Page 19 - FIS World November 2016

“Taking a walk in others’ shoes” during the Grade 5 student Walkathon
that strangers with other views, other cultures, or other ways of seeing, are also right. And moving the Upper School’s grade-level trips to the beginning of the year was another step toward empathy development. In Sternberg’s view, ”People who just moved here can really connect with us, and those of us who’ve been here can also get close to them.” She then added one of the most important reasons why empathy is critical to survival: “Connecting with each other helps us better manage ourselves away from home, in di erent surroundings.”
To feel with
others is a built-in survival trait that is imprinted into our brains.
For the rst time in the history of our species, there is a global human tribe made possible by the social networks that connect our world’s population. But big tribes in ght because while our hardwired empathy makes us feel with others, human evolution has hardened us to strangers. A global tribe without feeling for those outside their orbit will ignore, fear or distrust those who look or think di erently. Our best hope for overcoming that in ghting is combining our empathic character with compassionate social technology.
In the world where Google “knows everything” and Facebook sets the common emotions denominator, the most knowledgeable among us can’t de ne what’s best. The fundamental articles of our global tribe’s constitution are yet to be written, but this much we know: we want our children to develop ways of living and working together that add up to building a better world. Empathic connection is vital, a balanced nurturing of the physical and the digital is wise, and FIS delivers on both counts.
Maria Monteiro FIS Parent
November 2016 FIS World 17