School’s youngest teacher gives lesson in empathy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/10/2005 (7366 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LITTLE Anna Oike doesn’t know it yet, but her task over the next eight months or so is to teach a classroom of Grade 5 students what it’s like being a baby.

Wide-eyed and alert at nearly four months old, her dark hair standing up in spikes, she and her mother, Shauna, will visit Room 21 at Linwood School in St. James monthly as part of the nationwide Roots of Empathy program that connects students with babies and their parents.

Linwood is one of 50 schools in 10 divisions across the province participating in the program, sponsored by $75,000 in funding from Healthy Child Manitoba. More than 65,000 students in eight provinces participate in Roots of Empathy. The Oikes made their first visit last week.

“Has Anna said her first word yet?” asks one of the students sitting around the green blanket spread out on the classroom floor as Anna and her mom make their initial visit to Paula Andrew’s class.

“Not that you would recognize,” replies Shauna Oike, adding the baby does vocalize several vowel sounds.

Learning about infant development and developing empathy by witnessing a loving parent-child relationship are the main goals of this program developed by Toronto kindergarten teacher and parent educator Mary Gordon.

“Empathy is core to resisting and desisting aggression,” says Gordon, 58, in a telephone interview from Fort McMurray, Alta., midway through a cross-country tour of presentations and book launches. Gordon reads from her new book, Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26, at McNally Robinson Booksellers at Grant Park.

Gordon sees value in educating children, parents and teachers in emotional literacy through the Roots of Empathy program, but she says children take most of their cues around feelings from their first teachers — their parents.

“Empathy is something that is caught, not taught,” says the mother of two grown children. “The home has more teachable moments than the school will ever have on this.”

Share feelings

Gordon suggests sharing feelings about rejection or jealousy from your own childhood when your child is upset over a friendship gone sour or an opportunity missed. She also says to articulate problems you’re having as an adult, and explain how you’re attempting to solve them, so children can understand the strategic thinking that can resolve unpleasant situations.

“To share with our kids how we think and how we really feel is really valuable because you are their best role model. When you’re constantly modelling, you’re giving them the literacy of feeling.”

To some, empathy may be an obvious life skill, but Gordon stresses many children are missing those life lessons because our society is more and more disconnected, resulting in what she terms an “epidemic of loneliness.”

“Life goes at such a clip now that people are more isolated and marginalized than we ever were before by virtue of how we live. Our communities are not as connected,” says the transplanted Newfoundlander.

“I think that the whole theme of independence that we have stressed with children is destructive. I push for interdependence.”

After just 15 minutes with baby Anna, that interdependence is evident in Linwood School’s Room 21. She’s crying inconsolably after being passed to Roots of Empathy instructor Kelsey McDonald, upset perhaps by the sea of faces around her, or just because she’s a wee babe who needs to feed or nap. Her obvious distress is mirrored on the faces of the 10-year-olds around her.

They’re relieved when she quiets down in her mother’s arms, and McDonald asks them what they observed.

“She kind of relaxed,” says one. “She felt more comfortable,” adds another.

With only one short visit, the students have begun to see the world from little Anna Oike’s perspective. She needs her mommy to make her feel secure, a feeling that every kid understands.

“I think the landscape of childhood has changed, but little children have not changed,” says Gordon about why being empathic is important for children. “They have the same needs they’ve always had.”