Mary is recognized internationally as an award-winning social entrepreneur, educator, author, child advocate and parenting expert, whose programs are informed by empathy. In 1996 she created the Roots of Empathy program, which is now offered in many countries, and in 2005 she created the Seeds of Empathy program for 3- to 5-year-olds in childcare. She is also the founder of Canada’s first and largest school-based Parenting and Family Literacy Centers. Mary speaks and consults to governments, educational organizations, and public institutions, including the World Health Organization, the Skoll World Forum, and the United Nations.

MARY-GORDON.jpg

Mary Gordon

Roots of empathy - part 2

<h4>MARY GORDON was interviewed by JUDITH
 NELSON at the Spirit of Humanity Forum in Iceland in 2019. In part 1 she shares her worldview on the
 importance of empathy in human relationships and how it forms the foundation for the program she runs in schools on
 developing empathy in schoolchildren, called Roots of Empathy.</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1">

Q: Thanks for joining me Mary. Can I ask you first about
 empathy, as your work is especially with empathy? Can you tell me a bit more about your work?
MG: Well, my understanding of empathy is the
 ability to feel with the other person, not just to understand how they feel, but also to have the capacity to feel
 with them. And I think that empathy is the number one attribute of being human, and we have too little of it in the
 world, and it’s a shrinking commodity. But I also focus on empathy because when you have cruelty, when you have
 racism, when you have violence, when you have genocides, when you have any of the big horrific things in the world,
 the common ingredient is the absence of empathy.
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">Empathy develops&nbsp;in the first year of
 life, 
 in the loving relationship 
 between parents and babies.
</h5>
<hr>
My work is informed by that conclusion, which I came to a long time ago, and also the
 conclusion that empathy develops in the first year of life, in the loving relationship between parents and babies.
 And so, our work is about increasing empathy in childhood. And we do that by bringing the relationship between
 parents and babies, during the first year of the child’s life, into the classroom.
<img alt="roots-of-empathy-part-1" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Roots_of_empathy2_7fe9cc1956.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T14:39:30.402Z">

The Roots of Empathy program has the schoolchildren sit around a green blanket, with the
 mother and baby and an instructor. There is a curriculum, which the children don’t see, but which informs what goes
 on. And the children are coached to observe the baby’s intentions, and the baby’s feelings. We’re talking about a
 two-to-four-month-old baby who can’t walk, can’t talk, but can communicate hugely, bringing parents to
 tears, and bringing them to their knees. They can really communicate! So, as the children come to understand how the
 baby feels, they learn the vocabulary of their own emotions. And it’s the job of the Roots of Empathy instructor to
 ask the children, “When was a time you felt like the baby?”
The program has twenty-seven classes over the school year.
The parent and baby come once a month. There is a week beforehand to prepare, and then
 there is a week of reflection afterwards. There are different curricula for different ages of children. It is quite
 remarkable how the children increase their empathy. We have a lot of research that shows when empathy goes up
 aggression goes down, and prosocial behavior goes up. We want children to be kind, to be considerate, to be
 collaborative, to be caring, and that’s what the Roots of Empathy children are.
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">We want children to be kind, 
 to be considerate,&nbsp;to be collaborative, 
 to be caring, and that’s what 
 the Roots of Empathy children are.</h5>
<hr>
<img alt="roots-of-empathy-part-1" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Roots_of_empathy3_e6905abf31.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T14:40:19.977Z">

