Investigating the Earth and Beyond: Showing Compassion for Others

In this week’s discussion post, I touched on the importance of having compassion for others when natural disasters strike.  When the tsunami hit Japan last year, many of my students felt unaffected by this event.  They could not imagine why anyone from the United States would help out this country.  The response that I heard from numerous students was, “why should we help out others when we have so many homeless people in our own country?”  This question really threw me off because in my mind people are people and we should all help each other out.  My students did not view it this way.  That night I went home and created a PowerPoint on the tsunami in Japan.  I started out the presentation by explaining what a tsunami is and how they form.  I then discussed the events of this particular tsunami.  They were shocked to learn how high the waves were and how much of the coast it covered.  Giving them the specific mileage meant nothing, I had to actually compare it to something they knew.  When I did this, I could see their hearts open up to these people.  Next, I showed them pictures and video clips of the event.  That night, a large number of my students went home and looked up ways they could help.  At the time, one organization was donating a dollar for every origami bird they received.  The following week, I had about 500 origami birds on my desk all done by my students.  In the middle school, students are still very egocentric and need to be reminded of the world beyond their eyes.  I believe that small things, such as taking a day out of the curriculum to have a teachable moment, can be life changing.