empathy

School resource officer’s new deputy finds purpose on patrol

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Bay Minette, Alabama first-grader Braylon Henson wants to be a police officer when he grows up, thanks to school resource officer Ronald Saladin.

“I noticed his classmates were out there playing and he was in here by himself,” Saladin told WKRG. “I let him come walk with me because he felt left out.”

The 6-year-old was born with a condition known as Ectodernal Dysplasia, which means he was born without sweat glands and cannot go outside when the temperature is above 74 degrees. Teachers know to rub the boy down with ice if he overheats, but his condition means he can’t participate in all of the same activities as his classmates.

“He felt left out, and I didn’t want him to feel left out,” Saladin said. “His mom was afraid he was going to get picked on and bullied when he came to school.”

So Saladin befriended his little partner in August, and the duo have been patrolling the halls of Bay Minette Elementary ever since. Saladin even bought Henson his own mini uniform, complete with handcuffs, hat and badge.

“He would take my stuff but he wanted his own little uniform,” Saladin said.

Henson takes his new responsibility seriously.

“You know what you’re getting, right? A ticket,” Henson told a teacher after he found a pencil on the floor during a recent patrol.

“Hey! I’ll be back,” he warned another classroom.

Teachers told WKRG they’ve noticed Henson’s grades improving since he took on his new role, and it’s obvious his celebrity status on campus boosted his confidence.

“It’s definitely a blessing,” Saladin said, “like it was meant to be.”

The friendship between Saladin and Henson illustrates an important aspect of character education, through both Saladin’s mentorship and Henson’s new-found mission.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture, wrote in his book “The Death of Character:”

Implicit in the word character is a story. It is a story about living for a purpose that is greater than the self.

Kenneth Shore, a psychologist, author and chair of a child study team for the Hamilton, New Jersey Public Schools, penned a column for Education World about ways educators can encourage students to engage in school.

“As a teacher, you will have greater success spurring a student to speak up if you can figure out why he is reluctant to participate,” Shore advises. “Whatever the reason for his reticence, your role is not to force him to speak; doing so will more likely make him clam up than open up. Your role is to provide a supportive, encouraging climate that helps him feel more comfortable, more confident, and less fearful of speaking up.”

 

Student knife incidents prompt FL district to highlight anti-bullying efforts

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Two recent incidents of Lake County, Florida students carrying knives to class is prompting school officials to step up efforts to promote the district’s anti-bullying hotline in October – National Bullying Prevention Month.

Fred Jones, a sergeant with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and longtime school resource officer, told Spectrum News both students brought the weapons to school for protection against bullies, but will be charged with a felony for bringing the weapons to school.

In one instance last month, a 10-year-old girl at Minneola Elementary Charter School told police she stashed a kitchen knife inside a stuffed animal she carried in her backpack “for protection.” Days later, a South Lake High School student caught with a knife told police he “carried on a daily basis” to protect against bullies, according to the news site.

“Maybe that is something inside of them that they feel they need to, maybe it is a culture that says ‘I need to protect myself, I am looking out for me.’ But it is a dangerous one,” said Jones.  “If your kid is having a problem, they don’t feel comfortable coming in, please give the school resource officer or deputy a call. Talk to them, and let us address it.”

Jones pointed to the district’s SpeakOut hotline, coordinated through the Central Florida Crimeline, as one way students can report bullying and remain anonymous. Students can also text “speakout” to 274637 or use the P3 Campus App to make reports, Jones said.

School and sheriff’s officials posted a message about National Bullying Prevention Month on the district’s Facebook page as well to remind families of the consequences of bullying in Lake County schools.

“Many times, bullying is directly related to comments or actions threatening our schools. A threat or even a joke about shooting up the school is not cool. Children will be prosecuted and suspended immediately pending a threat assessment by school administration,” according to the Facebook post.

“Bullying, including cyber-bullying, will not be tolerated in Lake County Schools. Have a talk with your kids and make sure they understand that we have a zero-tolerance concerning threats to our schools and students.”

Crafting a coherent anti-bullying message is an important component of effective moral education that’s not as easy as it seems, according to researchers with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

“This failure to provide a fully developed and broadly coherent moral message was partly due to public school teachers’ reluctance to opine on controversial issues,” Institute founder James Davison Hunter wrote in “The Content of Their Character”

Often, educators simply avoid “providing serious direction on what was right and what was wrong,” Hunter wrote.