Q: You’re here at the Forum, and the topic this time round
 is really about harmony. Is there a relationship between empathy and harmony?
MG: Well, harmony is such a beautiful word. Harmony
 has a musical reference, but really, it’s a symbiotic word. The whole universe is in harmony and it’s in
 equilibrium. When a newborn baby is born, she or he is discombobulated, and has to seek through the parent (through
 the mother usually) a way to integrate all of their feelings, and to become in harmony, and to become attuned to the
 parent. And in the work of Roots of Empathy, the symbiotic relationship with the parent is called an attunement –
 the attachment and attunement of the parent to the baby. Here we’re talking about harmony – one to the other, and to
 the universe, and to concepts of peace. So, I really like the term “harmony.”
When you reflect and listen to birdsong, and listen to the rustle of leaves, or the
 waves in the ocean, you can very easily adjust your heartbeat and adjust your whole sensibility to be in harmony
 with nature. We do that more readily than being in harmony with the world.
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">If you don’t love yourself, 
 and if you don’t have empathy for yourself, 
 you don’t have the ability to love others 
 or to have empathy for others.
</h5>
<hr>
Q: If you were to ask yourself what children need in
 today’s world to help them develop the values that are embodied by the Forum, what would you say?
MG: I think the values embodied by the Forum are
 basic human values: The recognition and inalienable rights of people, human dignity, participation. People who come
 here typically share a purpose. They might have different avenues, but there is a common denominator of peaceful
 coexistence on many levels, and, in the Roots of Empathy work, we’re really helping children find a sense of balance
 in their lives. Number one is that they respect and love themselves, have self-empathy. Because, if you don’t love
 yourself, and if you don’t have empathy for yourself, you don’t have the ability to love others or to have empathy
 for others. The problem with the absence of empathy in the world, the decline of empathy, as it can be a
 generational thing, is that if a little baby is not parented empathically, and if the parent is unable to understand
 and attune to the baby’s needs, the child doesn’t develop the capacity to attune to the needs of others, to have
 empathy.
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">It’s almost as if empathy&nbsp;is the “cure all,” 
 the secret sauce of life.
</h5>
<hr>
<img alt="roots-of-empathy-part-1" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Roots_of_empathy4_d66a44e4da.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T14:41:09.241Z">

So, really, Roots of Empathy is about breaking cycles of violence and inadequate
 parenting. And I think the basic human trait that we need in the world is empathy. If you have that, honesty emerges
 out of it, respect emerges out of it. When we say to the little children in the Roots of Empathy classroom, “So,
 when baby Henri grows up and comes to school, what would you think if people say ‘You can’t play’?” the children are
 horrified that anyone would be mean to their little baby. They all fall in love with the baby, and they see the
 vulnerability and humanity in the baby. During that year, they come to find their own vulnerability and their own
 humanity, and also their strength. And then they see the strength in humanity and in others.
It’s almost as if empathy is the “cure all,” the secret sauce of life. If we can just
 empathize, it’s a little bit like the golden rule: If you understand how someone is going to feel, why would you
 hurt them, why would you exclude them, why would you say you’re somehow less human than I am? It removes the
 possibility of dehumanizing one another and hiving people off and saying “Your difference makes you unacceptable.”
 We celebrate difference in Roots of Empathy, and it’s not visual, it’s not the typical differences of culture and
 language, of size, or whatever.
<img alt="roots-of-empathy-part-1" 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Roots_of_empathy5_740fc84c0d.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T14:41:48.248Z">

<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">When we think about the traits 
 and qualities we need in growing up, 
 I think we really need a lot of selflove, 
 giving us the capacity to love others.
</h5>
<hr>
We talk about the difference in our innate temperament; that a baby comes to the world
 with a predisposition to see that world in many ways. Some babies are very intense and emotionally reactive. It’s
 very hard to parent a baby who’s very intense. In the classroom, it’s very hard to teach a child who’s very intense,
 because they are super reactive. They have temper tantrums; when they are disappointed they have a big reaction.
 But, if the little baby has a big reaction, nobody says, “You’re a bad baby.” Nobody says, “Go to your room.”
 Everyone helps the baby learn to deal with the big feelings, and what that does is soften everybody to realize,
 “Wow, I am like the little baby, too. It’s not a moral flaw if I’m very emotionally reactive. It’s who I am.” And
 the job of teachers and parents and mentors is to help children recognize who they are, and help them to live in the
 world that is. It is not to squash them, but to help them understand their reactions. So, when we think about the
 traits and qualities we need in growing up, I think we really need a lot of self-love, giving us the capacity to
 love others.
<h5><img alt="roots-of-empathy-part-1" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Roots_of_empathy6_178211c432.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T14:42:34.946Z">
</h5>
to be continued
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Interviewed by JUDITH NELSON</h4>
<hr>

Roots of empathy - part 1

<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<h4>
 MARY GORDON was interviewed by
 JUDITH NELSON at the Spirit of Humanity Forum in Iceland in 2019. In this excerpt, she
 shares her worldview on the importance of empathy in human relationships and
 how it forms the foundation for the program she runs in schools on developing
 empathy in schoolchildren, called Roots of Empathy.
</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 Q: Thanks for joining me, Mary. Can I ask you about empathy, as your work
 is especially with empathy?
 


