Tiger Tuesday: Empathy - Click to Watch Video.

Tiger Tuesday: Empathy - Click to Watch Video

Director of Communications

September 13, 2022

Happy TIGER TUESDAY!
Join Sheila Howe, Director of Human Resources for Warsaw Community Schools, along with her team, and co-leader, Mandy Bailey, to hear how excited they are to share the WCS Empathy Pillar - one part of our Strategic Plan.

Shiela explains, "Our mission is a living and active part of what we do every day.

We believe:

  • Our students will compassionately consider the lives of others;
  • They will acknowledge others’ feelings, emotions, and experiences as valuable;

As a result, all individuals will be able to understand, relate, and/or be moved to action by experiences and perspectives outside their own.

What we know to be true, & research confirms, is that higher levels of empathy make people more productive in cooperative learning & work environments. Empathy education boosts academic success.

Within the Empathy Pillar, we have five areas of development:

  1. Develop shared understanding;
  2. Model Empathetic behaviors (Yes, we offer training & resources to all staff in all schools and lead by example);
  3. Develop and strengthen active listening skills (We do this through intentional activities to foster connection);
  4. Provide uniform opportunities for growth (Yes - from kindergarten to seniors);
  5. Offer community service opportunities: Some great examples include “Feed my Starving Children,” the “Boomerang Backpacks” program, and donating to food & care closets in our schools and community.

Empathy education is inside the classrooms and woven into our extracurricular & social activities as we teach young people the value of good mental health.

When we express empathy we are able to imagine ourselves in the other person’s place.

Our WCS Volleyball team is demonstrating the power of empathy through their “Give Back to Community” drive to collect hygiene items and clothing. All items will be donated to “Student Care Stores'' in our local buildings. Monetary donations are also an option.
Day in and day out, we have teachers in every school implementing empathy embedded in their curriculum and as enrichment activities for their students.

We know that if we visit any classroom in the district, we will witness empathy interactions at work in our core classes such as book talks about characters and their choices to electives and discussions about accepting people where they are and celebrating growth.
Warsaw Community Schools is celebrating “A Year of Kindness” to highlight the value of giving of ourselves to brighten someone’s day.

Empathy starts when students are greeted by our bus drivers, support staff, teachers, and administrators - all focused on starting each and every day on a positive note.

And we are confident that we’re living our Warsaw Community Schools’ mission when our students go home and share what they learned throughout the day with their families and community.

We hope you’ll take the time to ask them how they showed and experienced empathy today for themselves, their community, and their world.

Have a terrific Tiger Tuesday!"

#wcsmission #togetherwewarewarsaw #kindnesswcs #empathywcs