Humans must learn to care. It’s not something we are born knowing how to do. Ruth and Becca talk about ways to nourish students to want to help others.
Show Notes
Choice Literacy sponsored this episode.
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Quotables
“Humans must learn to care.”
“If we want to be the kind of people who are helping each other, we need to have empathy, even when it’s hard.”
“We need to have empathy if we want to create classroom communities that nourish healthy relationships among students.”
“A critical part of how we teach kids how to care is how we choose to act.”
“The intentionality we choose to have in how we’re interacting influences what kids are choosing to pay attention to.”
“Caring for each other is a sweet part of humanity – and it’s not something we learn to do naturally.”
“It is so important to notice the good in people, even though we could notice just as much hard.”
Let’s Be Social
Transcript (AI-Generated)
[00:00:02] Ruth: Becca, when we were in our foster training classes, one of the things that was really impressed upon us was that children need to learn to care. So, like, as humans, we don’t just naturally care about one another. We actually have to learn how to do that.
Humans must learn to care. It’s not something we are born knowing how to do. So how do we nourish students to want to help others?
This is Sticky Hope.
[00:00:42] Becca: You said that to me when I was not very far into my foster care journey.
We had five kids, a sibling set of five, move in all at once, all of a sudden, about two years ago. And it was shocking to me, the disregard or the lack of.
The lack of care that they had for many things, whether it was objects or people or incidents. And like, I don’t mean that they were bad people, but they just didn’t have this level of awareness. And I must have. I don’t know, must have been complaining to you or on the phone with you at some point, and you’re like, oh, didn’t they talk to you about how you have to. You have to help them learn how to care about those things? And I was like, no, tell me more.
And so you helped me process through it. And it made so much sense, right? Like, if you are living in fight orf flight mode, it doesn’t matter if you damage something. It doesn’t matter if someone is upset with you as long as you’re surviving. And so first we had to get them out of fight or flight mode or help them get themselves there.
And that’s a process. And then we were able to help them start to notice that the good things start to notice how one good thing could influence another good thing to happen. And kind of the domino effect of positive and negative. Right? How a choice to destroy something meant you didn’t have that toy anymore.
And that was kind of the. The game changer in a lot of ways. For their thinking around how they saw the world. Right. The lens through which they were looking started to shift, and they were able to start to see that more of a balance.
[00:02:33] Ruth: Right.
[00:02:33] Becca: Of. Of positive and negative. And they started to care and. And choose to work towards more happy things, more positive things than to get stuck in that really negative space.
[00:02:48]Ruth: Right, Right. So when we were talking about, like, what about all the other kids? One of the things that you had said was this idea of being the kind of people who stand in the hard with others when maybe they’re not at their finest. And in order to do that, it takes a lot of Empathy, which is really what we’re talking about, is this idea of learning to care about others and that the things that they care about, we care about too.
And I’ve been really thinking a lot about that idea of standing in the hard and how we’re role models for all the other kids in the class and also how that’s a really, like, developmentally to be able to care about others, that’s. That’s a pro. Like, that’s a journey.
Like, I’m even on that journey, you know, like some days, like, it just.
[00:03:50] Ruth: It takes a lot to just kind of conjure some empathy. Especially when I see somebody who maybe it feels to me like they’re. They’re doing the same mistake, like they’re doing the same thing over and over, and it’s making life difficult.
I think sometimes that’s hard to have some empathy, and yet it’s really necessary if we want to be the kind of people that are there and that are helping each other. And if we want to create these classroom communities that are really nourishing healthy relationships among students.
: Yeah. And I think it’s like, it’s just real life.
[00:04:35] Becca: Right.
[00:04:35] Becca: Like, everyone has a hard time sometimes. And if we expect people to have empathy for us when we are having a hard time, we need to have empathy for other people, even if their hard time is different than ours.
[00:04:48] Ruth: Right.
[00:04:49]Becca: Like I say this a lot is. It’s not a comparison game. We’re not. It’s. There’s not a rating scale of that’s worse than what I’m feeling.
And that can be hard. And like you said developmentally at. I mean, from pre K all the way through high school, developmentally, they’re pretty egocentric.
[00:05:10]Ruth: Right.
