this information impacts others' impressions of us as well as how they treat us. How people treat us, in turn, affects how we feel about ourselves.

My students in 1995 were right to be frustrated. They intuitively understood that being taught how to behave in social contexts was not adequate; they needed to learn how to think socially based on the situation and the people in the situation. In effect, they needed to learn social thinking. The work I have created over the past 20 years is to honor all that they taught me.

Social Thinking® the company:

The mission of Social Thinking® is to continue to develop and improve how we teach social thinking to all people, in order to effectively advance their social problem solving and thereby improve their social skills. Since social skills and academic success are related, Social Thinking® concepts and strategies also benefit performance in social-academic tasks such as reading comprehension and written expression.

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The Recipe for Improving Social Skills Begins with Social Thinking

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If a 4 year old child has a tantrum in a classroom, we barely blink an eye. If a 10 year old child has the same tantrum; we are likely to call it a behavior problem. If a 4 year old child calls the person they just met for the first time their "best friend", we think it's adorable.

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Teaching Empathy: Turning a Lesson Plan into a Life Skill

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Teaching Empathy: Turning a Lesson Plan into a Life Skill

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Worried about the shrinking presence of empathy in our schools? I know how you feel.

With classrooms operating more like grade factories, it's hard to make the case for school-driven empathy. Faced with an endless cycle of memorize, drill, spit back and test, teachers have become the wardens of a new educational reality that pits the head against the heart. Even if educators manage to skate past the dizzying array of standards and value-added evaluations, they must still contend with this fundamental divide: academic rigor, with its unflinching emphasis on measurable success, seems strangely at odds with emotional intelligence, a soufflé of moods and feelings. Which leaves many to wonder -- can empathy feel its way back into the classroom?

For an unlikely accomplice, look no farther than tomorrow's lesson plan. That's because evidence-based models of instruction can become empathy builders, tools for the mind and spirit. Designed around cooperative learning, your lesson plan can actively foster class-wide feelings of cohesiveness, collaboration and interdependence -- without sacrificing instructional time or learning goals.

Cooperative Learning: An Empathy Lever

In cooperative learning, students work together, think together and plan together using a variety of group structures designed along an instructional path. This dynamic learning model breaks with the dusty forms of frontal teaching that often create classrooms of "lonesome togetherness" -- students who may sit together but live worlds apart. Cooperative learning creates what Daniel Goleman calls "cognitive empathy," a mind-to-mind sense of how another person's thinking works. The better we understand others, the better we know them -- pointing toward (among other virtues) greater trust, appreciation and generosity.

But wholesale adoption of cooperative learning does not automatically yield the kind of results that educators want and students need. Dispatching students into "groups" with the hopes they'll become more empathetic carries the same potential for success as trying to hit a dartboard while blindfolded -- maybe a few lucky strikes, but not much more. To harness the power of cooperative learning as a tool for building empathy, teachers need a specific strategy, a best practice that works -- in real classrooms with real students. Fortunately, one exists. It's called jigsaw.

The Jigsaw Classroom: Goals and Execution

Created in 1971 by psychologist Elliot Aronson to defuse his volatile fifth grade classroom, the jigsaw method has a long track record of successfully reducing classroom conflict and increasing positive educational outcomes. As an empathy builder, it also opens doors of opportunity.

In jigsaw classrooms, lesson content is divided into self-contained chunks and assigned piece by piece to different groups of learners. Each group -- strategically arranged to reflect differences in learning style, prior knowledge or socio-economic makeup -- simultaneously studies a different but complementary piece of the lesson. When this "mastery" round is complete, every student should possess unique knowledge of one slice of the lesson. Groups are then reshuffled to form new units that draw a member from each of the mastery teams. Working in these newly minted teams of "experts," each student shares a brand new piece of content with team members who only now learn that particular lesson segment. When every group has finished sharing information, checking for understanding and re-teaching complicated points, the jigsaw activity is over.

