تحصیل دلسوزانه از پیش دبستانی تا مدرسه عالی: فرهنگ سازی دلسوزی در کلاس درس Compassionate education from preschool to graduate school: Bringing a culture of compassion into the classroom

1. Introduction Beyond academic learning, schools are playing an increasingly central role in cultivating the necessary social, emotional, and ethical skills required to lead meaningful and successful lives. Over the last decade, there has been great interest in bringing mindfulness to educators and students alike ( for reviews, see MeikleJohn et al., 2012; Zenner et al., 2014). Entire books (e.g. Jennings, 2015b; Rechtschaffen, 2016; Hahn and Weare, 2017), journal issues (e.g. Mindfulness, 2016, Volume 7, Issue 1; Childhood Education, 2017, Volume 93, Issue 2), and structured training programs (e.g. Mindful Schools; Learning to BREATHE; MindUP) have been dedicated to the topic of mindfulness and education. More recently, there has been a wave of interest in social-emotional learning (SEL) more specifically. SEL programs tend to cover the concepts related to five core competencies: self-awareness (skills around identifying emotions, accurate self-perception, recognizing strengths, self-confidence, and self-efficacy), self-management (skills around impulse control, stress management, self-discipline, self-motivation, goal setting, and organizational skills), social awareness (skills around perspective taking, empathy, appreciating diversity, and respect for others), relationship skills (skills around communication, social engagement, relationship building, and teamwork), and responsible decision-making (skills around identifying problems, analyzing situations, solving problems, evaluating, reflecting, and ethical responsibility) (Weissberg et al., 2015; Zins et al., 2004). While a recent meta-analysis that reviewed 82 school-based SEL programs suggests that these programs are effective and the benefits are lasting (Taylor et al., 2017), what is noticeably absent from SEL programs is the important construct of compassion – compassion for oneself, compassion for others (known and unknown, liked and disliked, etc.), and receiving compassion from others. To date, while formal, evidenced-based, secular[1], compassion training programs exist for adults (e.g. Gilbert and Proctor, 2006, 2010; Jazaieri et al., 2013; Neff and Germer, 2013; Pace et al., 2009; for a review, see Kirby, 2016) and data from these programs suggest that compassion can indeed be “taught’ ” these compassion programs have not been widely used in the contexts of children, adolescents, or young adults. Given the links between compassion and emotional intelligence (e.g. Heffernan et al., 2010; Şenyuva et al., 2014), and the links between compassion and connection (instead of loneliness and isolation; for a review, see Seppälä et al., 2013), children, adolescents, and young adults seem to be a germane group to examine the construct of compassion within.