Roots of Empathy: Changing the world classroom by classroom
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation competition.
Roots of Empathy (ROE) breaks intergenerational cycles of violence and poor parenting by raising levels of empathy (understanding how others feel) in children and youth.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
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Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Year the initative began (yyyy)
1996
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Project URL (include http://)
Plot your innovation within the mosaic of solutions
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Young men’s missing voices and input leads to disconnection and failed policies
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Create stability and safety without condescension or judgment
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
I do not connect young men’s missing voices to failed policies. The policies do not fail for lack of representation from the group they purport to support, but rather the missing voice leads to failed relationships, failed aspirations, and youth who feel like failed people. Young men, who have not had the experience of being listened to, taken seriously or who have not learned the language of their emotions and therefore have no vehicle for expressing their feelings, are rendered socially and emotionally impotent.
In North America, there is a pandemic of loneliness in male youth that is unspoken because it smacks of vulnerability, which society judges as weakness and being non-manly.
Female children are acculturated to be conversant with their feelings both reflectively and in social contexts. They may not have political voice or social influence, but they do have the experience of self understanding and the emotional support of others.
The psycho-social imperative of youth is to carve out their identity and establish their independence. If these two developmental functions fail to mature, the young men continue in a childhood mode. This creates a growing bank of self-loathing, resentment, and anger. Angry young men who do not have emotional literacy, are without voice to vent, and in the absence of voice, may release their anger on the family or society at large, in the form of domestic violence, self abuse, vandalism or gratuitous public violence. Roots of Empathy succeeds in connecting children to one another through their shared feelings.
In summary, rather than focusing on lost opportunities, or policies which fail to produce, we need to focus on young men’s lost dreams and redirect our thinking from the cost of jailing them to the human cost of losing their potential to build civil society.
Name Your Project
Roots of Empathy: Changing the world classroom by classroom
Describe Your Idea
Roots of Empathy (ROE) breaks intergenerational cycles of violence and poor parenting by raising levels of empathy (understanding how others feel) in children and youth.
Innovation
Describe your program or new idea in one sentence.
Roots of Empathy (ROE) breaks intergenerational cycles of violence and poor parenting by raising levels of empathy (understanding how others feel) in children and youth.
What makes your initiative uniquely positioned to create change in your community?
We have failed young men in providing them with the socialization that would equip them with the emotional understanding and social skills that allow them to connect meaningfully in society. For far too many children, school is a fearful and unhappy prison.
The pervasiveness of bullying, societal violence and marginalization of all kinds can be addressed when we look at a common denominator of these ills – the absence of empathy. Rolling out a green blanket in the classrooms of the country and inviting a neighbourhood newborn and parent to become part of the community of the classroom, opens the minds and hearts of all students to understand vulnerability and the way an infant communicates their emotional needs. Along with the curriculum, the baby is the agent of change in helping the students understand one another’s feelings. They develop emotional literacy and perspective-taking skills which allow them to become empathic. Roots of Empathy turns classrooms into nurturing learning environments.
Describe how you organize and carry out your work?
The ROE model is based on a community development approach and depends on the contributions of community organizations for instructors and the participation of school boards, principals and teachers to host the program, as well as community parents and newborns to be part of the program. Instructors are trained to deliver 27 lessons over the school year and receive ongoing mentoring. State/provincial coordinators strategize with communities through a Key Point Person from that community in order to support their growth.
What is your plan to scale and expand your innovation into your community and beyond?
Since 2000, the program has grown throughout Canada and was introduced in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. A courtship period is required in order to ensure readiness and sustainability for the program. In new countries, we require a plan with identified funding and engaged stakeholders. Starting the program in New Zealand, for example, took a few years of discussion and presentations before there was a sit-down with the Prime Minister and three Ministries put forward funding for three years which was supplemented by various foundations, corporations, and private donors. Over time, we would like Roots of Empathy to be global, but in the short term we want to be able to maintain the integrity of the program for every child.
After a dialogue in Washington with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in April 2008, we anticipate requests for the program from other U.S. states. We will expand as far and wide as our capacity permits.
What other resources, institutional, or policy needs would be necessary to help sustain and scale up your idea?
We require resources for training, mentoring, research, and ongoing upgrading of curriculum materials. In countries where English is not the language of currency, we need translation, and sometimes we need cultural interpretation. For sustainability purposes, it is ideal to have a cadre of supporters who represent government, the corporate world, private funders and foundations.
We are championed by Justice in some areas and in others by Health (children’s mental health), Child Welfare (abuse and neglect), Education as well as interested groups such as teachers unions and special interest children’s groups (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), autism, English Language Learners (ELL)).
We need policies that mandate social and emotional programming in schools, such as Roots of Empathy, endorsement from educational institutions and recognition from the policies around safe and caring schools, anti-bullying programs, character education initiatives, and stigma-prevention initiatives. These initiatives are often mandated through state or federal governments or handled through local education structures.