To be sure, jigsaw classrooms look and feel almost nothing like their traditional counterparts -- and neither do the students who occupy them. The fluid movement, flexible groupings and redistribution of responsibility force kids to be more actively engaged in what and how they learn. Unlike the slow drip of frontal instruction, jigsaw learning flows freely between group members. Familiar roles change, too. Teachers re-outfit themselves as sideline reporters, monitoring, questioning and analyzing the action, while the quickest and slowest students suddenly discover themselves in supporting and leading roles they never quite imagined.

Educational Empathy: Learning by Doing

The most powerful feature of jigsaw learning -- the very reason behind its conception -- is practiced empathy. Creating points of contact between students who would otherwise not interact delivers a humbling but elevating awareness of the "other." Seeing classmates as bona fide sources of knowledge builds emotional capital and lowers the artificial gates of detachment. Students learn quickly to adhere to jigsaw's inviolable rule: "Tune in or miss out." In this social construct, the hard currency is active listening, or the art of thinking about what the other person is saying. And because each student has a purpose (a teaching role) and something valuable (new and necessary information), every learner is regarded as an asset, not a liability. To the unsuspecting student, all this may seem like a lesson plan. But to the empathetic educator, it's a life skill.

All told, jigsaw learning is a counterweight to the high-stakes testing culture that too often tears kids apart instead of stitching them together. It recognizes that behind every educational label stands an alternate version of the child waiting to be exposed. Jigsaw is rooted in research, embedded in instruction, and aligned with the wider world. There's no simple way to catch a quality as elusive as empathy, and with oversized federal mandates, precious little time. But a "total education," the kind we want to give every student, ought to value not just what children know, but how they feel.

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Teaching Empathy: Turning a Lesson Plan Into a Life Skill | Edutopia

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Worried about the shrinking presence of empathy in our schools? I know how you feel. With classrooms operating more like grade factories, it's hard to make the case for school-driven empathy. Faced with an endless cycle of memorize, drill, spit back and test, teachers have become the wardens of a new educational reality that pits the head against the heart.

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There's no better feeling than seeing a child losing themselves in the world of a favourite fictional character.

The benefits of reading go far beyond literacy: an emerging body of research highlights the power of stories to help children handle their own and other people's feelings.

A Cambridge University study by Maria Nikolajeva, professor of education, found that "reading fiction provides an excellent training for young people in developing and practising empathy and theory of mind, that is, understanding of how other people feel and think".

Neuroscience backs this up. Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, US, say that fiction tricks our brains into thinking we are part of the story. The empathy we feel for characters wires our brains to have the same sensitivity towards real people. Carnegie Mellon University studies discovered that when you get lost in a book your brain lives through the characters at a neurological level.

Empathy is increasingly being recognised as a core life skill, and the bedrock for sound relationships and classroom climate. Roman Krznaric, author of Empathy, a Handbook for Revolution, says: "There has been an extraordinary shift ... a concept that has been buried in psychology textbooks for nearly a century - empathy - is coming to be seen as one of the fundamental forces for tackling global challenges."

EmpathyLab is a small start-up that is exploring ways to use stories to boost empathy among students. Here are some approaches teachers could try:

Pick the right books

The first thing is to find the right story. One approach is to find texts exploring familiar life scenarios to help children understand what their peers might be experiencing. At primary and secondary level there's a text for just about every situation. For instance Kes Gray's Mum and Dad Glue helps children empathise with friends' pain when parents separate and Phil Earle's Being Billy gives older readers a profound insight into how it feels to live in a young people's care home.

In general, look for texts with well-rounded, believable characters. Even if they are doing terrible things, the story should help children understand a character's motivations. Feelings should be dealt with subtly and not over-described.

If it's hard to find the best books, search out a librarian. Their deep knowledge is currently on show through the Carnegie Medal, which emphasises the importance of strong characterisation.
Children are also fantastic at recommending books, especially on crunch issues. For instance, certain "being different" books, like David Walliams' The Boy in a Dress, come up repeatedly.