 MG: Well, my understanding of empathy is
 the ability to feel with the other person, not just to understand how they
 feel, but also to have the capacity to feel with them. And I think that
 empathy is the number one attribute of being human, and we have too little of
 it in the world, and it’s a shrinking commodity. But I also focus on empathy
 because when you have cruelty, when you have racism, when you have violence,
 when you have genocides, when you have any of the big horrific things in the
 world, the common ingredient is the absence of empathy.


 My work is informed by that conclusion, which I came to a long time ago, and
 also the conclusion that empathy develops in the first year of life, in the
 loving relationship between parents and babies. And so, our work is about
 increasing empathy in childhood. And we do that by bringing the relationship
 between parents and babies, during the first year of the child’s life, into
 the classroom. The Roots of Empathy program has the schoolchildren
 sit around a green blanket, with the mother and baby and an instructor. There
 is a curriculum, which the children don’t see, but which informs what goes on.
 And the children are coached to observe the baby’s intentions, and the baby’s
 feelings. We’re talking about a two-to-four-month-old baby who can’t walk,
 can’t talk, but can communicate hugely, bringing parents to tears,
 and bringing them to their knees. They can really communicate! So, as the
 children come to understand how the baby feels, they learn the vocabulary of
 their own emotions. And it’s the job of the
 Roots of Empathy instructor to ask the children, “When was a time you
 felt like the baby?”

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <img alt="roots-of-empathy2-mary-gordan2" class="w-100 lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/roots_of_empathy2_mary_gordan2_0d092095a6.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T13:43:31.280Z" />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />
<h5 style="text-align: center">
 We want children to be kind, to be considerate,
 to be collaborative, 
 to be caring, and that’s what 
 the Roots of Empathy children are.
</h5>

<hr />
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 … There are different curricula for different ages of children. It is quite
 remarkable how the children increase their empathy. We have a lot of research
 that shows when empathy goes up aggression goes down, and prosocial behavior
 goes up. We want children to be kind, to be considerate, to be collaborative,
 to be caring, and that’s what the Roots of Empathy children are.


 Q: Is there a relationship between empathy and harmony?


 MG: Well, harmony is such a beautiful
 word. Harmony has a musical reference, but really it’s a symbiotic word. The
 whole universe is in harmony and it’s in equilibrium. When a newborn baby is
 born, she or he is discombobulated, and has to seek through the parent
 (through the mother usually) a way to integrate all of their feelings, and to
 become attuned to the parent. And in the work of Roots of Empathy, the
 symbiotic relationship with the parent is called an attunement – the
 attachment and attunement of the parent to the baby. Here we’re talking about
 harmony – one to the other, and to the universe, and to concepts of peace. So,
 I really like the term “harmony.”


 When you reflect and listen to birdsong, and listen to the rustle of leaves,
 or the waves in the ocean, you can very easily adjust your heartbeat and
 adjust your whole sensibility to be in harmony with nature. We do that more
 readily than being in harmony with the world.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <img alt="roots-of-empathy3" class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/roots_of_empathy3_7a181d1514.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T13:43:30.942Z" />

&nbsp;
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 In the work of Roots of Empathy, 
 the symbiotic relationship 
 with the parent is called an attunement – 
 the attachment and attunement 
 of the parent to the baby. 
 Here we’re talking about harmony – 
 one to the other, and to the universe, 
 and to concepts of peace
</h4>

<hr />
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 Q: If you were to ask yourself what children need in today’s world to help
 them develop values, what would you say?


