Can Kindness Be Taught?

[elleng]

'Thanks to a challenge from the Dalai Lama, a number of preschools are trying to teach something that has not always been considered an academic subject: kindness.

“Can you look inside yourself and tell me what you’re feeling?” Danielle Mahoney-Kertes asked a class of prekindergarten students at P.S. 212 in Queens recently.

“Happy,” one girl offered. “Sick,” said another. A boy in a blue T-shirt gave a shy thumbs down. “That happens too,” Ms. Mahoney-Kertes, a literacy coach, reassured him.

The exercise was part of the Kindness Curriculum, developed by the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in which preschoolers are introduced to a potpourri of sensory games, songs and stories that are designed to help them pay closer attention to their emotions.

“Our world is kind of a scary place,” Ms. Mahoney-Kertes said. “We can’t always control what is happening outside us. But what we’re teaching them is that they can control how they respond.”

Since the curriculum was introduced in August, more than 15,000 educators, parents and others from around the world have signed up for it.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/well/family/kindness-curriculum-preschool.html?

[handmade34]

1. another good article...

of course we can teach kindness

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2017/0915/Reading-writing-and-empathy-How-Denmark-is-a-leader-in-teaching-social-skills

"...At its deepest level, encouraging empathy is seen as a step toward moving away from the ethos of individualism that characterized 20th-century societies toward a greater tolerance of other cultures in the interconnected world of the 21st century.

Numerous pilot programs are under way in the US to foster emotional intelligence in students, including an $11 million experiment in Kentucky called the Compassionate Schools Project. Other initiatives are taking root from China to Finland.

In Denmark, empathy has long been a part of the zeitgeist of the nation, taught and valued everywhere, from preschools to corporate suites. Many parents consider their children’s kindness in the classroom just as crucial as their math or science scores..."

[guillaumeb]

2. Can a sociopath learn empathy?

Failing that, can a sociopath fake empathy?

Recommended.

[elleng]

3. Sociopaths fake EVERYTHING.

:

[guillaumeb]

4. Well said.

And successful sociopaths like Trump and Jamie Demon are quite good at faking, or perhaps better to say that they are good at fooling those who need to be fooled.

[BigmanPigman]

6. A lot of them are also pathological liars.

The two psychosis overlap.

[unblock]

7. the main thing is sincerity -- if you can fake that, you've got it made.

[juxtaposed]

5. we look in others eyes and feel who they are

[LWolf]

8. Sure.

Of course, like most things taught, direct instruction may not be the best method.

Modeling from birth is probably the best way to teach kindess, as well as other important things.

[elleng]

9. ABSOLUTELY, Modeling from birth is probably the best way to teach kindess.

I see it often, in my grands.