Book groups help children explore new texts and learn how differently other people experience life. You could consider joining a free network, such as Chatterbooks. Writer Roman Krznaric's Empathy Library, which has hundreds of empathy-boosting books and films for children and adults, is a useful resource.

Teach vocabulary for feelings

If children lack the language to share feelings, it's hard for them to understand each other and communicate effectively.

Story-based questioning and discussion works well to build a language for emotions, especially when the teacher and student work together to explore what caused a character to act or feel as they did, and the consequences of their actions and emotions. Take Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You could ask: "Was Goldilocks really just a burglar or was she homeless or hungry?" This could be followed with diary writing or telephone interviews where Goldilocks explains herself to the bears.
Any teacher will attest to the power of meeting a real author. Bringing one into school with a brief to deliberately emphasise feelings can help children learn new emotional vocabulary. We wrote a blog about Sue Hendra's session on her book Norman the Slug. Children loved Hendra's hilarious naming of her feelings when she started writing but found aliens eating her pencils. She helped children learn new words to name Norman's emotions and share them on a huge "feelings wall".

Step into a character's shoes

Getting children deeply engaged with characters is a good way to teach empathy.
Writers like Jacqueline Wilson and Cathy Cassidy spring to mind because of their skill in creating characters with strong, unique voices. But look out too for award winners such as Patrick Ness and Neil Gaiman whose inventive language and robust character development captivates readers. Ivan Brett, year six teacher at Brent's Preston Park primary school, uses Bod from Gaiman's Graveyard Book "because he's a normal boy in a very abnormal situation and it stretches pupils' imaginations to step into his shoes".
Hotseating works well when exploring topics like bullying or prejudice. Start by absorbing related stories or playscripts. Ask children to create a character quite unlike them - the bully or the bullied - then get them in a hotseat for an interview where they really have to be that person. Getting into character like this makes things much more real - in a creative writing class, helping children step into a character's shoes will make their descriptions more lively and nuanced. In a spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) session, the same technique delivers on Ofsted's requirement that children develop an interest in investigating moral issues and an understanding of others' viewpoints.
Miranda McKearney and Sarah Mears both work for EmpathyLab would like to hear from schools interested in using reading, writing and story-making to build children's emotional and social skills. Contact Miranda McKearney if you're interested in taking part. EmpathyLab. McKearney is chair and Mears library lead.
Follow us on Twitter via @GuardianTeach. Join the Guardian Teacher Network for lesson resources, comment and job opportunities, direct to your inbox.
Topics

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Lost for words? How reading can teach children empathy

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There's no better feeling than seeing a child losing themselves in the world of a favourite fictional character. The benefits of reading go far beyond literacy: an emerging body of research highlights the power of stories to help children handle their own and other people's feelings.

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Caring for Plants and Animals Fosters Empathy

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Caring for Plants and Animals Fosters Empathy

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Educators know that young children imitate what they see and experience; unfortunately these experiences may include evidence that our world is sometimes violent. Frequent exposure to violence may even suggest to young children that violence is the norm and is to be accepted.

One way to counteract this message is to help children witness caring behaviors and to become involved in caring activities of their own. While caring activities aren't a cure-all for combating violence, they can be used as a vehicle for promoting empathy in young children. Once developed, these dispositions and behaviors can become life-long patterns benefiting both the children and the communities in which they live.

Fostering empathy-the ability to understand how others feel-is perhaps the most effective way to inhibit aggression and bullying behaviors. Empathy helps us become more inclusive and tolerant of differences.

Some people may think that young children aren't cognitively or emotionally ready to be concerned about anyone but themselves. This isn't true. Caring behavior is evident during the first year of life. Infants show signs of distress when another baby cries, and toddlers get anxious when another child gets hurt or is punished. But while young children may feel empathy, they often need help learning how to express empathy.