 MG: I think they are basic human values:
 The recognition and inalienable rights of people, human dignity,
 participation. People who come here typically share a purpose.


 They might have different avenues, but there is a common denominator of
 peaceful coexistence on many levels, and, in the Roots of Empathy work, we’re
 really helping children find a sense of balance in their lives. Number one is
 that they respect and love themselves, have self-empathy. Because, if you
 don’t love yourself, and if you don’t have empathy for yourself, you don’t
 have the ability to love others or to have empathy for others. The problem
 with the absence of empathy in the world, the decline of empathy, which can be
 a generational thing, is that if a little baby is not parented empathically,
 and if the parent is unable to understand and attune to the baby’s needs, the
 child doesn’t develop the capacity to attune to the needs of others, to have
 empathy.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<img alt="roots-of-empathy4" class="w-100 lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/roots_of_empathy4_a466714801.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T13:43:31.290Z" />
&nbsp;
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 … And I think the basic human trait that we need in the world is empathy. If
 you have that, honesty emerges out of it, respect emerges out of it. When we
 say to the little children in the Roots of Empathy classroom, “So, when baby
 Henri grows up and comes to school, what would you think if people say ‘You
 can’t play’?” the children in class are horrified that anyone would be mean to
 their little baby. They all fall in love with the baby, and they see the
 vulnerability and humanity in the baby. During that year, they come to find
 their own vulnerability and their own humanity, and also their strength. And
 then they see the strength in humanity and in others.


 It’s almost as if empathy is the “cure all,” the secret sauce of life. If we
 can just empathize, it’s a little bit like the Golden Rule: If you understand
 how someone is going to feel, why would you hurt them, why would you exclude
 them, why would you say you’re somehow less human than I am? It removes the
 possibility of dehumanizing one another and hiving people off and saying,
 “Your difference makes you unacceptable.” We celebrate difference in
 Roots of Empathy, and it’s not visual, it’s not the typical
 differences of culture and language, of size, or whatever.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <img alt="roots-of-empathy5" class="w-100 lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/roots_of_empathy5_3c54506c25.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T13:43:31.186Z" />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 We talk about the difference in our innate temperament; that a baby comes to
 the world with a predisposition to see that world in many ways. Some babies
 are very intense and emotionally reactive. It’s very hard to parent a baby
 who’s very intense. In the classroom, it’s very hard to teach a child who’s
 very intense, because they are super reactive. They have temper tantrums; when
 they are disappointed they have a big reaction. But, if the little baby has a
 big reaction, nobody says, “You’re a bad baby.” Nobody says, “Go to your
 room.” Everyone helps the baby learn to deal with the big feelings, and what
 that does is soften everybody to realize, “Wow, I am like the little baby,
 too. It’s not a moral flaw if I’m very emotionally reactive. It’s who I am.”
 And the job of teachers and parents and mentors is to help children recognize
 who they are, and help them to live in the world that is. It is not to squash
 them, but to help them understand their reactions. So, when we think about the
 traits and qualities we need in growing up, I think we really need a lot of
 self-love, giving us the capacity to love others.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Interviewed by JUDITH NELSON 
 Illustrations by ARATI SHEDDE
</h4>

<hr />

Roots of empathy

<h4>
 This is the final part of MARY GORDON’s interview with JUDITH NELSON at the
 Spirit of Humanity Forum in Iceland in 2019. Mary speaks about the role of
 educators, and the emotional life of children. She provides an inspirational
 focus for educators regarding the educational priorities that are needed for a
 future humanity.
</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 MG:&nbsp;In Roots of Empathy, we measure
 what we treasure, and we treasure children’s emotional lives. We don’t care
 what they know, we care what they feel: it’s important to let children tell
 you how they feel. The emotional life of the child is their real life, because
 in a baby’s brain emotions and cognition are inextricably linked; you can’t
 tease them apart. And, as children grow older, while the sections of the brain
 deal differently with emotion and cognition, there is a direct relationship
 between our emotions and what we pay attention to.


