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Compassionate Complexity: Narrative practice and school culture in middle childhood
Alexander, Brittany Lee
Alexander, Brittany Lee
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Honors papers, Education, Department of
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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.
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Brittany Alexander granted permission for the digitization of his paper. It was submitted by CD.