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The solution to the latest bullying headlines? Forget legislation
It's time to Start Empathy.
Earlier this week, reports surfaced about an 11-year-old boy with autism, who was beaten up by a fellow student while waiting at the bus stop. The event was filmed on a student’s cell phone, as his peers egged on his attacker, and subsequently uploaded to Facebook.
It later emerged that Kaleb Kula, the victim of the assault, had endured similar taunts beginning in the 1st grade, and his parents had repeatedly contacted the administration expressing their concern.
On the surface, the school had followed procedure, obeying the letter of the law. Maryland’s Cecil County Public School District upholds a strict anti-bullying policy, and maintains an online form where parents, peers, teachers, and other witnesses are encouraged to report incidents of bullying.
The form is in keeping with the Safe Schools Reporting Act of 2005, and a host of awareness-raising measures since, ranging from Bullying Awareness Week to enhanced legislation to high-profile media coverage. The result has led to adramatic increase in the number of incidents reported throughout the state, reaching 3,800 incidents in 2009-2010: nearly double that from the previous year.
Yet as Kaleb’s story shows, reporting incidents and dolling out reprimands only goes so far. Charging the student who attacked Kaleb with second-degree assault and laying blame on the district—which has called together parents to discuss bullying in wake of the incident—will not fix the problem. What’s needed is a concerted effort to address the issue at its root: equipping students with the ability to stand up when they see peers being mistreated and to avoid conflict in the first place.
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Early Entrants & Honorable Mentions come together on Google+ Hangout
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The early entry winners and honorable mentions of the Inspiring Approaches to First Nations, Métis and Inuit Learning competition were announced here a few weeks ago. Last week, these entrants came together for the first time to discuss the state of innovation in their communities, and the methods that they see are improving the lives of those around them.
The entrants came from across Canada, and by the end of the meeting they were conspiring to find ways to bring their programs together.
Meet The Early Entry Winners of the Innovations for Health Competition
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A few months ago, Ashoka Changemakers and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio launched the 'Innovations for Health' competition. Today we are happy to announce the early entry winners:
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Growing to the Next Level of Change
Editor's note: This post was written by Ashoka Changemakers chief executive partner Ben Wald.
I am excited to let you know that Changemakers.com is about to get a new look.
Starting next week, the action opportunities for all who visit Changemakers are expanding from finding new innovations (through collaborative competitions, where Changemakers pioneered the open source method for recognizing and refining the best solutions to the world’s most critical issues) to connecting with a network that directs resources to the most promising solutions so they can grow.
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Activate Empathy and Join the Movement to Teach What Matters
Empathy. em·pa·thy [em-puh-thee]
It’s a beautiful word, derived from the suffix -em (meaning “to make into, to put into, to get into”) and -pathy (meaning “suffering”).
What I consider especially beautiful about this word is that, unlike “sympathy” (which translates literally to “with” + “suffering”), “empathy” is more internally focused, and action-oriented. It describes the transposition of the suffering, emotion, feeling, or experience of another person into oneself – and how it manifests itself through ones behavior toward others.
Here at Ashoka, we believe that empathy is central to our ability to imagine (and create) better communities, societies, organizations, companies, and institutions. We believe that empathy is a skill. We believe that empathy is a muscle we all have. And most importantly, we believe that, like all muscles, empathy is strengthened by use and exercise.
To this end, Ashoka Changemakers is launching a global competition titled: Activating Empathy: Transforming Schools to Teach What Matters.
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#innovatehealth Interview Series
Fast Forward Health
Changemakers caught up recently with two of the co-founders of the Fast Forward Health film festival: Andre Blackman and David Haddad. You can listen in on our conversation about innovations in health care and the film festival they launched in Washington D.C. this year:
And if you're strapped for time, here's a quick overview of the conversation:
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#SocEntChat on Innovations for Health
Solutions that Cross Borders
Do you have an opinion about what health care models might work in more than one country? Are you interested in what kinds of health care challenges are shared by communities around the world? Join Ashoka Changemakers on January 10, 2012, for an Asia #SocEntChat about Innovations for Health.
Join @changemakers from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Indian Standard Time (IST) — that's 3:30 to 5:30 a.m. EST — to participate in a Twitter-based discussion with innovators, social entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts about health care solutions that have the potential to be applied in other countries in order to improve health and health care. This is your chance to make your voice heard or to ask experts in the field your most burning questions.
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Who Will Win the Duel? Building Full Information Citizenship
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Editor's note: This post was written by Alison Craiglow Hockenberry, contributing editor at Ashoka Changemakers®.
It's a duel, quite possibly to the death. The bad guys: Censorship, surveillance, sabotage, fraud. The good guys: Freedom, access to information, quality of information, privacy, and security. The venue: the Internet. The stakes: Couldn't be higher.
Fighting for the bad guys: tyrants, police states, oligarchs, and quite a few unknowns. Fighting for the good guys: innumerable innovators, optimists, activists, and visionaries around the world who are creating the technologies and tools to build a world where everyone has access to the information they need to be effective, change-making citizens.
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Making Change in 2011
2011 was a big year for Ashoka Changemakers. Take a quick look at the milestones that amped up the momentum for Changemakers and our community
Early Entry Winners Announced in Inspiring Approaches Competition
We've received an outstanding response for Inspiring Approaches to First Nations, Métis and Inuit Learning! Remember that you can share your idea or project until January 27, 2012.
Today we are excited to announce and congratulate our Early Entry Award Winners (follow the links to read their entries):