Compassion In School
vs. indifference
Helping those who are hurting
To practice Compassion I will:
- notice when others are hurting
- be kind regardless of differences
- listen when others want to talk
- stop to help
- treat myself kindly without indulging
Core Resources
A Penny For Your Thoughts
This game can be played with pennies or any coin. You will need at least one per person. Have the coins in a bag or a bowl that is easy to pass around. Each person, takes a coin, reads the year (provide a magnifying glass for those who may need assistance), and then...
April Character All Month Long
Divide the class into groups. You can use seating arrangements such as a row or table to define the groups or create groups on your own. Instruct each group to…
‘The Wounded Healer’
– Bill Croskey
As I write this, Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You is wafting through the house. Great song. Powerful voice. It reminded me of other great songs and their interpreters. Have you ever seen the movie Funny Girl? It is the biographical story of Fanny Brice, a vaudeville, Broadway, and radio star of the early to middle years of the Twentieth Century. The Fanny Brice story, in turn, made Barbra Streisand a Broadway, television, and movie star. Surely the song that epitomizes the show, Streisand’s signature number, is “People.” Her phrasing…the lyrical nuances she creates as she renders each note…I cannot imagine a better singer to perform it! (I know…I am talking about a has-been to some of you. She’s Josh Brolin’s stepmother, OK?!!) My favorite lyric from “People” is “A feeling deep in your soul/ Says you were half – now you’re whole.”
Wow! That’s lucky! It is a feeling of completion – and completeness. Being made whole! That is what healing is all about. Maybe falling in love is not YOUR idea of healing, but love could heal a wounded heart, couldn’t it? That brings us to Compassion, the Character Quality of the Month. Its definition, “Helping those who are hurting,” has the central notion of helping someone become whole.
I used to give students individual tests. One test asked students to define “compassion.”