Compassionate Complexity: Narrative practice and school culture in middle childhood

Abstract

Recent movements, such as the whole child initiative and the collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning (CASEL), have pushed schools and educators to take social and emotional learning into consideration as a critical component of healthy development. Compassion- the genuine desire to alleviate another’s suffering- is a critical component of social and emotional education (Seppala, 2013). The aim of the current study was to gain a better understanding of how children understand, express, and experience compassion in their own words through story sharing. A story sharing intervention, known as KidsTalk, was implemented in an elementary charter school in large metropolitan area in the southern United States. Seventeen third through fifth grade students participated in the program once per week for five weeks. This exploratory and descriptive study revealed that although the children never used the word compassion in their stories, they have a very sophisticated understanding of the role compassion plays in their daily lives. The children asserted the complexity of implementing compassionate behavior and challenged the notion of compassion as a stagnant construct. KidsTalk provided the children with the time and space to reflect and engage in the formation of a compassionate community, which has serious implications for future efforts in educational settings and for further research in this area.