 We completely pay attention to our emotions. If you’ve got a negative emotion
 happening, you can’t learn. In order to learn, you have to make sure that your
 emotions are positive. That’s why we ask, “How are you feeling today?” We
 don’t try to change what they feel, but it is like embedded professional
 development for the classroom teacher when our person comes in and says, “Good
 morning kids.” This is for the pre- or post-family visit, not when the mommy
 and baby are there, when we’re asking, “How’s the baby feeling?”

<hr />
<h5 style="text-align: center">
 Favorite teachers are not the best teachers, 
 they’re the best “reachers.” 
 They’re the people who get you, 
 they’re the people who knew you were in their class 
 even if you weren’t the smartest student. 
 They appreciated you for who you were.
</h5>
<hr />

 So, if the kids do this (thumbs up), the teacher can do a quick scan of the
 room and see that the kids are in good form. But if there are some who do this
 (thumbs neutral), you really have to consider what’s going on with them, as
 you can’t teach a child who’s in neutral. If there are a lot of them, you’ve
 got to pack up your lesson plan and start listening to the children: “So tell
 me, how was it today on your way to school? Would you like to share with
 someone how your day is going so far?” And, you know, if you ask
 authentically, children will tell you authentically.


 It changes teaching practice when teachers realize that a worried child can’t
 learn. When they’re sad, sick or lonely, they can’t learn anything. Children
 who are depressed are sad, sick and lonely. So, this idea of teaching people
 versus teaching mathematics is an important thing. And what is it to be a
 person? It is to feel. And if you’re not feeling, you don’t have to be
 deliriously happy, but you have to be present. There is an armada of broken
 hearts in every classroom – we know the statistics.


 Why don’t we realize that we have to start the day checking in with children?
 You can’t make everything better, but if you can acknowledge how they’re
 feeling, they already feel ‘felt.’ Favorite teachers are not the best
 teachers, they’re the best “reachers.” They’re the people who get you, they’re
 the people who knew you were in their class even if you weren’t the smartest
 student. They appreciated you for who you were.


 <img alt="roots-of-empathy-part-3" class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/ROE_3_3_c032c3846d.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-17T07:51:01.186Z" />


 Education has lost that because we’re into competition. It’s competition for
 jobs, no? Look at jobs – we’re going to do twenty jobs over a lifetime, so
 what job? The job is to be a good human being. Actually, it’s important to be
 happy, as the Dalai Lama would say. Now I’m not saying we should all pack our
 bags and go off to happy land, but to be a human being is to be able to
 connect with others. And this crisis of connection we’re in, if we don’t help
 children identify how they feel so that they can connect to one another, we’ve
 really missed the boat.


 I really advocate helping teachers take an approach to teaching that I call
 “attachment-aware teaching,” realizing that every child in your class has had
 some kind of secure or insecure attachment. If they have had a secure
 attachment, they’ll be ready to learn, they’ll be resilient, they’ll deal with
 the blows in life. If they’ve had ambivalent, avoidant, or other kinds of
 attachment relationships, they won’t have an innate capacity to deal with the
 tidal wave of troubles that might come to them.


 Teachers can have this in the back of their mind, to say to themselves,
 “Okay,” instead of, “What’s wrong with you?” Children communicate how they’re
 feeling with their behavior, so if the teacher can just think, “What’s
 happened to make you so nasty today? What’s happened so you make my life a
 misery? What’s happened so that you’re disrupting class?” because no child
 decides to be a “bad actor,” it’s just that they can’t deal with how they
 feel.

<hr />
<h5 style="text-align: center">
 I think the secret to ending all the “-isms” in the world, 
 the secret to peaceful coexistence, 
 is to be able to see the humanity in the other. 
 And this Spirit of Humanity, 
 this beautiful concept, is based on empathy.
</h5>
<hr />

 If teachers had insight into the emotional vulnerability of children – just as
 through the baby and parent relationship we show how a baby becomes who they
 are – they would realize that it’s through love. Children are predisposed
 through particular ways of being, but without that reference back and forth to
 mommy or daddy, they don’t know how to respond. Every time a baby falls down
 or cries, the first thing they do is look for their mother to see, “How am I
 doing? Should I be crying, or should I go back and try and walk again?” That’s
 what a secure attachment relation is – checking in to see, “Am I good to go?”


