Video: Babies and Empathy

Worth the watch: Mary Gordon, founder of Roots of Empathy, shares how babies have something to teach about emotions.

Photo © iStockPhoto.com/jaroon

Roots of Empathy is a classroom-based program for children in kindergarten through grade eight. Aiming to build more caring, peaceful, and civil societies by raising levels of empathy in children, the program brings babies into classrooms to help teach students emotional literacy. 

After starting as a pilot program with 150 children in Toronto, Canada 15 years ago, Roots of Empathy has now spread across Canada and around the world. More than 47,000 children participated in Canada in the past school year. There are programs in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, and Germany. Roots of Empathy is just now taking off in the United States, with a program in Seattle and new ones launching in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area in the fall.