The Empathy Baby!

Heather, Jess, and I were able to witness one of the COOLEST things ever a few weeks ago-- an empathy baby session!! If you know anything about me, you know I adore babies, so this was my absolutely ideal morning. Tirimoana School partners with a nonprofit program called Roots of Empathy whose mission is to 'build caring, peaceful, and civil societies through the development of empathy in children and adults.' Perfect, right? I thought so.

They have a variety of programming offered through the organization, but Tiri specifically works with the Roots of Empathy baby program, where a family volunteers their baby (between 2-4 months when the program begins) to come visit a class every 3 weeks for about 45 minutes each time throughout the school year. Pictured below, you will see Tiri's empathy baby from this year, beautiful baby Lucas, and his mum, Mel. He was such a joyful and sweet 10 month old.

Seeing the students' reactions to Lucas visiting and his interactions with them had my CRYIN' (literally) in the back of the classroom. Watching the children learn more about other humans, specifically tiny tinies like Lucas, had me blown away. They all spoke gently, remembered SO much about how to care for a baby and what to expect from each growth stage from Lucas when prompted... he has the entire class (adults included) wrapped around his tiny finger.

The lesson we watched included Lucas crawling (the first time the students had seen him do this), playing with toys - completely content on the green blanket, eating some solid foods (another new thing for the class), and the class presenting Lucas with a book they had all contributed to for him to read in the future. Each page was about a different student and their favorite memories from the program, including pictures. I mean, come ON now. When can I sign up my future classroom for this program?