This book explores the importance of compassion and empathy within educational contexts. While compassion and empathy are widely recognised as key to living a happy and healthy life, there is little written about how these qualities can be taught to children and young people, or how teachers can model these traits in their own practice. This book shares several models of compassion and empathy that can be implemented in schooling contexts, also examining how these qualities are presented in children’s picture books, films and games. The editors and contributors share personal insights and practical approaches to improve both awareness and use of compassionate and empathetic approaches to others. This book will be of interest and value to all those interested in promoting compassion and empathy within education.

In a world where students are often seen as test scores and not as human beings, where their well-being is challenged by poverty, intolerance, and bullying, and where technological innovations frequently erode genuine personal contact, compassionate teachers are needed more than ever. Teaching with Compassion offers practical tools and strategies designed to help educators foster a culture of care and compassion. Organized around an eight-point “Teaching with Compassion Oath,” this book draws on real life examples and exercises to demonstrate the power and potential of teaching from the heart. Written for both experienced and novice educators alike, Teaching with Compassion is sure to stimulate inquiry and provide ongoing inspiration.

This book offers a moral rather than instrumental notion of university education whilst locating the university within society. It reflects a balancing of the instrumentalization of higher education as a mode of employment training and enhances the notion of the students’ well-being being at the core of the university mission. Compassion is examined in this volume as a weaving of diverse cultures and beliefs into a way of recognizing that diversity through a common good offers a way of preparing students and staff for a complex and anxious world. This book provides theoretical and practical discussions of compassion in higher education, it draws contributors from around the world and offers illustrations of compassion in action through a number of international cases studies..

In response to highly publicized incidents of school violence, educators across the United States and in many other nations are seeking effective ways to prevent and modify aggressive and anti-social behaviors in students. One of the major recommendations of the research is that efforts to prevent cruelty need to begin early, during the early childhood years of birth through age eight. The focus of Teaching Compassion: Humane Education in Early Childhood is guiding young children to accept responsibility for and to be kind in their interactions with fellow human beings, animals and the environment. Although humane education is a relatively new concept in the field of early childhood education, professionals in the field are very familiar with many of the related concepts, including: promoting positive interpersonal interactions, teaching children the skills of self-regulation, giving children experience in caring for living things and protecting the environment. This edited volume is an interdisciplinary compendium of professional wisdom gathered from experts in the fields of education, child development, science, psychology, sociology and humane organizations. As the book amply documents, the concept of humane education is powerful, integrative, timely and appropriate in work with young children. Teaching Compassion: Humane Education in Early Childhood shows how it is possible for adults dedicated to the care and education of young children to balance attention to the cognitive and affective realms and, in so doing, to elevate the overall quality of early childhood programs for children, families and communities.

Essential principles of timeless learning include attention, contemplation, connection, participation, and responsibility; helping students achieve a sense of purpose; and improving alertness and mental health.

In Love and Compassion, John P. Miller explores different forms of love, including self-love, the love of others, compassion, the love of learning, as well as nonviolence, and how they have the potential to improve education.

Compassionate Music Teaching provides a framework for music teaching in the 21st century by outlining qualities, skills, and approaches to meet the needs of a unique and increasingly diverse generation of students. The text focuses on how six qualities of compassion (trust, empathy, patience, inclusion, community, and authentic connection) have made an impact in human lives, and how these qualities might relate to the practices of caring and committed music teachers. This book bridges the worlds of research and practice, discussing cutting-edge topics while also offering practical strategies that can be used immediately in music studios and classrooms. Each chapter is addressed from multiple perspectives, including: research in music, education, psychology, sociology, and related fields; insights from various students and teachers across the United States; and an in-depth study of five music teachers who represent a broad range of genres, student ages, and pedagogical approaches. The book is dedicated to exploring those conditions that help students not only to learn, but also to grow, thrive, and freely express—and become compassionate musicians, teachers, performers, and people as well.

This philosophical commentary explores the meaning and significance of care in education, demonstrating how teaching with care enriches the art and soul of pedagogy. Wilde draws upon Western and Eastern philosophies that envision an integrated image of care to illuminate the value of cultivating understanding in the form of awareness, and compassion leading to right action. Comments and stories from teachers’ experiences demonstrate important aspects of care that are easily overlooked, such as present attention, listening and teacher, well-being. Although it uncovers a tragic conflict between caring and aspects of contemporary schooling, this book offers hope for teachers. It shares a vision of practice that has the potential to re-enliven and strengthen care even in the midst of these difficulties. It also offers a contemplative approach to pedagogy that calls educators into intentional action, showing them how to renew their deep ethical connections to students, to subject matter and to the world.

Where are we now? Where are we going? : preparing our students for an uncertain future / Patricia A. Jennings, Anthony A. DeMauro, and Polina P. Mischenko -- A selective review of mindfulness training programs for children and adolescents in school settings / Rebecca N. Baelen, Michael V. Esposito, and Brian M. Galla -- Turn and listen : strengthening compassion and leadership in the adult community in schools / Pamela Seigle, Chip Wood, and Lisa Sankowski -- Modeling mindfulness : principal leadership and development for personal and organizational growth / Eleanor Drago-Severson and Jessica Blum-DeStefano -- Embodied teacher mindfulness in the classroom : the calm, clear, kind framework / Cynthia Taylor, Patricia A. Jennings, Alexis Harris, Deborah L. Schussler, and Robert W. Roeser -- Cultivating passion for practicing and teaching mindfulness : a multiple-case study of compassionate school project teachers / Polina P. Mischenko and Patricia A. Jennings -- The school counselor : change agent and collaborator for holistic student well-being / Rebecca L. Tadlock-Marlo and Meghan Damler -- Creating mindful and compassionate schools : including parents as partners / J. Douglas Coatsworth, Melissa Ward George, and Aimee Kleisner Walker -- Finding peace in chaos : mindfully prepared public school teachers / Richard C. Brown and Elizabeth Grassi -- Being in school transformation : toward equity and social justice / Velma L. Cobb.

In Compassionate Leadership for School Belonging, Kathryn Riley draws on 40 years of international research and professional practice to show how schools can be places of safety and fulfilment, even in the most difficult of circumstances. When belonging is a school’s guiding principle, more young people at all levels experience a sense of connectedness and friendship, perform better academically, and come to believe in themselves; their teachers feel more professionally fulfilled, their families more accepted. The originality of this highly readable book lies in its scope. It offers international analysis from the OECD alongside insights from the author’s extensive research in schools, powerfully supported by observational vignettes and drawings from the children, young people and teachers who have been her co-researchers. The book reveals patterns of dislocation, disaffection and exclusion, and highlights the points of intervention in policy and practice needed across school systems to create the conditions for school belonging. The methodologies, concepts and research tools offered can be used by practitioners and researchers in their own contexts, and to guide school leaders towards creating their own places of belonging. This is an urgent book of hope, offering knowledge so that schools can open up possibilities to all children and young people in an increasingly uncertain world.