COMPASSION

Purpose:To help students move past looking only at their needs and truly being

Moved to help care for others.

Procedure:Use discussion, role-playing, story telling, games, and service learning

Projects to engage the students toward true compassion.

Materials:Paper and pencil.

Song:“Love Can Build a Bridge” by the Judds

Quote:“I don’t know what your density will be, but one thing I do know: The

Only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have

Sought and found how to serve others. Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Lesson One:What is Compassion

Before class, write the following character traits on the board: Respect, responsibility, Citizenship, Compassion.

Ask the students to take out a sheet of paper and rank the above four character traits beginning with the trait they believe that they possess in the greatest amount through the trait they least posses.

Now, have the students rank the same four traits in what they perceive as their order of importance. (The rank order may or may not match.)

Discussion: Ask the students to raise their hands if their order of character trait importance matched their order of self-possessing character traits. If any students raise their hands, then ask them to list their order and explain why they ranked the traits in that particular order. Also, ask for volunteers to explain why their order of importance is different than the order of self-possessing trait. After the students have discussed how they ranked the traits, begin to focus on where compassion fell in their rank of importance. Allow students to explain why or why not they believe compassion is an important trait to possess.

Ask the students if they have ever heard the phrase “Show a little compassion”? What exactly does this mean? (Write the students responses on the board.)

What is compassion/empathy? It’s being able to put yourself in someone else’s place. Native Americans have an expression: “Do not judge another person until you walk a mile in his moccasins’.” But if we can’t actually walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, how can we really understand how others feel? It all begins with your mindset. Ask, “How does a compassionate/empathetic person think?”

Possible answers might include: I wonder how he/she feels? I wonder what it’s like being in his/her shoes? How would I feel if I had no money and couldn’t find a decent job? How would I feel if I lost my favorite CD?

Ask: “What are some questions a compassionate/empathetic person would ask?” Possible answers might include: Are you all right? How do you feel? Is there anything I can do to help you?

Ask the students the following questions:

  1. When was the last time someone stopped to help you?
  2. What is the greatest act of compassion that someone has shown to you or your family? How did it make you feel toward that person or group?
  3. Have you ever gone out of your way to help another person?
  4. What do you consider to be the greatest act of compassion that you have shown someone in your lifetime? How did it make you feel toward that person or group?

Lesson Two: Compassion in Action

Divide the class into 3 groups. On a piece of paper, write one different role-play activity from below. Give students 5 minutes and then have each group present. After each presentation, have the class guess/discuss which “compassion in action” was role-played.

  1. Doing something kind for someone else even when it inconveniences you.
  2. Comforting someone whom is sad or lonely.
  3. Understanding how someone else feels and communicating your understanding.

Lesson Three: Making Time for Others

Read of have a student read the attached story, ask the following questions:

  1. Why did the boy immediately seek out the slower puppy?
  2. Why did the storeowner try to prevent the boy from buying the puppy?
  3. Why was the boy adamant about paying full price for the puppy?
  4. What lessons can be learned from the boy’s compassion for the puppy?

Lesson Four: The ABC’s of Compassion

Divide the class into groups of three. Each group will be working together to complete the enclosed crossword puzzle. Allow the groups to work on the puzzle for five minutes before giving each group the word bank. The first group that finishes the puzzle correctly wins a prize. (Copies of the puzzle, word bank, and prizes will be placed in your box the day before the lesson.)

Lesson Five: Make a difference

Read or have a student read the attached story “Give Random Acts of Kindness a Try”.

After reading the story, make the following comments before introducing the “Make a Difference” project: “Throughout our discussions today, it has become obvious that people who show acts of kindness and/or compassion. As a homeroom, we have a chance to make a difference in someone’s life this holiday season. As a homeroom, let’s choose a service project that we can all participate in to make a difference.”

As a homeroom, choose one act of compassion that you can do as a group during the month of December. Along with the community leader, develop a plan to carry out that act of compassion. It may be in the school or the community. Examples of certain acts of compassion include: making holiday cards for members of an assisted living home, adopting a family for the holidays, bringing clothes to school for the “Giving Tree”, Give to the Gifts for Iraq Soldiers program sponsored by the Young Republicans, sign up for Relay for Life under Kennesaw Mt Mustangs, sign up for the Special Ed dance, or to participate in the Special Ed baseball program etc…

Lesson Six

Spielberg Succeeds With Empathy
Trait: Resilience, Kindness, Compassion

Steven Spielberg is the most successful filmmaker ever. Everyone knows some of his blockbusters, such as Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Men in Black and E.T. What you may not know is how some of his early heartaches taught him to emotionally connect with his audience.

Once, when young 24-year-old Spielberg was directing a TV episode at Universal, the head of the camera department stopped an associate and said, ''You've got to go down to the soundstage. It's something you'll never see again. Your friend Spielberg is directing.''

The associate responded, ''I've seen people directing before.'' The camera man insisted, ''You've never seen a crew stand there and cry.''

So how did he learn the empathy that can't be taught in film school? Spielberg says that as a young person he experienced his grandmother's death with his family at her bedside. As a minority Jew in school, he experienced anti-Semitism through bullies. He learned what it's like to be an outcast, to be rejected. Fellow students thought he looked goofy and called him "Spielbug."

He learned the anguish of divorce by seeing his parents go through it his senior year. No one wants to experience these tragedies, but I doubt Spielberg could have learned to produce heart-felt films without them.

Says Spielberg, ''E.T. was about the divorce of my parents, how I felt when my parents broke up…. My wish list included having a friend who could be both the brother I never had and a father that I didn't feel I had anymore. And that's how E.T. was born.'' (Copyright 2002 by Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved. Source: Steven Spielberg, by Joseph McBride, Simon and Schuster, 1997, p. 72.)

For Discussion:

1) How did personal adversity help Spielberg empathize with others?
2) How do you think this helped his film career?
3) Can adversity help us with other careers besides filmmaking? In what way?
4) How can you identify with the way Spielberg felt put down during his school days?
5) How can understanding the benefits of adversity help us to deal with the adversities we now face?