 And if nobody gives you that, you never know. So, you have no anchor, you have
 no security blanket in your life, and the children who are in trouble are
 those children. The security blanket in life is the attachment relationship,
 and how many children have no relationship with their parents as they get
 older? It’s a tragedy.


 Q: What you describe sounds so much like respecting the individual
 students’ feelings and noticing them, instead of having education for the
 sake of the establishment.


 MG:&nbsp;Yes, and what are the ultimate
 goals of education? If it’s to produce architects, engineers, doctors etc., if
 they are without humanity they won’t do a good job. Is it to produce moral
 human beings who are ready to contribute to life, and who can be mutually
 respectful and have the capacity to care? The ethic of care is so overlooked.


 There are two parts to empathy: There’s cognitive empathy and affective
 empathy. Cognitive empathy is perspective-taking and that’s the first stage of
 any conflict resolution. If you don’t have that, forget it. Forget peace in
 the Middle East. But if you don’t have affective empathy, the human part which
 is our emotions, you don’t really have empathy at all. With cognitive empathy
 you can still be a sociopath, because you have a skill where you can resonate
 with the perspective of another person. But if you don’t have the ethic of
 care, it may be a destructive thing. So many people define empathy as just
 cognitive empathy, but our definition of empathy is both affective and
 cognitive together. Very often confused with compassion and sympathy, whereas
 sympathy is unidimensional, it’s the ability to feel sorry.


 There’s a lot of divergence of opinion around the relationship between
 compassion and empathy, and about the definitions of compassion and empathy,
 so everybody makes them up. I have shared mine, but I don’t think they are any
 better than others, and certainly there’s no one opinion on it. I do believe,
 however, that you must have empathy in order to act compassionately. And
 empathy to me is also a verb. Being an armchair empath is no good at all;
 there has to be a motor.


 The beautiful thing about children is that they’re endlessly empathic once
 they realize that skill of being able to understand how another person feels
 and to feel with them. It’s a lifelong gift, and it cannot be taught.
 Everybody thinks you can teach empathy, but you can’t teach empathy. It’s
 caught, not taught. If you are around people who demonstrate empathy without
 saying, “This is empathic behavior,” who are just empathic, or if you see
 examples of kindness in people you love, that’s how you will develop these
 positive things.


 <img alt="roots-of-empathy-part-3" class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/ROE_3_4_92a21bce82.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-17T07:52:00.780Z" />


 You know, there are so many ridiculous things people do, like having flash
 cards for empathy, or saying, “We’re going to talk about empathy this week.”
 It’s totally meaningless. It’s better than nothing, I suppose, but the big
 things in life are not developed through instruction. It’s done by
 construction – meaningful human construction – not instruction. In fact,
 there’s very little in life we learn through instruction. It’s only the
 higher-level things and, basically, those we could probably learn on our own.
 If you can’t be with someone and learn from someone, you can’t really be a
 constructive, contributing human being.


 So, I think our schools really need to shake themselves up and ask, “What are
 we doing here?” Imagine having the privilege of being with a child five or six
 hours a day, five days a week. It’s an incredible gift. That’s more than their
 parents have.

<hr />
<h5 style="text-align: center">
 The beautiful thing about children 
 is that they’re endlessly empathic once they realize 
 that skill of being able to understand 
 how another person feels and to feel with them. 
 It’s a lifelong gift, and it cannot be taught.
</h5>
<hr />

 I used to be a teacher, and I think we’re highly accountable. It’s the reason
 why when teachers ask Roots of Empathy into their classroom, I say, “Okay, but
 we need to do research.” They say, “No, no, we know you’re grand,” but I say,
 “We need to do research.” Every single person involved with the program, every
 child who can write, does an evaluation, critiques the program every year;
 every child, every volunteer mother, every volunteer instructor, and the
 classroom teacher who hosts it. Then we do formal research, which is the white
 jacket, peer reviewed, scientific, independent, published research, which
 tells us if we’re doing what we think we’re doing. But I have to say, what I
 listen to the deepest is what the children tell us. That’s when I change.


