Roots of Empathy at the SJCC

In our present society, the emphasis of education is often on academic development. While this as important, we strongly feel that fostering values in children is equally as important. We believe school is not just a place to expand educational knowledge but is also a great environment to deepen an awareness of our own emotions and the emotions of others, thus helping to develop empathy and compassion. Our experiences attending the Seeds of Compassion lectures and discussions (with the Dalai Lama in spring 2008)and working with Roots of Empathy provided additional inspiration.

Watch our Roots of Empathy color project in a KING-TV spotlight.

Here at the Stroum Jewish Community Center take inspiration from the schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy. This approach focuses on children's interests and using these interests as a base with which to research and work with the children on long-term projects and provocations.

It is from our collective inspiration and these educational values that we came up the Color of Empathy project. To help keep the project open-ended, we chose to develop guiding questions. We find that using a question-based-system rather than a directive approach allows for the depth and growth of the child participants' creativity and unique thoughts and enables their ideas to be more freely expressed.

The project involved two classes, one class of 4-5 year olds and one class of kindergarteners. It consisted of three steps for each color the children explored.

1. Open ended compositions: The first composition is open-ended with no constraints or stresses. With no requests and no expectations children's imaginations, uniqueness and personal creativity are most easily able to be expressed. By becoming familiar with the material, their innovativeness can expand and the depth to which they understand the materials increases.

2. Guided compositions: During the second experience with each color, children were asked to ponder what in the world is this particular color. Once each child has decided on an object, they create a representation with studio art materials. To deepen the  experience, a question is posed,  "What would it feel like to be this object?" When this question is asked of each child, the hope is that this will challenge them to think of others, think beyond themselves and into the wider world. In addition, perhaps it will elicit thoughts and feelings that will build on, nurture, and foster empathy.

3. Color installation: The third experience allows the child to be surrounded by each particular color. An installation is created with only materials of that particular color. With the help of light projectors and sensory tables, we provide children an opportunity to tangibly explore their own emotions by feeling, smelling, hearing, and simply being surrounded by a specific color. We are curious to see how various colors might impact children differently and whether particular colors might draw out certain emotions more than others. By exposing the children to colors in various contexts, we hope it will expand the way our students feel, think and see the world and increase their awareness of the myriad of possibilities in life for learning and growth intellectually, physically, and emotionally.

The Color of Empathy installations provide an opportunity for our school community to be a part of this exploration. The sharing of this space allows for common experience which, in turn, leads to many discussions comparing and contrasting our observations. This installation creates an impetus for deeper collaboration and thus learning and relationship-building between teachers, parents and children.

Growth has been observed in a few key areas:

Emotional Recognition: The children have gained competency in the ability to become more able to recognize the emotions of others and of themselves. Many seem more reflective in social situations.

Emotional Fluency: The children have gained fluency and are articulate when talking about their own feelings. It is clear from their interactions with peers and teachers that they have become increasingly able to work through challenging moments independently by conveying their feelings and expressing their own emotions.

Artistic Fluency: The children's artistic fluency has expanded as they have explored emotion in a tactile way through the composition work involved in his project. Artistic media gives another voice to children's thoughts an emotion about the world.  We have also observed much growth in the children's ability to work with the materials in more innovative and creative ways.

Learn more about Roots of Empathy >>