Roots of Empathy program launches in Strathmore

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

The international-based Roots of Empathy program is starting in some Strathmore schools this October and has been busy recruiting instructors to help deliver the course.
Roots of Empathy is an evidence-based classroom program that has shown significant effect in reducing levels of aggression and bullying among school children while raising social/emotional competence and increasing empathy.
The course teaches fundamentals in empathy and perspective taking through weekly instructor-based classroom settings followed by a hands-on workshop called “Baby our tiny little teacher.” The workshop utilizes viewing and interacting techniques with a baby to understand different emotional cues and proper responsive behaviours.
Leah Mathieson is the coordinator the Roots of Empathy program for the Strathmore area and is in her seventh year of teaching the program.
“The program encourages pro social behaviours which result in more respectful, caring, successful individuals in the future,” she said, adding that the program has shown a significant effect in reducing forms of bullying.
The Roots of Empathy program will be running eight programs this year in Strathmore and one in Carseland. It will start in October and run through to May.
The program is capable of teaching all children from kindergarten up to Grade 9, but this year in Strathmore it will be teaching Grade 5 students. Mathieson said Grade 5 is developmentally a good age for kids to start learning about others and feelings and talking about communication.
Instructor-based learning will be used for three weeks in a row, followed by a week where the baby comes into a classroom to help teach emotional intelligence. The course will centre around nine different themes and students will see how a baby communicates what it needs from its mom. Students will learn that a crying baby is a baby who needs something, and as they start to feel what the baby is feeling they will learn to identify their own feelings.
Mathieson said simple things like putting yourself in other people’s shoes, or perspective taking, is not always being taught at home.
Grade 5 teacher Leanne Lennox at Wheatland Elementary has utilized the Roots of Empathy program in her classroom and has seen a vast improvement in her students’ social skills, writing and vocabulary.
“It’s a really good program because we need to teach more and more social skills and it seems like that’s something that’s becoming very prominent to teach,” she said.
Lennox noted that the program enables all children to learn empathy. “Some of the kids with problem behaviour open up and are able to trust a little bit more,” she said.