Impact
Describe your impact in one sentence, commenting on both the individual and community levels.
Research has shown a significant decrease in aggression and increase in prosocial behaviour from children in Roots of Empathy.
What impact has your work achieved to date?
Several national and international studies have shown the effectiveness of Roots of Empathy. Research at the University of British Columbia, the University of Western Australia and the government of Manitoba have all shown a significant reduction in aggression and increase in prosocial behaviour in children who have participated in Roots of Empathy compared to those who have not. Results of a follow up of a Randomised Controlled Trial show that these improvements are maintained three years later.
Number of individuals served
To date, over 210,000 children in Canada have received Roots of Empathy. The program is offered to students in Kindergarten to grade 8 and has a specialized curriculum for 4 different age groups. The program was intended to be universal, not targeted to aggressive children, however it has been piloted with children affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder with great success. The program is offered in both English and French, and is in many aboriginal communities, both on and off reserve. This year saw the launch of the sibling of ROE, Seeds of Empathy; a new program for 3-5 years olds in childcare which is a play-based literacy program with a social and emotional component.
Community impact
ROE doesn’t just come to a classroom or a school, it comes to the community. Because the program relies on having a volunteer parent and newborn for each classroom, there is a general awareness in the pre and post natal community. Many of the childcare centres and organizations where new parents gather may become informally involved with the steering committee in the provision of ROE families. A steering committee is led by a ROE Key Point Person whose time is volunteered from one of the agencies who lead the steering committee. A community champion drives this whole process and that champion may be from any field, but has significant profile and influence in the community. The program is of, for and by the community. Its impact ripples deeply through parent blogs, instructor networks, children’s connections and school sharing. The program is delivered through the public, private and independent school systems. It truly is a community program.
Society at large
Our children are not just a part of the future – they are 100% of the future. We can not re-write history but we can influence the legacy of the future. If every board room and every war room had empathic people sitting in the positions of power, we would have very different outcomes from society of today where a third of the world is marginalized. Children in ROE challenge injustice and cruelty wherever they see it.
What measure do you use to gauge your impact and why?
In addition to our research portfolio, we provide children with the opportunity to evaluate their experience of the program. From the children, we hear what they feel they have learned rather than what we think they have learned. They tell us that they are worried about many things. They tell us that they often feel sad and lonely. Their art tells a very deep story – a story that never exaggerates - it is the poetry of their souls.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently being financed and how would you finance further expansion and/or replication?
Currently we are financed by a combination of government, foundations, corporations, private donors, revenue from trainings, keynote presentations by the founder, and the sale of intellectual property from the book "Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child" and other writings by the founder.
Provide information on your current finances and organization:
a. and b. and c. please see attached
d. 27 full time staff, 44 part time staff
Who are your potential partners and allies?
Teacher federations, school trustee and parent associations, child advocacy groups, domestic violence and child abuse prevention groups, peace education groups, mental health agencies, children and youth rights advocates, pediatric psychiatrists, public health agencies, service clubs and faith-based organizations.
Who are your potential investors?
All levels of government: municipal, state, federal (health, education, justice, employment and immigration, aboriginal, social services and recreation) boards of education, and community based agencies who work with children’s issues.
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
Mary Gordon began her career as a Kindergarten teacher, determined to make a difference in children’s lives. She was appalled at the inequity of readiness in her students. She realized that it was a combination of parenting and socio-economic circumstances that limited or liberated childrens’ opportunities to soar.
She was breathless in the face of the intolerance and marginalization of overall society, for the circumstances of her students’ families. Ms Gordon was determined to break this cycle of marginalization of children who were disadvantaged by birth. She wanted to prove that birth was not destiny. In 1981, she left the classroom and founded Canada’s first and largest school-based Parenting and Family Literacy Centres, to support families like the families of her students.
Parents with infants and preschoolers were supported not only in their parenting issues, and bread and butter issues, but in issues of education, job training, abuse, legal and health.
As the administrator of this program, she encountered a great deal of domestic violence, child abuse and neglect. Ms Gordon realized that the common denominator of the suffering was the absence of empathy. In 1996, off the side of her desk, she created Roots of Empathy. To make this a national agenda, she created a program which could be introduced universally to the classrooms of the country as children are mandated to attend and where the children would break intergenerational cycles of violence and poor parenting.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
Mary Gordon, Member of the Order of Canada, is the Founder, President and inspiration behind the Roots of Empathy program. She was the founder and administrator of Canada's first and largest school-based Parenting and Family Literacy Centres. Ms. Gordon is a best-selling author with extensive experience as an educator, public speaker and curriculum developer. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards recognizing her contribution to innovation in education and international social entrepreneurship. She is an Ashoka Fellow.
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Comments
Hello, Mary Gordon.
What a beautiful, brilliant, so-simple-yet-so-powerful idea you have developed! Congratulations. I hope one day we can bring it to Baltimore.
