Teaching Empathy...

What would it be like to be the cutest thing in the room; people surrounding you, tousling your hair, rubbing your belly, picking up your feet and shaking your hand - repeatedly? A precious young lady volunteered to be the cute little puppy and some of her friends were the kids.  Her hair was tousled, everyone surrounded her, and bless her heart she did a good "puppy" for us all! The class discussed how they thought she felt and then she described how she felt as the pup.  Bottom line, she didn't like being surrounded, it was overwhelming and a little scary.   We left the students with the charge of deciding how students should interact with Henry Clay.  The jury is still out on what they will put together but based on their discussion they were on the right track.  Don't surround him, be gentle, talk one at a time, take turns, give him space: these are just a few of the rules they came up with.  They will work on it and narrow it down to the most important.  When I think about the school motto, really it can apply to Henry Clay too with the kids.  I wonder if the students will see that connection themselves and outline what Be Respectful means when it comes to Henry Clay.

We have fantastic kids and watching them interact with the puppy takes this Grinch heart and truly does cause it to grow.  Putting Henry Clay in their path seems to give them the opportunity to practice empathy.  It seems like maybe we don't need to teach it as much as we just need to provide them opportunity to draw it out of themselves.  I watched a different group from the ones mentioned above of about 25 kids wait in line for a quick little interaction with a pretty cute puppy.  At first they surrounded him, then they backed up,  the kids put themselves into a line after one time of me saying "one at a time" they then told each other how to greet Henry Clay.  "Pet his back from his neck to his tail", a quick little rub and they were off.   I am still trying to figure out what the norm should be but at that moment letting the kids be introduced and get to touch Henry Clay seemed like the right thing.  They went from invading his space to asking permission to pet in under 30 seconds.  After just a short while a little guy said, "I think he is done now we should say bye."  It was amazing to watch these kids change from a crowd to a community right before my eyes in under a minute. Every one of them walked away with a smile- that is a very good moment in time and certainly left me pondering. Kids are so smart and capable of such deep emotion, thinking and compassion.