You will never hear me argue that the world needs more compassion, every person could benefit from a more compassionate environment. Gratitude, forgiveness, cooperation and empathy creates resilience in entire environments.
So how do we actually cultivate compassion? We focus on mindfulness. A lab studying the effects of mindfulness stated that, "social effects of meditation and mindfulness has demonstrated that even practice as brief as a few weeks increases people’s compassion and willingness to come to the aid of others as well as reduces their impulses to aggress against enemies". Using this type of practice in the classroom also has a profound effect on behavior as we have concluded from our own 5 week study in a third grade classroom.
Connecting with yourself, gives you a platform to connect empathetically with others and be able to truly understand and heal with them. A trauma informed teacher will have profound impacts on the lives and learning of her students, this is how we begin to cultivate compassion throughout entire classrooms, schools and communities.