 We’re always updating our curriculum. Take cyber bullying, for example; if we
 don’t have cyber bullying in our programs, we’re not addressing the current
 situation of children, because the landscape of childhood changes all the
 time. It’s not very good at the minute, but children don’t change; they’ve
 always been the same. They might sound more sophisticated because they use
 Elon Musk words like parking cars in space, and all that, but their emotional
 vulnerability, their essence, the beauty of childhood doesn’t change.


 Children are under more stress than ever before, and I don’t think we’re
 listening hard enough to what they are telling us through their behavior. The
 children who are on Ritalin, for having Attention Deficit Disorder, have been
 given a prescription so that the adults can keep sane, and it stunts and
 blunts the children’s growth. A lot of what we’re doing is medicating children
 instead of changing their environment, because resilience is not about what’s
 in you, it’s about what’s around you. You can bring it into you, but if it’s
 not around you how can you become resilient? You’re not born with it, you
 know.

<hr />
<h5 style="text-align: center">
 I think the trip from the mind 
 to the heart is a short journey, 
 and the fuller the heart 
 the bigger the head.
</h5>
<hr />

 In many places you’ll hear people say, “Oh, you’ve gotta have grit.” That’s
 the nastiest four-letter word I’ve ever heard. It’s blaming children for not
 having grit. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Change the record.” It’s
 like saying to an abused woman, “Why don’t you just leave? How stupid can you
 be? Just leave.” It’s not understanding where that person is coming from, not
 understanding the impact of abuse.


 And to say to a child who’s been brought up in adversity, who’s witnessed
 violence at home, “You just have to have grit,” is a denial of the fact that
 we all have different journeys. And we expect even results, even in
 kindergarten. Everybody is held to the same measure, but the measure is not
 the measure of personhood. The measure is something easy to measure, but it’s
 no measure of humanity, it’s no measure of kindness, it’s no measure of
 empathy or emotional depth. There’s only the measure of what we’re able to
 measure.


 <img alt="roots-of-empathy-part-3" class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/ROE_3_5_3058587aec.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-17T07:52:42.174Z" />


 Who cares if you know your colors, or your 123s, or your ABCs? What you really
 need when you start kindergarten is to be able to ask for help, to be able to
 make friends, to be able to learn; and the readiness to learn is grounded in
 being well-loved.


 So, what kind of world are we creating? We measure children up, and we put
 them in categories – “You’re in the Bluebird Group” – and everyone knows
 that’s the slow readers, right? So, we categorize children without ever really
 thinking, “Who are these little people?”


 I just can’t get over the gift that parents give. They deliver their baby,
 their miracle, and they keep hearing how bad they are at stuff, or how they
 were acting out, or “You’re not doing a good enough job at home,” all of these
 kinds of things that instead of building up the family just knock it down. So,
 I hope educators come to the Spirit of Humanity forum. I hope educators hear
 about your brand of humanity and realize that if we don’t recognize the
 humanity of every child in education, we’ve not done our job.


 Q: Why did you say that Heartfulness is a nice name?


 MG:&nbsp;I love the word “Heartfulness,”
 and to call an organization “Heartfulness” is to embody your values, because
 we’re not just our minds – our hearts inform our minds. And if we don’t have a
 full heart, we won’t have the full capacity to use our skills and our brains
 in a constructive way. I think the trip from the mind to the heart is a short
 journey, and the fuller the heart the bigger the head. So, I just feel it’s
 such a warm name.


 The first thing children draw when they learn to draw is hearts. They put
 hearts everywhere. It’s not just little girls. When they write little love
 notes – “Daddy I love you” – they draw a heart. Nobody tells them to do that.
 So, from the youngest age, children draw hearts because we all can relate, and
 the heart is not just a beating pump, the heart is our humanity, and that’s
 why I like your name.

<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: center">Interviewed by JUDITH NELSON</h4>
<hr />

Mary Gordon

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