Hi Everyone,
I wanted to give you the first of five links to an award-winning CBC Documentary called "Children Full of Life" posted in 8 minute parts on Youtube. It is a look into a grade 4 classroom in Japan over the course of a year as kids learn lessons about compassion from their homeroom teacher, Toshiro Kanamori. By sharing their lives, the children begin to realize the importance of caring for their classmates. It doesn't avoid the hard parts of teaching (like some of our classes gloss over!) and incidents of bullying, the death of a parent, and other very real-life experiences are shown as they happen. I would really encourage everyone to take a look...it is inspiring in real ways.
Alysson
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Great video. I may have, almost cried.
ReplyDeleteOkay I cried; I admit it.
Alysson! This was awesome video, I cannot believe how compassionate the children in this class are to one another, and how comfortable and open they are around their teacher and peers. From my experience at least, I have never been in a class where everyone felt so at ease with one another. I wonder if this is a cultural phenomenon or not? What was Dr. Cressey saying about North Americans and how use questions regarding our emotional state (how are you?) as a formality because we don't really want to know how others are feeling because it might make us uncomfortable? And that we use only vague answers such as good or okay for the same reason? I'm not sure, and now I am just rambling (it's late). Anyways what I want to say is that it seems like we are all so guarded when it comes to feelings and emotions, and that maybe it would be a good idea for us to learn to be a little more open, in addition to being compassionate towards other peoples emotions. I really liked the idea of the notebook letters and reading them aloud to the class in order to promote compassion between students, and a sense of unity in the classroom. I'm wondering if it would be possible to do something like this in a high school setting?
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Erin :)
That's a pretty powerful video Alysson. I think its amazing that the teacher was able to create such a safe environment where students can openly share their thoughts and feelings to the rest of the class. This way, the class and the teacher has the opportunity to share some of the emotional burden a student may be carrying.
ReplyDeleteI think its funny how our actions as future educators are often dictated by what society considers appropriate or not. What do you when you know that a student is going through a rough time - divorce, death in the family, etc. and they become openly upset about it in your presence? For many of us, if we weren't teachers, our initial reaction may be to put our arm around them (like the teacher in the video). We will, instead, try to console them with words (which I'm sure won't quite communicate how sorry we really feel for them) while safely keeping our distance so we can keep our jobs.
Thank you so much for showing this to me. I love it.
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