[00:05:10] Becca: Like, their focus is themselves and building that awareness of others and being intentional about helping them develop healthy relationships is. Is a critical job that we have because they aren’t going to come upon it naturally. Right. We have to teach them how to care for each other. And such a huge part of how we teach them how to care is by how we choose to act. And the intentionality we choose to have in how we’re interacting influences what they are choosing to pay attention to.
Yeah.
[00:05:46] Ruth: I was thinking, you know, as you were talking about that, it’s one of the reasons why I think teachers, no matter our grade level, we spend so much time thinking about how we’re going to welcome a new class into our. Into our community. How those first few days, months of school, it’s really about nurturing a community. And as you were talking. I was thinking. But it doesn’t just happen at the beginning of the year when we have, when we’re welcoming students. Sometimes it happens after a student’s had an outburst and they’ve been out of the classroom and we need to welcome them back or, you know, after a break and we’re welcoming back. And so it’s that intentional act of learning to care for one another because that’s such a sweet part of humanity is caring for one another and yet it’s just not natural for humans to do that at all.
[00:06:48] Becca: Yeah. And we are thinking about some kids who come from worlds where they haven’t been taught to care.
[00:06:57] Ruth: Right.
[00:06:58] Becca: Some kids who haven’t been in well nourished settings where they maybe aren’t cared for in a way that’s modeling for them how to care for others or they’re in survival mode and they’re coming to us and haven’t had a chance to learn to care. And, and we have children who are well nourished and have already learned or are in the process of learning how to care. And that spectrum that lands us on the continuum is actually a beautiful thing because it provides so many authentic opportunities to model and it allows for it to be in the simplest moments from the moment a child walks in the door and they drop something. Right. Like choosing to care for that child is to help them pick it up instead of laughing or walking away.
[00:07:48] Ruth: Right.
[00:07:48] Becca: Stand in the simple hard of I’m going to pick up whatever you just dropped to a child makes it so it’s unsafe in a classroom and it has to be evacuated. And then, I mean, it could be that there are books all over the classroom or ripped up things all over the classroom. And how do we choose to preserve the dignity of that child and prepare ourselves and the other children to. To still greet that child with care and kindness and, and openness and welcome back into our community.
It’s anything but simple.
[00:08:26] Ruth: Right.
[00:08:26] Becca: But that means it’s even more critical.
[00:08:31] Ruth: Right.
I was, I was recently listening to Simon Sinek interview the Surgeon General and they were talking about like dinner time at other homes and with his family. He was saying he was starting to ask his kids. One of the common questions is how did you see someone help another person today?
And that just by angling it, you know, like we were. We’ve been talking a lot about paying attention to what we’re paying attention to. Well, this was an intentional act from the Surgeon General for his family to pay attention to these acts of help.
[00:09:14] Becca: Yeah. And I. I don’t think that I listened to the same thing, but something made me stop and think about this year when I’ve had to step out for meetings or I’ve been out for a day instead of like, I don’t kindergarten. You know, the first thing they do when you come back from being somewhere is tell you all of the things that happened that were roc. Wrong.
[00:09:40] Becca: And they didn’t do this. Right. And this happened and this person said this. And it is just like this tattle fest. And it is. It is an adventure. And so I think probably that’s what it was rooted in partially, is like, I needed to find a way to redirect that.
And so I started asking them, what’s one helpful thing you saw someone else do? And so it immediately took this negative filter off of their thinking. And it was really hard for them at first. And the first time they didn’t know that was coming. It took a long time and we had to think through helpful examples and. And maybe this happened. And what about in this setting and in writing and in reading and what about during breakfast? And they were able to all finally get there and now they’re so excited to tell me, like, oh my gosh, I saw this helpful thing and this helpful thing, and Mrs. Burke, did you know that he helped me when that chair fell over? And they just want to tell you all of the helpful things is just a whole different tone, right? And it is so important that we help them to see the good in other people, even though just as many hard things happened. Right. If they didn’t know that I was going to ask them the question about what was helpful, they would be watching for all the things that were wrong. But instead, knowing that that question is coming helps them to see all of the good and all of the helpful things that happen as the day goes on.
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This episode was sponsored by Choice Literacy, a powerful hub of articles, videos and resources for teachers by teachers.