Officials in Lake County Schools clearly understand the important role educators play in keeping kids safe and conveying important messages about character. The SpeakOut hotline is one of several ways educators in the district are going beyond talk to put the message into action.

The SpeakOut website offers more information about the three different ways of reporting bullying through the program, which is tailored to students in elementary, middle and high schools.

Anti-bullying experts credit NJ anti-bullying laws for creating safer schools

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In New Jersey, school anti-bullying coordinators are crediting one of the nation’s oldest anti-bullying laws with helping to keep classrooms safe.

New Jersey passed its first anti-bullying law in 2002 requiring schools to offer anonymous reporting and conduct investigations into complaints. Lawmakers followed up nine years later with an expansion known as the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, which better defined bullying and mandated anti-bullying coordinators at every school, as well as specific timelines and procedures for investigating incidents, the Burlington County Times reports.

Anti-bullying coordinators said the laws provided schools with a blueprint for identifying and responding to both bullies and victims, along with training to help students develop kindness and civic responsibility.

“I think the New Jersey anti-bullying bill of rights does a great job encompassing every area,” Pemberton Township coordinator Rita Jenkins told the news site. “I say we’re fortunate with the big plug with character education. We’re very conscientious to make sure that we’re teaching these responsibilities, and ultimately that will help with the bullying situation.”

And that’s important because according to the data, bullying is a major contributor to school violence overall.

The Times reports:

The FBI’s 2017 guidelines for violence prevention in schools said bullying is often a precursor to school violence, and in 71 percent of instances of targeted school violence, the most common motive among perpetrators was ‘revenge’ for bullying.

New Jersey’s anti-bullying laws put schools, parents, lawmakers, counselors and others involved with students on the same page, while offering opportunities to build relationships.

Pemberton Child Study Team Supervisor Holly Corsanico said stronger relationships between students and adults in schools, in particular, helps to both identify troubled students and prevent them from doing something they might regret.

“I think that’s one of these stemming things with these cases that have occurred is, did they have – could we have prevented it by having connections and having an outlet and someone to speak with?” Corsanico said. “Because you’re really not going to hurt someone if you have a relationship with them, or you’re less likely to hurt anyone if you have some type of bond or connection with them.”

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, highlighted the critical importance of presenting a unified message to students on issues involving character and moral values in his book “The Tragedy of Moral Education in America”:

Moral education can work where the community, and schools and other institutions within it, share a moral culture that is integrated and mutually reinforcing; where the social networks of adult authority are strong, unified, and consistent in articulating moral ideals and their attending virtues; and where adults maintain a ‘caring watchfulness’ over all aspects of a young person’s maturation.

Teachers and parents interested in character education can look to the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues for lessons and resources on a variety of topics. Lessons like “The Virtue of Friendliness and Civility” encourage students to consider the perspective of Aristotle in exploring the impact of their actions on themselves and others.

Thrive charter schools’ unique approach is inspiring students, fueling explosive growth

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San Diego’s Thrive charter school network is growing exponentially, from a single location with a class of 45 in 2014 to nearly 700 kids spread across four campuses this school year.

Its rapid expansion comes amid tensions between charter and traditional public schools in the district, but it’s driven by a different kind of educational model that stresses character and a project-based approach to learning that parents can appreciate, according to LA School Report.

“If a hospital were run the way we run schools, it would be like, ‘Welcome to the hospital! It’s MRI day. I know you’ve got a heart murmur, but no problem! We’ll give you a brain scan,” Thrive founder and CEO Nicole Assisi told the education site.

“I feel like that’s how we operate schools: You’ve got a kid with a broken leg, you give him some antibiotics – when in reality, it’s about precision teaching and learning.”

At Thrive campuses – which are adorned with portraits of world leaders and student artwork – each student receives a personal lesson plan to identify strengths and weaknesses, and they work with school counselors to draft a road map to achieve their goals.

Classes are comprised of students in “core groups” based on development, rather than grade levels based strictly by age, and lessons incorporate subjects of math, science, public speaking, character and others into projects that benefit the school, as well as people in the community and beyond.

