I was taken by the recent story in the New York Times about a new anti-bullying curriculum that uses babies to teach empathy to schoolchildren. The idea is simple: a parent brings a baby to the class every month for a year, and the teacher helps the children to experience life from the baby's perspective, to imagine what the baby might be thinking or feeling, to identify the baby's personality. Studies have found that the children are engaged and excited by interacting with the baby...and that they begin to understand their own different perspectives and experience empathy among their peers, as well.
The same day I read that article, I read this one, about a baby in a stroller who was separated from her mother on the DC metro. It was presented as a kind of sensationalistic story, and of course it must have been quite traumatic. But--also of course--the baby and mother were quickly reunited, the baby watched over by fellow train travelers to the next stop and then handed off to metro police, sleeping the whole time.
I say of course because there's something about us that can't help but care for a baby, I think. When I get within 20 feet of an infant, I can feel my face pulled into all kinds of strange contortions, as I play peek-a-boo almost against my will. It taps into that hard-wired empathy we all have, and it's difficult to resist.
And so I really loved the idea of using babies with children who might otherwise get a lot of practice in empathy...using our natural pull toward the littlest among us to encourage seeing different perspective and, ultimately, to cut down on bullying. As Felix Adler says, the human spirit really does yearn for goodness. And sometimes babies can help show us the way.
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