At a time of continued anxiety when students and educators alike are feeling the strains of pandemic and losses of all kinds, how do we build a strong community in our schools?
How do we make our schools a space of welcome, inclusion, safety and care? The answer is easy: we model, teach and practice compassion, as compassion is a measure of strength.
Our work as educators has important implications for our students’ well-being and future. When we lead with compassion, our students feel safe, valued and empowered at school. They will excel academically socially and grow into capable, confident adults who will share their voices, take action and serve others.
Empathy plus action equals compassion. Compassion education efforts begin the moment students arrive at school and continue throughout the school day.
Compassion includes both ourselves and our students. For us as educators, it means knowing ourselves better, taking the time to check our own biases and leading with inquiry. Having compassion for our students would mean knowing them and their stories. When we lead with compassion, we know that the greatest resource in our classroom is our students themselves.
There are many ways of bringing compassion to our schools. These are some strategies that educators can use: 1) Before students cross the classroom threshold, teachers greet them by name to help connect with them and get instant feedback on how they are feeling.
2) Intentionally using literature to help students embrace diversity and understand varying perspectives. This develops their empathy bank.
3) Teachers can facilitate class circles to build community, which becomes a space for students to practice compassion by listening to their classmates’ dilemmas and challenges and collaboratively brainstorming solutions.
4) Students can engage in community service projects and diverse activities such as feeding stray animals, helping in times of disaster and community beautification projects. When students can lend a helping hand, it provides them with knowledge about current events and ways to help aid and create change for others.
5) Involving students in helping the needy builds their self-esteem, motivation and confidence. Students begin to see themselves as part of the solution rather than be bystanders to the world’s problems and the suffering of others.
6) Teachers can model compassion and acts of compassion daily by complimenting students on their successes, inquiring about their day or weekend activities and consistently addressing all bullying behaviours at school.
7) One way of teaching compassion in our schools is also to teach social-emotional learning (SEL). When we embed SEL into the fabric of instruction, we see a ripple effect on our school climate; it will affect how students, staff, and parents connect and contribute on campus. However, when SEL is treated as an extracurricular activity, it fails to achieve its goals.
To create an environment where students can thrive socially and academically means prioritising SEL — integrating it across all content areas and building it into the routines of everyday.
In our efforts of educating our young people, a shift towards lessons encompassing love, compassion and kindness is a priority. Such lessons must become a focal point in academic communities to promote and inspire significant change. We can only imagine our students growing up and applying these skills and how much happier, connected, and helpful our world will be as a result.
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