I see that you started ROE 12 years ago. What have you found to be its long-term effects? I ask because I fear that life for boys can be harsh, threatening and cruel as they enter adolescence -- and that the extinction of empathy can result. Here is one reference for that phenomenon: "Boys as young as 21 months old display a well-developed, natural, 'hard-wired' ability to feel empathy, including a wish to help other people who are in pain. Yet by the age of 7 years, boys begin to lose their capacity to express their own emotions and concerns in words as a direct result of a process of 'toughening up.' This toughening-up process begins when boys begin to feel society's pressure to avoid feelings and behaviors that might bring them shame. This leads to donning a mask of bravado, which contributes directly to violence." Pope, Mark, Matt Englar-Carlson, Fathers and Sons: The Relationship Between Violence and Masculinity. The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families, Vol. 9 No. 4, October 2001, 367-374, p. 368.
Is there a mechanism in your program for keeping the boys involved into and through adolescence?
Also, are you familiar at all with the research that indicates that the best predictor of empathy in boys is how much time they spend with their fathers -- more time is correlated with more empathy. (Farrell, Warren 2001. Father and Child Reunion.) Would your experience corroborate or possibly even help to explain that finding?
Best regards,
Jack (John R.) Kammer
University of Maryland
Current student, MSW/MBA Dual-Degree Program
I vote for the Roots of Empathy. It is a transformational program that helps develop empathy and positive parenting in a most authentic and effective way.
As a facilitator for the Roots of Empathy Program, I have found the effect on boys in particular, amazing. I have done the program in a kindergarten class, a grade 5 class, a grade 1 class and a grade 4 class. I am always amazed with the insight that all the students gain but particularly how the boys interact with the babies. This year, one of my classes has the participation a a father and a baby and the boys in the class are absolutely thrilled.
When I read the book Roots of Empathy, I could feel my self changing. This is one of those amazing ideas, simple in concept yet sweeping in impact, that can transform society. In each chapter I found myself nodding my head, smiling, and exclaiming aloud, "Of course!", ""It's so obvious now!", "Why didn't I think of that?", and the like.
While few would argue that smaller families are best for everyone, we've not yet studied the effects of losing the experience of observing day-to-day interaction between parent and baby. Even for the youngest in a family, it used to be the norm for a tiny cousin or neighbour to be close enough to witness the miracle of the evolving bond between an infant and caregiver. Now, not only do we have single child families (like mine) or families with children born so close in age that the older children aren't mature enough to make intelligent observations of their mother and father with their new sibling, most of our extended families are spread far apart, so cousins aren't available to us. Neighbours often aren't emotionally close enough, because we move much more often than previous generations did.
I suspect that the experience of a Roots of Empathy program would go far in replacing something so vital we didn't realize we'd lost.
Hi Mary,
Congratulations on this acknowledgement. I am very pleased to lend my name to this challenge and will encourage all my colleagues and friends to register and sign in.
Soo Wong
Trustee, Toronto District School Board
I have been a facilitator in a Northern BC Community. What an amazing program. I have seen the positive impact this program has had on children. My last class had the most impact. I was informed I would be working in a "difficult" classroom. The some children were on IEP's for behavioural reason, one child had to sit away from the group for fear of not keeping their hands to themselves, some children were influenced by some of the behavioural children which had a tendency to make the classroom dynamics tense. This green blanket is a miracle worker! Only 1 time during my 10 months in this class did this particular child have to sit away from the group, all the other times, INCLUDING family visits, this child participated without any diffitulties. This boy loved the green blanket. He would ask for help to set the blanket up. The dynamics on ROE days were wonderful. The children sang their songs, participated in class discussions and any art work that needed to be done. On family visits, the children sat and watched the mother and baby interact. ALL the children were eager to have family visits.
At the end of the year, the teacher was amazed. He fully believed that his classroom had changed their perspective of themselves and how they see others. He told me the amount of incidents out on the playground and in the classroom had reduced significantly. Office referrals were non exsistant! That was not how it was in September!
Some children who were on IEP's were not on the same category. Was it due to ROE? The teacher felt ROE had a huge impact on these children's lives and therefore the IEP's were modified. The teacher liked the idea that the programming co-incided with the curriculum that he was teaching in his class and the two complimented each other.I love this program! I wish that the program was offered until Grade 12. Our society will benefit greatly fromthisprogram!
ThankyouMary!
I vote for ROE. I have been part of the committee that brought the program into 5 schools in our school district. It is absolutley incredible to see the kids interact with the babies.
I have watched Roots of Empathy do amazing things in the classroom.
I am impressed by the simple, yet profound, philosophy of change behind Roots of Empathy. The program and the founder, Mary Gordon, deserve this recognition. They have my vote!
As an instructor, and also mentor with Roots of Empathy, I am continually impressed by comments from instructors to say that they are surprised and delighted by the positive reactions of the boys in their classes, to the baby during the family visit, and to the information concerning infant/human development.
This is information and experience that they get excited about!
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