The Coast will soon have more caring and empathetic students thanks to a push by the Roberts Creek Community School Society (RCCSS) to have the Roots of Empathy program delivered to every elementary in School District No. 46 (SD46) this year.
The program runs once a week for 27 weeks and is structured around nine different social and emotional themes. A parent brings his or her baby to class at the beginning of each theme to help students connect and identify with the young child. That connection ultimately opens the door to discussion about emotions and behaviours.
Teachers on the Coast who have had classes take part in the past say the teaching has been valuable.
"What we've heard from teachers is that it cultivates a caring and healthy social classroom," said Stacia Leech, executive director with RCCSS.
Teachers and principals decide which classroom would best benefit from the program and instructors spend about 40 minutes once a week with students during a 27-week period.
"What they're really teaching the children is social/emotional learning," Leech said. "So the children learn about their own development through observing the baby's development. They learn to have empathy for the baby. They see the baby experiencing different emotions, and understand that they have emotions and that's OK."
Leech noted that "Roots of Empathy is an award-winning, evidence-based program that has shown dramatic effect in raising social/emotional competence and increasing empathy among school children."
On the Coast a handful of schools have been embracing Roots of Empathy since 2007, but just this year RCCSS made it a priority to get the program in all Coast elementary schools.
It costs about $20,000 to run the program in all nine elementary schools on the Coast for one year.
Leech noted that while the program is a key part of SD46 reaching its social responsibility goals laid out in the recently-released achievement contract, there is currently no funding for Roots of Empathy from the school board.
"We scraped together the funding from PACs and four of the five community schools have helped with some funding," she said.
If you would like to help, or want to know more, contact Leech at 604-885-3481 or email [email protected].