As in most other areas of social emotional development, empathy and caring need to be nurtured through direct involvement in meaningful activities. Involving children in the care of plants and animals is an excellent example of how to do this.

Tending to the needs of other living things requires children to give thought and attention to something outside of themselves. As children interact with plants and animals, they learn that other living things have basic needs which must be met for them to survive. These experiences help children make the connection between caring behaviors and good outcomes, such as growth or affection.

Following are some specific ways in which you can foster empathy and caring in the classroom through involvement with plants and animals.

Introduce animals in the classroom. You may choose to have a classroom pet, such as a hamster or guinea pig. Even less hands-on creatures-such as fish, snails or earthworms-can become a regular part of the classroom environment. The important thing is to make sure the animal's needs can be met through appropriate habitat, food and water. It's also important to see that the animal is always handled gently and treated with respect. If you collect an animal from outdoors for closer observation, you should keep it only for a short period of time and then return it to its natural habitat, explaining to the children why this is important.

Involve children in some gardening activities. A garden-whether in a window pot or plot of land-can help children empathize with the fragility of the environment through plants. As children learn about the wonder of seeds, the growth of tender new roots, and the need plants have for uncontaminated water, they will also learn about ecological perspective taking. Perspective taking is the cognitive aspect of empathy, whilecaring is the affective or emotional side. We sometimes use the term "perspective taking" in reference to the ability to identify and understand other people's emotions and the situations they're experiencing. When we speak of "ecological perspective taking," we apply this concept to our relationship with the natural world.
Wilson is an educational consultant and curriculum writer.
Help children discover and care for wildlife in the school yard. Through careful observation, children can become more aware of birds, snails, spiders, lady bugs, bees, butterflies, ants, squirrels and worms living right outside the classroom door. Caring for these backyard creatures can be as simple as setting up bird feeders and bird baths, providing yarn for birds during their nesting season, planting a butterfly garden-or even avoiding stepping on ants and spiders or disturbing a spider's web.

Encourage playful identification with animals. Provide simple animal costumes or puppets. Have children crawl like a snake, fly like a bird or bury nuts like a squirrel.

Provide a variety of animal replicas and encourage children to construct habitats for their animals.

Identify and share pro-nature books with children. Pro-nature books give positive messages about animals and plants and suggest caring ways to relate to other living things. (A listing of some pro-nature books for young children can be found here.)

Helping children develop empathy for other living things means more than saving some lady bugs and spiders. As children develop empathy for plants and animals, they are also developing perspective-taking skills which are critical aspects of social emotional competence. As children develop perspective-taking skills with plants and animals, they'll be developing a sense of empathy for people as well.

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Caring for Plants and Animals Fosters Empathy

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Educators know that young children imitate what they see and experience; unfortunately these experiences may include evidence that our world is sometimes violent. Frequent exposure to violence may even suggest to young children that violence is the norm and is to be accepted.

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History, Empathy, Systems Thinking, and Gaming

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History, Empathy, Systems Thinking, and Gaming

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Shortly after discovering this article, I saw on Twitter that teacher and Gamindex founder Mallory Kessen had been using the game's bluffing mechanic as a discussion strategy tool in her English language arts class. One Night met Common Core State Standards for supporting argument claims with evidence. As a game-using social studies teacher, I decided that I wanted to bring the game to my students. First, I purchased it and played at home with my family. What I discovered was a light (playable in under ten minutes), easy-to-learn, fun game with a high replayability factor -- when we played, we wanted to keep playing over and over!

Teaching Empathy With Social Deduction

I decided to integrate One Night Ultimate Werewolf as the centerpiece for my seventh-grade social studies unit on the Salem Witch Trials in Puritan Massachusetts. The learning goals included historical empathy for being falsely accused. First, I would have students play; next, they could reflect on how they felt accusing others or being accused themselves. Here, One Night's mechanic of bluffing aligned with the learning goals: accusations and historical empathy.

