One young Mississauga woman had an inspiration that she should work to help change childrenâs lives, so she did. Words by Kristen Smith
The Golden Rule. Treat others as you would like to be treated. A simple concept, yes, but one which is too often forgotten.
Just ask an eight-year-old who is being teased by their peers.
Erin Henry, Lorne Park-based Real Estate Agent and mother of two, is making it her mission to teach children to live compassionately.
âCompassion sounds like a very big word. But once we understand it, itâs not very big at all,â Henry told the Grade three children at Tecumseh Public School in Lorne Park.
Henry developed the Childrenâs Charter for Compassion, a document outlining how to act with empathy and why it is important.
She was inspired by the work of 2008 TED Prize winner Karen Armstrong, a religious thinker and writer who created the Charter for Compassion, a document encouraging justice, equality and respect both privately and globally. Henry saw Armstrong speak at the 2009 Peace Summit in Vancouver.
âWhen Karen Armstrong started talking I was just glued,â Henry recalled. âShe started talking about this concept and it made so much sense, because it is so simple.â
Henry said having her children Max, 8, and Quinn, 5, was a driving influence for adapting the charter.
âThere needs to be a child-friendly version of this amazing message,â she thought.
Henry has taken her version to the Compassionate Seattle Conference, to the Irish Festival of World Cultures and to TEDxYouth events in Amsterdam and Ottawa. In January she started sharing the charter in local schools with the help of her assistant Rita Gozzola.
âI can talk to them and give them the materials and work it into individual class scenarios,â Erin adds.
âItâs about an attitude, itâs about acting a certain way,â Henry explained to the Grade three and kindergarten students she visited at Tecumseh School. Enthusiastic little hands shot up when she asked them if they had a good understanding of what compassion means. The five and six-year olds came up with an impressive list which included âtreat people equally,â âdonât hurt something someone likesâ and âbe nice to nature.â The older group compiled an impressive list of dos and donâts. They also cited examples demonstrating their understanding.
The ultimate goal, Henry said, is to have schools and school boards across Canada adopt the charter. âItâs time for this type of education for kids,â she said. Tina Malti, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, who studies childrenâs moral development, said she appreciates Henryâs work tremendously.
âI think itâs extremely important to have a mechanism that reaches all children because you canât guarantee that parents educate moral values,â said Malti. âWe know from
other school-based projects, itâs very important to have a philosophy in school in place.â
The School Board in London Ontario has given âauthorization for its schools to call themselves compassionate schools and given authorization for its schools to integrate the Childrenâs Charter for Compassion into its character building curriculum.â
Henry said she thinks children should be taught proactively instead of being instructed on how to react to negative behaviour. She said she sees a flaw in a lot of the material used to help children deal with conflict at school.
âI donât like the word bullying and I donât like the word anti-bullying. Itâs using negative terms to describe a negative act,â she said. âAs opposed to the childrenâs charter which is trying to teach kids not to do it at all. If you can understand not to do it all then we donât have to worry about reacting to it later.
For further information or to download the activity books visit the www.childrenscharterforcompassion.com or contact Erin Henry.
Direct â 647-242-1327
[email protected]