Teaching Empathy Ends Bullying
Shoshana Burton, a Grade 7 teacher in Vancouver, was determined to make national anti-bullying day meaningful to her students. So in preparation, she invited Fred Miller, 62, a formerly homeless man, to address the students, answer their questions and give insight into his life journey and the adversity he has experienced.
“I wanted students to hear first-hand the life story of someone who is part of a group we tend to quickly judge, a group that is treated negatively,” said Burton. “I hoped it would help them develop an awareness of this judgment and see it quickly replaced with compassion, empathy and kindness.”
The Grade 7 classes had discussed how stereotyping and biased behaviour in their daily lives can contribute to bullying. “We were trying to understand the many causes for homelessness and the many untrue myths and stereotypes based on assumptions we make, which impact our behaviour towards the homeless,” Burton explained.
Miller spoke of growing up in Wolfville, N.S., in a family with a drunk and abusive father. Sent to a juvenile delinquent centre, he was cut off from his siblings and family. He later served 10 years in a Saskatchewan jail for armed robbery and eventually ended up on the streets of Vancouver, addicted to drugs.
Asked what he wanted most
while living on the streets,
Miller said simply “a hug.”
“The major thing that stood out to me was that he didn’t feel loved when he lived on the streets,” said student Sophie Chelin, 13. “He said that people would walk by without acknowledging his presence and would step over him. I didn’t understand the impact of a small gesture like a hug to a homeless person, and that these small gestures can make them feel loved and feel like they are something.”
Ava Abramowich said she learned the importance of respecting the homeless and treating them with humanity.
“A lot of people think homeless people are hungry and kind of gross, but when you talk to them you realize they’re people, too, and they have feelings. Fred Miller didn’t have supportive parents like a lot of us do and he took the wrong path and made choices he might not have made had he known any better. I learned we have to be really grateful for our parents because they’re our role models and our teachers.”
Burton’s unorthodox teaching methods have already had a significant impact on her students.
“I found it very sad that one of the things people want on the streets is a hug,” said Maya Miller, 12. “People living on the streets are probably cut off from their families and have no friends, no one who loves and cares for them… The reason they want a hug is to interact with someone, feel appreciated and feel like a human being. They all have a story, and they’re people, too.”
Adapted from
Vancouver Teacher Challenges Homelessness Stigma On Anti-Bullying Day
By Lauren Kramer, Pacific Correspondent
The Canadian Jewish News
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