Learning from game experiences is meaningful. However, I wanted to go farther. I designed a project-based learning unit that would challenge student teams to remix the One Night role cards and mechanics to teach about the Salem Witch Trials. I also contacted the game's designer, Ted Alspach, to learn more about how it works. To Alspach, the Troublemaker role was what differentiated his game from other social deduction games. The Troublemaker's action is to switch two players' cards. "It was the one role that has made the game fun to incredibly compelling," he says. "Now, anyone -- with the exception of the Troublemaker -- can be a werewolf, regardless of what they started as."

Alspach next shared how he would approach the design challenge of making a Salem-themed game. "[The accused at Salem] were not 100 percent sure if they were innocent of what they are being accused of," Alspach says. "They did something that really wasn't witchcraft but was perceived as witchcraft. There was a that little bit of uncertainty." It was the uncertainty of player role identity that would ultimately hook my students.

Games as Experiences

Rollout of a game-based learning unit is often key to effectiveness. First, I had three students play One Night Ultimate Werewolf while the class watched. Then five students played (the game is for 3-10 players, perfect for a class setting). When the whole class reconvened, I detailed the project's requirements. Students engaged in a lively discussion of how it felt to be accused of being a werewolf. Then the topic switched to the accused witches in 1692 Salem. Finally, students played One Night again, this time with eight players.

Like Alspach's game, students were prompted to have all actions take place in one night. Therefore, a script with a wake-up order would be required. Deciding these actions required playtesting and higher-order thinking. Students were given a paper template indicating Role, Action, and Why? For example, the Abigail Williams character might be similar to One Night's Troublemaker because she instigated accusations. Therefore, her actions (switching other players' cards) might be similar.

Students had a list of characters from Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. Most groups asked if they could create more than the rubric's required nine roles. Teams added mechanics to their games as well. One group included a judge role to hear the accused plead their cases. Another team added a mechanic to John Hale, one of the witch accusers. His role was to reveal another player's cards.

Regarding resources, I mixed in different levels of texts, from graphic novels to above-grade level material, including Miller's play. Additionally, I included Salem resources from Stanford History Education Group's Reading Like a Historian curriculum. I wanted to give students choices to move in their zone of proximal development.

The students worked in teams of four. The design challenge was to have players experience a feeling similar to those in colonial Salem. They were graded based on artifacts from their projects (e.g., game prototypes, rules, the moderator's script with role wake-up order). Furthermore, students had to keep a daily "designer diary" to track their individual contributions. Alspach's designer diary of One Night Ultimate Vampire was shared with students as an example. They also had to playtest others' games and offer feedback.

During the project, several students asked me to read the moderator script or to play. I politely declined -- I wanted them to take full ownership of the experiences they designed. By the last day of the project, students were calling across the room, "Who wants to play our game?" There was a sense of intrinsic pride because they'd taken the design challenge.

Games are effective at teaching the 21st-century skill of systems thinking -- how parts of a system interconnect. Like the people in 1692 Salem, students learned that every cause has a consequential effect. Alspach explains it best: "With One Night, there's a cleverness going on. Am I smart enough to figure out what's going on here? Am I smart enough to deceive all of these clever people at the same time?"

How have you used game design in your classroom?

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History, Empathy, Systems Thinking, and Gaming | Edutopia

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Shortly after discovering this article, I saw on Twitter that teacher and Gamindex founder Mallory Kessen had been using the game's bluffing mechanic as a discussion strategy tool in her English language arts class. One Night met Common Core State Standards for supporting argument claims with evidence.

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Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

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Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

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Habit #3 Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Based on the work Stephen Covey. - SlideServe

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Dive into the world of effective listening with insights from Stephen Covey’s work. Discover ways to overcome common listening roadblocks, such as distractions. Practice active listening techniques and strengthen your relationships by truly understanding others. Explore the importance of listening with your eyes and engaging in emotion charades. Reflect on being a better listener through mirroring back others’ words. Improve your communication skills and connect more deeply with those around you.

