Friday, October 6, 2017

How to raise awareness of empathy on campus


Maclay eM Bracelets

The Maclay Visual Arts teachers, Kim Daniel, Cathy Hicks, Kyle Maurey and Kaitlyn Dressel, want to raise awareness of empathy on our campus by using an unspoken and universal language of art. We are all working together to be positive instigators on and off of our Maclay School campus.

We are promoting this project and calling it “Maclay eM Bracelets” with the #maclaycares in order to teach empathy within our school. The branding behind this idea was to spell “me” backwards in a very simple translational reminder of putting others first. It is also a word play on eMpathy (capital M for Marauders.) Each Maclay eM Bracelet will serve as a beautiful and simple reminder that you are loved and that we care.

The eM Bracelets will be an innovative hand crafted project that unites our school directly with the community. Doing the hard work of trying to change the world in some way that matters is what we try to facilitate here in our field and what seems to matter in general. It’s a different take on what matters in life than what the mainstream of our society serves up.

The big idea is to take the concept of the eM Bracelet to help mentor our students in the understandings of the 5 pillars of Character Education: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, and Citizenship. With this art lesson, we want our students to create and give these Maclay eM Bracelets to others as a reminder of how they can help others feel through being cared for by a random act of kindness.  Being models for understanding what we do and what its value is; why we make things, why it matters, how it fits into the scheme of living a good life, and how the individual effort relates to society as a whole.

What matters about making is that it is a form of being creatively engaged in the world that seems to really be a key to finding meaning and fulfillment in one’s life. It does not matter if it is in crafts or sculpture or composition or even business. Artists, Mathematicians, Engineers, and Nurses all share common interest in the goal to make the community a better place and we strive to have the same mission here at Maclay.

It is through the creative arts that we experience each other’s hearts. Developing character education implementation through empathy and art education. It is a pay it forward towards other humans by being creative, taking the time to do something for others, and imagining how crafting that connection with other people will make you and them feel.

If you want to volunteer to help, please contact one of the art teachers listed above via email.

Yours truly,

#maclaycares <3 span="">

Here is the post that explains a little more about this school wide project:













#maclaycares xoxo 1969

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