Mountain Mahogany Community school envisions a joyous learning world in which public education and profound nurturing are synonymous.

Problem

To affect positive change one be able to must provisionally suspend ones own beliefs, ideas, values, and experiences so as to be able to hear another reality and relate to it as completely valid. One must have empathy. There are proportionally few organizations that bring together people who can foster empathy in each other in a way that is systematic, affects them throughout their daily lives, and allows them to have sufficient skills to foster empathy in others. There is a vast need for such institutions in order to build empathy in the whole human population so that global, sustained, and enduring positive change can be affected.

Solution

Mountain Mahogany Community School is designed to begin to meet this need. The school has developed and is refining its Compassionate Campus (CC) Model to support the skill development of students and the adults who interact with them. For students this includes explicit modeling, skill instruction, and assistance in communication and self-regulation. For adults in the community the model includes training and facilitated participation using model techniques with students and adults. By providing an educational setting where empathy is cultivated in children from an early age and in adults so they gain the skills to foster empathy in themselves and others, Mountain Mahogany Community School provides a reliable venue for increasing both the intentional and the coincidental development of empathy inside and outside the institution respectively.

Example

The school synergistically synthesizes many approaches, based on research, into the School’s CC Model. Teachers are often able to provide empathy to students, but at times they are unable to take the time that is needed to do so. The Calm and Return (C&R) Process, the most visible portion of our model is a school-wide system designed to ensure student and teacher support for nurturing empathy and includes 3 levels. (1) Within each classroom there is a calm area, with access to tools (which the children have been taught to use, e.g. feelings and needs cards) to help students meet their own needs with peripheral support from the teacher. (2)When this isn’t sufficient support the child can go to a parallel send (to another classroom as observer or helper, easing classroom pressures so they are able to cognize) to help gain perspective and calm. (3) Sometimes more support is needed due to a need for skills or the enormity of the issues the child is struggling with. The calm and return staff member will then support the student in a separate room equipped with other tools (e.g self-regulation, mediation, space & time, quiet) to help the child get his or her needs met. In this way the school acknowledges that children have complex feelings and needs and that they are healthiest and can learn best if they feel safe and understood by providing the attention and empathy needed for students to develop empathy within themselves.

Marketplace

There are currently several private schools that address the needs identified above. However, because they are private, accessibility to these institutions is limited to those who can afford to attend the school. Although there are other K – 8 Charter Schools in the Albuquerque area our school is the only one with a focus specifically on social/emotional skills and empathy. The school has had full enrollment and has an extensive waiting list of prospective students (all students are chosen on a lottery basis unless they have siblings attending the school) posing no real challenge to our institution.