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How Parents Can Cultivate Empathy in Children

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How Parents Can Cultivate Empathy in Children

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Children learn empathy both from watching us and from experiencing our empathy for them. When we empathize with our children they develop trusting, secure attachments with us. Those attachments are key to their wanting to adopt our values and to model our behavior, and therefore to building their empathy for others.

Empathizing with our children takes many forms, including tuning in to their physical and emotional needs, understanding and respecting their individual personalities, taking a genuine interest in their lives, and guiding them toward activities that reflect an understanding of the kind of people they are and the things they enjoy.

Children also learn empathy by watching those we notice and appreciate. They'll notice if we treat a server in a restaurant or a mail carrier as if they're invisible. On the positive side, they'll notice if we welcome a new family in our child's school or express concern about another child in our child's class who is experiencing one challenge or another.

Finally, it's important for us to recognize what might be getting in the way of our empathizing. Are we, for example, exhausted or stressed? Does our child push our buttons in a specific way that makes caring for her or him hard at times?

Try this

Know your child. Ask your child questions. For example, what did you learn today that was interesting? What was the hardest part of your day? How would you most like to spend a day if you could do anything? Do you have a friend that you especially respect? Why do your respect that person?

Demonstrate empathy for others, including those different from you. Consider regularly engaging in community service or model other ways of contributing to a community. Even better, consider doing this with your child. Express interest in those from various backgrounds facing many different types of challenges.

Engage in self-care and self-reflection. Try to find time to regularly engage in an activity-whether it's going for a walk, reading a book, meditating or praying-that can help you avoid being overwhelmed by stress. Reflect and consult with people you trust when you're having a hard time empathizing with your child.

2. Make caring for others a priority and set high ethical expectations.

If children are to value others' perspectives and show compassion for them, it's very important that they hear from their parents that caring about others is a top priority, and that it is just as important as their own happiness. Even though most parents say that raising caring children is a top priority, often children aren't hearing that message.

Try this

Keep to a clear message. Consider the daily messages you send to children about the importance of caring. For example, instead of saying "The most important thing is that you're happy," you might say "The most important thing is that you're kind and that you're happy."

Prioritize caring when you talk with other important adults in your children's lives. For example, ask teachers and coaches whether your children are caring community members in addition to asking about their academic skills, grades, or performance.

Help your children understand that the world doesn't revolve around them. It's vital at times for parents to put children's concern for others above their happiness, for example, insisting at times that children turn off the TV and help around the house, be polite even when they are in a bad mood, or not dominate the airwaves when they are talking to other children or adults.

3. Provide opportunities for children to practice empathy.

Children are born with the capacity for empathy, but it needs to be nurtured throughout their lives. Learning empathy is in certain respects like learning a language or a sport. It requires practice and guidance. Regularly considering other people's perspectives and circumstances helps make empathy a natural reflex and, through trial and error, helps children get better at tuning into others' feelings and perspectives.

Try this

Have family meetings. Hold family meetings when there are family challenges or conflicts, and in those meetings give children a voice and encourage them to take the perspective of other family members. Listen carefully to your children's views and ask your children to listen carefully to the views of others.

Encourage empathy for peers. Ask children about their classmates and other peers. Ask children when they're in conflicts with peers to consider their peers' perspectives.

Reflect on empathy and caring. Notice with your child when you're together and someone exhibits strong empathy-or shows a lack of empathy-either in your daily life or in a book or on television. Discuss why acts of empathy are important and why lacking empathy can be harmful.

Discuss ethical dilemmas. Discuss with your child ethical dilemmas that help them appreciate various perspectives, e.g., "Should I invite a new neighbor to my birthday party when my best friend doesn't like her?" "Should I tell my friend if I know her boyfriend, who is also my friend, cheated on her?"

