Empathy matters. And it needs to be taught in schools. I’ve seen, read and written this before, but I wasn’t quite convinced until earlier this week when I plugged into an episode of “This American Life” on a bus to New York City…
Empathy can help reduce the damaging effects of repeated stress in human children—like it did for the rat pups in the McGill University laboratory—which seems to suggest that empathy has tremendous implications for achievement, both socially and intellectually. Empathy isn’t just something for youth, either. It’s a skill that can transform a community and build social capital.
by John Converse Townsend,