One recent project, “The Light of Kindness,” involved students engineering, designing and crafting DYI lanterns with LED lights they later donated to Syrian refugees resettled in San Diego. Other projects involved creating their own books, and flying a swarm of drones over their school.

The approach is part of Thrive’s three-part educational model, “which pushes students to learn to learn (using evidence-based instruction to build academic skills), learn to do (developing the skills of collaboration and problem solving through hands-on project), and learn to be (cultivating a sense of citizenship and social action in wider communities),” according to LA School Report.

Olivia told the site the small group setup in her math class has made a major difference in her academics since she transferred to Thrive.

“At my (old) school, we just worked on our own papers. It was just, ‘Here’s the paper, just work alone, stay focused.’ You’d get no help or anything,” she said. “I was behind in math, and my mom thought of Thrive. Here, we work in groups, and our teachers helps us with math. We get to communicate with different people.

“I’ve been getting really good in math, and I’m already getting catched up to third-grade math,” she said.

Other students like Russel discussed how working together to create and complete school projects is building a confidence he’ll need later in life.

“You know how one of the biggest fears in the world is going up and talking to a big crowd of people? That’s what we do on our exhibitions. Parents come up and you have to explain your project,” he said. “And we kind of get used to that, so when we get older, we can just talk about what our new invention is.”

Much of Thrive’s success stems largely from a deep understanding of how students learn, and applying lessons that fit with their strengths and weaknesses.

Sociologist James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture, noted in his book “The Death of Character” that “psychology is in a position to specify the conditions that permit or impede the full realization of a person’s natural creativity, productivity, and well-being.”

The rapid growth in popularity of Thrive schools makes it clear parents flock to schools that get it right.

The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues offers resources for parents and educators looking to help youngsters work through their emotions to realize their full potential.

In the Centre’s “Tools of Virtue” lesson, for example, students learn about identifying their emotions, and how they impact decision making in different types of situations.

‘Start With Hello’: Sandy Hook Promise teaches kids to connect with kindness

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Students across America are learning to relate to their classmates on a more personal level, including those with whom they traditionally wouldn’t associate.

Students at Tuslaw Elementary and Middle schools in Stark County, Ohio, spent a week in early October wearing name tags, writing positive notes for others, and eating lunch with kids they’d normally avoid, IndeOnline reports.

The theme was simple: Start With Hello.

“This week is allowing our students to realize they are not alone,” counselor Chelsy Jackson said. “They have people they can reach out to whether it’s their peers or teachers.”

The activities are part of the Fourth Annual Start With Hello Call-To-Action Week organized by Sandy Hook Promise, a national nonprofit that “trains students and adults to know the signs of gun violence so that no other parent experiences the senseless, horrific loss of their child.”

The organization was founded by family of the 26 students and staff of Sandy Hook Elementary who were murdered by a gunman on December 14, 2012.

“The Sandy Hook Promise wants to get students connected and make sure they are not feeling alone,” Jackson said.

Stark County schools, including Tuslaw, Fairless and Perry school districts, joined more than 12,000 schools across the country taking part in 2018. Down the road from Tuslaw, Fairless Middle School students held discussions about isolation, and brainstormed ways to reach out. They also donned name tags and dressed up as their favorite characters throughout the week to help spark conversations, according to the news site.

“It raised a lot of awareness,” Fairless counselor LuAnne Frase said. “It got our students thinking and mingling with other students and out of their comfort group.”

And it’s clear the positive messages are sinking in.

“People care about you, someone cares,” Taylin Saunders, a Tuslaw eighth-grader, said of lessons learned.

“You get to know a lot of people that you might have judged (before),” seventh-grader Logan Hornberger added. “People judge me as being weak but if they got to know me they would find that I can do more than they think.”

The efforts to instill more kindness and compassion in students comports with findings from the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture’s “Culture of American Families” report, which documented parents’ explicit commitment to moral character.

“The overwhelming majority of American parents (96 percent) say ‘strong moral character’ is very important, if not essential to their child’s future,” according to the publication.

The nonprofit Kindness.org offers a lot of ideas for educators and others to promote kindness, both themselves and in others. The site lists dozens of initiatives readers can join to make a difference, from “Tag someone to tell them ‘I’m here for you,’” to “Pay it forward with coffee,” to “compliment a stranger,” among many others.

