There is a direct link between empathy and compassion. By definition, empathy is the ability to understand another person's feelings. Compassion is acknowledging those feelings and looking for ways to help the other person.
Learning compassion begins with learning to recognize the thoughts and feelings of others.
In elementary school, these lessons are often taught through literature and class discussions during our morning meetings.
The requested books, including "We're All Wonders" and "The Name Jar" will support social-emotional learning as we read about and identify the feelings being experienced by the characters. Using books like "Kindness Is My Superpower: A children's Book About Empathy, Kindness and Compassion" and "Enemy Pie" will facilitate discussions about how we can use kindness to help others who might be experiencing challenges. The Accelerated Reader subscription will enable us to match books with the needs of each individual learner, on their personalized reading level, to provide further support in aligning social-emotional and academic learning needs. In addition to a resource for finding books by topic and reading level, Accelerated Reader is also an assessment tool. Success in students' understanding of compassion will be measured through observation, discussion, and the use of data collected through the requested Accelerated Reader subscription.
Please consider helping our learners gain a stronger understanding of compassion as they embark on their journey to make the world a better place.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Norris and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.