How to Teach & Foster Compassion
"In Grade 1 compassion, kindness and social responsibility are woven into everything we do. An example right now is we are working on a peace project practicing tolerance, respect and celebration of our differences. Sharing personal cultural traditions to gain understanding of each other and talking about our similarities so we can see that we are all not that different and all deserving of kindness and love."
-Grade 1 Teacher, Local Victoria, B.C. Elementary School
-Grade 1 Teacher, Local Victoria, B.C. Elementary School
There are two major resources we have found that are direct lessons, units, activities and plans to teach compassion
Compassion in Elementary Schools: Ideas for a school-wide theme and lesson plans
The Vancouver School District is dedicated to Compassion programs in their schools. In 2006, teachers from the district collaborated and created a 67 page resource package of units, lessons and activities to be used in all grades of Elementary Schools to teach and foster compassion.
The lessons are cross-curricular and follow the British Columbia Ministry of Education Preformance Standards for Social Responsibility (http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/perf_stands/social_resp.htm). There are examples of morning messages to be said over the PA systems, but could also be used as morning messages in the the classroom for spelling practice etc. There are messages for one month's worth of announcements and all include follow-up acitivities to be done in the classroom. There are lessons in writing, reading, drama, healthy relationships and emotions, social studies (culture, community, current events and family history), science (animal characteristics and habits), physical education (games, dance and physical representations) and more. There are worksheet and acitivty templates for each lesson and resource lists that include summaries and maid discussion points for each book. This is a fantastic resource that gives detailed lesson plans that have varying preparation, application and application to books or resources such as "The Rag Coat", "Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge", "Goose's Story", and "The Quilt Maker's Gift". All of which are at different reading levels and can have significance across grade levels. http://www.vsb.bc.ca/sites/default/files/publications/Compassion%20in%20Elem%20-%20Ideas-Lessons%20-%20pkg.pdf |
Compassionate Canada from Multicultural Canada
This program is a unit on creating a compassionate Canada, starting with Lesson 1: What is compassion?.
These lessons provide a rationale and a conenction to the B.C. Curriculum Guide and IRPs. It also lists resources and textbooks recommended for the lessons. They are geared for older, high schools students but in reading you can most definitely adjust and apply the same lesson to intermediate elementary and middle years quite easily, and even primary in a more basic sense. For example, part of lesson 1 is a discussion on certain scenarios: "Scenario 1: You see a 3-year-old child fall off a swing and run to help him. Teacher script: This scenario presents an individual reacting to a hurt child. Teacher poses questions to students:
http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/node/168433 |