TX teacher’s coffee cart helps special needs students build social skills

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A first-year special education teacher in Texas is getting a lot of attention for a creative idea she came up with to help students overcome their disabilities and to help them learn communication and other life skills.

Recent Texas A&M graduate Shelby Winder took a portion of her modest starting salary to buy a coffee cart for special education students in her Life Skills class at Grand Oaks High School in Spring, Texas. The idea is to allow students to run a coffee bar as a small business, which they dubbed “The Grizzly Bean,” while helping students strengthen communication and social skills, Rare reports.

Texas author and life coach Chris Field posted about Winder’s efforts on Facebook.

The coffee cart “would allow her students to walk around to each of the teachers and staff in the school and take their orders and then deliver their coffee to them on Fridays. Most importantly, this would allow the students to practice their social skills, communication, working through their shyness, and even learning how to run a simple business by calculating their expenses and profits,” Field wrote, adding that he was so impressed he helped repay the teacher for her expenses.

“Her students have now been at this a couple weeks … and she says they are absolutely loving it,” he wrote. “It’s obviously a great teaching tool and one that will give them skills and lessons to carry far beyond this school year.”

The practical life skills of counting and collecting cash are only part of a bigger message Winder is hoping to convey, according to Field.

“One of the coolest parts of this story is that Shelby has the goal of using some of the profits from her class’s coffee business to actually provide funds for another school to start the same project,” he wrote. “Then they would do the same, and they would do the same, and so on and so forth. How cool is that?!”

Winder planted a seed that’s growing into something bigger, both through new habits of communication and socialization for students and new school traditions motivated by compassion and understanding for students with special needs. Those habits and traditions are critical to effective character education.

“What empathy we feel may help us understand someone else’s needs, and even feel the desire to help that person,” James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture wrote in “The Tragedy of Moral Education.” “But without embedded habits and moral traditions, empathy does not tell us what to do, nor when nor how.”

The Ripple Kindness Project outlines many of the ways students benefit from a focus on practicing kindness in “8 Reasons For Teaching Kindness In School.”

Patty O’Grady, an expert in neuroscience, explained that “Children and adolescents do not learn kindness by only thinking about it and talking about it.

“Kindness is best learned by feeling it so that they can reproduce it,” O’Grady said. “Kindness is an emotion that students feel and empathy is a strength that they share.”

Study shows kindness activates brain differently when nothing expected in return

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A new study of brain activity shows genuine acts of kindness activate the reward network in the brain in a unique way when there’s nothing expected in return.

University of Sussex researchers examined 36 existing studies featuring brain scans of 1,150 people making kind decisions and divided the images into two groups: those with subjects acting out genuine altruism with nothing expected in return, and those motivated by strategic kindness, or something to be gained, The Week reports.

Researchers found both types of kind acts sparked activity in the brain’s reward center, though it was more obvious in participants acting out of strategic kindness.

But they also discovered something else.

“Some brain regions (in the ‘subgunual anterior cingulate cortex’) were more active during altruistic generosity indicating that there is something unique about being altruistic with no hope of gaining something in return,” according to the site.

The study’s lead author, Daniel Campbell-Meiklejohn, contends the analysis “sparks questions about people having different motivations to give to others; clear self-interest versus the warm glow of altruism.”

“The decision to share resources is a cornerstone of any cooperative society. We know that people can choose to be kind because they like feeling like they are a ‘good person,’ but also that people can choose to be kind when they think there might be something ‘in it’ for them such as a returned favor or improved reputation,” he wrote, according to PsychCentral.

“Some people might say that ‘why’ we give does not matter, as long as we do,” Campbell-Meikeljohn continued. “However, what motivates us to be kind is both fascinating and important. If, for example, governments can understand why people might give when there’s nothing in it for them, then they can understand how to encourage people to volunteer, donate to charity or support others in their community.”

The study is the latest evidence supporting truly altruistic kindness as an important component of character.

Sociologist James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, wrote in his book “The Death of Character”:

Implicit in the world ‘character’ is a story. It is a story about living for a purpose that is greater than the self.

Campbell-Meiklejohn contends that while strategic kindness may prompt more obvious activity in the brain, there’s times when it’s no substitute for the real deal.

