The Country School is an independent, coeducational, Pre-K through 8 school founded in 1934.

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The Power of Compassion

By: Neil Mufson
Mr. Mufson discusses the ways in which we hold the power to help others through compassion.
Last week I mentioned that this summer the faculty read the book The Power of Kindness by Piero Ferrucci. In it, the author states that despite the discord, violence, tumult, and devastation that often pervade the news,“The fabric of our life is actually made of care, solidarity, [and] mutual service.These qualities are so embedded in our daily events that we may not even notice them. Yet to receive kindness does us good… [But] something similar happens on the other side of the equation: Giving kindness does us as much good as receiving it… Kind people are healthier and live longer, are more popular and productive, have greater success in business, and are happier than others.”
 
Since everyone’s experience suggests that humans are more likely to thrive in environments marked by kindness rather than conflict, our teachers this year will be paying even more mindful attention to ways we can model, emphasize, and expect kindness in our school community.
 
We also know that children learn best when home and school actively partner with one another. Hence I’d like to invite you to read Ferrucci’s book and to join a group of parents to discuss it in the library on October 25 from 8:15 - 9:00 a.m.
 
Kindness sounds so basic, yet as we rush about our lives, it can too easily get lost. Ferrucci maintains that “we all are in the midst of a ‘global cooling.’ Human relations are becoming colder. Communications are becoming more hurried and impersonal. Values
such as profit and efficiency are taking on greater importance at the expense of human warmth and genuine presence. Family affections and friendships suffer and are less lasting. Signs of this decline are everywhere, visible especially when they touch us in the small catastrophes of life. You make a phone call to talk to a person and you hear a digital voice presenting a list of options… You wait for a letter from a friend and receive an email. The farm you love is gone, and in its place stands a cement building. You notice older people are not as well cared for and respected as they used to be. Your doctor concentrates on the test results instead of listening to you and looking at you. And rather than playing ball in the backyard, kids move in the virtual world of video games… I am convinced that we are going through an Ice Age of the heart… the causes of which are many: new living conditions and forms of work, the establishing of new technologies, the decline of the extended family, the great migrations in which people are uprooted from their birthplace, the weakening of values, the fragmentation and superficiality of the contemporary world, the accelerating pace of life.”
 
Amidst our lives in a world of exponential change, I look forward to exploring with you and other TCS parents how we can stand against this tide and ensure that our children are in the forefront of a renaissance of kindness in an all too shrill world.
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