EDSE 502 - Kindness: Can it be Taught? (3)

Is kindness natural? A few minutes on social media will make you think not! But as you know, kindness is essential not only for a healthy classroom environment, but also for your students’ future success.

In this course, you will learn the biological roots of kindness that are present in all people at birth. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to create concrete strategies for helping students build key components of kindness: empathy, perspective-taking, honesty, and trustworthiness. You’ll also learn about the personal and social benefits of practicing random acts of kindness and how to teach students to perform their own random acts. 

Some students may struggle with understanding how to read facial expressions and social cues, or how to be kind to their peers who have emotional, physical, or behavioral disabilities. This course will help you develop exercises that can help students interpret and have compassion for others’ behavior even if it’s very different from theirs.

Regardless of what grade or subject you teach, this course gives you the tools you need to support all students in developing kindness toward themselves and others.