“For example, if after a long day of helping a friend move house, they hand you a fiver, you could end up feeling undervalued and less likely to help again,” he wrote. “A hung and kind words however might spark a warm glow and make you feel appreciated.”

The Ripple Kindness Project explains why that “warm glow” is important to conveying true kindness to students with “8 Reasons for Teaching Kindness in School.”

In the article, neuroscience expert Patty O’Grady contends “kindness changes the brain by the experience of kindness.”

“Children and adolescents do not learn kindness by only thinking about it and talking about it,” she said. “Kindness is best learned by feeling it so that they can reproduce it. Kindness is an emotion that students feel and empathy is a strength that they share.”

 

ID teen helps lead first Community Kindness Day to promote ‘simple acts of kindness’

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Skyview High School senior Tyson Cantrell believes “simple acts of kindness can change the world.”

It’s the motivation that compelled his work helping to coordinate the first Community Kindness Day at the Ford Idaho Center last month.

“It’s easy to focus on the negative, but I know that everyone can use random acts of kindness,” he said.

Cantrell played a key role in recruiting students from area high schools to participate in the school kindness week activities and the Community Kindness Day, an effort that revolved around lifting others up. For Skyview’s Kindness Week, for example, senior mentors wrote letters of encouragement to freshmen, the Idaho Press reports.

“The feedback has been phenomenal,” Cantrell said. “We need to let them know that it is OK to be vulnerable because we are here for them, to support and guide them.”

Parents like Kelly Gibbons, who serves on Vallivue High School’s planning committee, told the news site working with Cantrell and other student leaders on the Community Kindness Day was an inspiring experience.

“My interactions with Tyson and other Canyon County leadership students was incredibly encouraging and respectful,” she said. “These youngsters are truly on the pulse of important social issues and are not afraid to take a stand. Our future is in some capable, caring and kind hands.”

Cantrel said he intends to continue the kindness campaign throughout the school year, and is now focused on the important question “How can we carry this past the one week and talk about it again?”

The push to instill more kindness in students and school comports with findings from the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture’s “Culture of American Families” report, which documented parents’ explicit commitment to moral character.

According to the publication:

The overwhelming majority of American parents (96 percent) say ‘strong moral character’ is very important, if not essential to their child’s future.

The Community Kindness Day and school kindness weeks in Idaho are among a variety of different approaches schools across the country are using to bring more compassion into the classroom and school life in general.

Earlier this year, more than 10 million students in nearly 20,000 schools in 100 countries took part in “The Great Kindness Challenge,” for example.

The campaign targets one week per year – next scheduled for January 28- February 1, 2019 – and encourages students to complete as many kindness challenges as possible, with different challenges for different grade levels.

Students with the Junior Edition Checklist, those in PreK through second grade, can invite a friend to play, help someone up if they fall down, or entertain someone with a happy dance, while the Great Kindness Checklist for students in second through 12th grade includes things like offering help to the school custodian, learning to say “Hello” in a different language, or sitting with a new group of students at lunch.

“All kids deserve to learn in a safe, supportive and caring environment,” according to The Great Kindness Challenge website. “The Great Kindness Challenge provides a powerful tool that actively engages students, teachers, administrators, families, and communities in creating a culture of compassion, acceptance, unity, and respect.”

Atlanta principals focus on school culture to improve student learning

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Principals in Atlanta, Georgia’s low-performing schools are leading a change in school culture they’re hoping to leverage into better academic outcomes for students.

Principals at Perkerson Elementary and Carver High school recently offered a look inside major changes underway as part of a broader effort to transform the district that also includes staffing changes and nonprofit contractors, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Carver High School principal Yusuf Muhammad explained how Purpose Built Schools Atlanta is helping school officials implement a project-based learning approach that centers on students “at the core of the learning.”

“Instead of just, ‘Here’s a textbook, and you read the textbook’ or ‘ …I’m going to lecture and tell you what to do and you have to memorize what you have to learn,’ the students will be designing projects that are aligned to, of course, the state standards but also to their lives, so it’s culturally based,” Muhammad said.

The new approach takes lessons about math, science, history and other subjects and applies it to issues in students’ high-poverty neighborhood, while also expanding class offerings and clubs students can participate in during the school day, according to the news site.

