Roots Of Empathy: Changing The World, Child By Child

With violence, anti-social behaviour, bullying, and aggression among young children escalating at a frightening rate, it is clear that we need to develop a new understanding of childhood. Mary Gordon, an educator who has worked for more than two decades with children from all kinds of backgrounds, has discovered that the solution to bullying and other anti-social behaviour lies within each child''s innate sense of caring and compassion. She believes that infusing children with empathy constitutes nothing less than a paradigm in our approach to child-raising. Empathy is the ability to understand another person''s point of view and respect their feelings. Even the most troubled children can quell violent and aggressive behaviour if they are loved and nurtured. Through Roots of Empathy, her highly successful organization, Mary Gordon creates a rich, rewarding classroom experience that fosters empathy within children. Bringing babies and children together creates a symbiotic loving environment that reduces aggression in children while increasing tolerance and emotional literacy. An interactive experience for parents, teachers, and children, the Roots of Empathy program aims to solve current and future problems in our society by teaching emotional literacy now. In "Roots of Empathy", the innovative, inspired book based on her groundbreaking research and success in actual classroom situations, Mary Gordon shares her vision of a nation of compassionate and caring children who will pass on their legacy of empathy to their own children.

In 1981, Mary Gordon, educator, international speaker, and award-winning social entrepreneur, founded Canada''s first and largest network of Parenting and Family Literacy Centres. In 1996, she went on to found Roots of Empathy, which now reaches more than 20,000 students in eight provinces and has been piloted in Japan and Australia. Gordon is a recipient of an Ashoka Fellowship, The Fraser Mustard Award, and a Distinguished Canadian Educator Award and the Order of Canada. Born and raised in Newfoundland, Gordon now lives in Toronto. All of the royalties from this book go back into the Roots of Empathy program.