Support doing with. Encourage children not just to do service, to "do for" others, but to "do with" others, working with diverse groups of students to respond to community problems.

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5 Tips for Cultivating Empathy - Making Caring Common

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Empathy is at the heart of what it means to be human. It's a foundation for acting ethically, for good relationships of many kinds, for loving well, and for professional success. And it's key to preventing bullying and many other forms of cruelty.

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Videos on Kindness, Empathy, and Connection

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Videos on Kindness, Empathy, and Connection

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Photo Credit: SweetOnVeg via flickr (CC BY 2.0)

I'd like to offer up a video playlist to remind all of us about the power of empathy, kindness, and human connections. It's always a good time to practice gratitude for the relationships that sustain us all -- for the people who have taught us in a school setting and beyond, and for the young ones we are able to nurture and inspire.

I was also thinking about how many of us are living out the paradox of being ever more plugged in, and ever more aware of what's happening in our community via social media platforms, while at the same time, face-to-face interactions are less frequent than ever before. We are in constant touch, but barely touching. Watching these videos made me remember the importance of re-connecting, treating people with kindness and respect, and being generous and compassionate to both loved ones and strangers. If each of us pledged to do more of that, we'd make a better world for all of us to learn and grow in.

Video Playlist: Kindness, Empathy, and Connection

1. Rita Pierson: Every Kid Needs a Champion (07:49)
This talk from the TED Talks Education series was shared like mad in social media, and for good reason. Sadly, educator Rita Pierson passed in June 2013, but her words live on as an empowering call to action for all of us to build better relationships with kids.

2. Take a Seat - Make a Friend? (04:53)
SoulPancake has been winning awards and making news (check out its wonderful Kid President videos, especially the Pep Talk). This heart-warming clip has strangers finding common ground in the most unusual of places.

3. The Helping Hand - a story by Z. Murphy & L. Kranen (04:05)
The playful tone of this cute little film absolutely tickled me. Two enterprising grad students collaborate on a very unusual engineering project with a young boy they just met.

4. Isaac and Amy - Yes to Love (04:23)
Yes, I'm a sap -- this one makes me weep openly. After Isaac's epic lip-dub proposal video to his girlfriend Amy went viral, he made this sequel as a celebration of kinship and all the relationships in his family's lives.

5. Kindness Boomerang - "One Day" (05:45)
I love this short from Life Vest Inside, the New York non-profit founded by TED 2013 speaker and middle-school teacher Orly Wahba to encourage kindness. Bonus: Check out this remake by third graders.

6. The Moth Presents James Braly: Oliver's Pink Bicycle (07:01)
The Moth is a wonderful podcast with true stories told live in front of an audience. Though the video quality is not great, as a parent of a toddler myself, I found this story to be a valuable lesson about acceptance.

7. The Kindness Scientist (03:13)
Dr. Dacher Keltner, head researcher at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, speaks on how kindness and generosity not only make us happy -- but can contribute to good health!

8. Generous Store (01:44)
I admit it, this one's a re-run, if you watched my Gratitude playlist last fall -- but I just adore it so much I have to share again. A Dutch chocolatier opens a store that only accepts promises of kind deeds as payment.

Watch the first video below, or watch the whole playlist on YouTube.

More Resources for Teaching Kindness and Empathy

If you agree that raising a generation of kinder, more compassionate, generous, and connected kids will benefit us all, the next step is to find resources to teach all those wonderful skills. Fortunately there are a number of organizations out there that offer tools for parents and educators to do just that. I've collected just a small sample below. But do remember that one of the best ways we can teach our kids to be thoughtful and empathetic is to model it ourselves! So start making time for kind and generous acts, no matter how small -- they can make a huge difference.

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5-Minute Film Festival: Videos on Kindness, Empathy, and Connection | Edutopia

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Photo Credit: SweetOnVeg via flickr (CC BY 2.0) I'd like to offer up a video playlist to remind all of us about the power of empathy, kindness, and human connections.