Administrators also implemented changes to make the school “feel” more inviting, such as replacing the traditional bell signaling class periods to a pleasant message: “Good afternoon kings and queens. At this time, we will start our transition to our third block.”

“I just really worked on culture, creating a culture of love … and that we have high expectations,” Muhammad told the Journal-Constitution. “I know that we couldn’t make huge academic gains right away without improving the culture.”

Tony Ford, principal at Perkerson, is also focused on transforming school culture, though with an entirely different approach. He set up a system of rewards and competitions based on the “house” system popularized by Harry Potter. Students who behave earn tokens and compete for parties with the principal. Students also receive a “paycheck” for good behavior they can use at a school store called The Perkerson Pit Stop.

“Imagine: Hanging out with the principal as an honor and not a punishment,” the AJC reports. “That’s the school he’s trying to create.”

Researchers with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture have highlighted the important role culture – which extends to students’ mental state, home life, and after school community – plays in shaping character.

“The form of character is one thing, but the substance of character always takes shape relative to the culture in which it is found,” Institute founder James Davison Hunter wrote in “The Tragedy of Moral Education.”

Character.org provides resources for educators and principals working to transform school culture and instill positive character virtues in students, from conversations on key topics and training sessions to “11 Principles of Effective Character Education,” which offers tips on implementing positive change.

 

Kind is the new cool in U.S. schools

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In schools across America, it’s becoming cool to be kind.

The encouraging trend is playing out in a lot of ways, according to The 74 Million, and it’s inspiring everyone from a band of bikers to famous rappers and creative teachers to get involved.

In late August, dozens of Chicago-area bikers set the tone when they learned of middle school student Megan Kuntz, who was terrified to face bullies who tormented her at school last year. The massive biker entourage escorted the girl to her first day of class to send a message that they have her back.

“The next thing you know, I’ve got a whole family back here that’s supporting my daughter,” Jill Kuntz, Megan’s mom, told WLS. “She’s on cloud nine today going to school for the first time.”

Atlanta rapper T.I. also intervened in the case of a University High School sophomore who was denied school lunch over a 15-cent lunch debt. T.I. lashed out at the school and cafeteria worker who confiscated the girl’s lunch, then put $1,000 in her food account to ensure she’d never have to hungry again, WKYC reports.

T.I.’s generosity inspired others to launch a GoFundMe campaign to settle other students’ delinquent lunch accounts, as well.

Meanwhile, in Memphis, Tennessee, four students at Hernando Middle School created their own campaign of kindness by coming to school each day at 6:30 a.m. to personally greet each of their classmates as they came into the building.

“Kindness is like butter. The earth is toast,” seventh-grader Cody Eaton told Local Memphis. “You have to spread it around.”

“One time every morning someone has said, ‘Hey, why are you doing this?’” eighth-grader Bethany Wilder said. “And I think it’s nice for other people to know that you don’t have to have a reason to be kind. You just have to do it and make someone’s day.”

In Charlotte, North Carolina, teacher Justin Parmenter worked to lift his students’ spirits in a different way, through a heartfelt message from their parents. Suring the Waddell Language Academy’s open house, he asked parents to pen inspiring notes to their children he can hand out when they’re having a rough day.

Parmenter posted some of the loving notes to social media, where many parents and educators commended his efforts to start the school year off on the right foot.

“Writing an encouraging note is not only about letting someone understand they’re appreciated, but making yourself think about what it is that you appreciate,” the Charlotte Observer noted. “That’s a good assignment for the first day of school, and for lots of others.”

The emerging culture of kindness in many schools is a product of school and community leaders, teachers, parents and others who have worked diligently to raise awareness about bullying and other issues and to change the dynamic by setting a positive example, and creating habits and traditions rooted in kindness.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, highlighted exactly why that’s important in “The Content of Their Character,” a summary of character education in a variety of American high schools.

“What empathy we feel may help us understand someone else’s needs, and even feel the desire to help that person,” Hunter wrote. “But without embedded habits and moral traditions, empathy does not tell us what to do, nor when, nor how.”

The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, publishes free resources for educators to “supplement, complement and support positive behavior goals.”

The association also provides K-12 lesson plans to promote kindness in the classroom.

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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