Ep.55- Conversation with Kara Cosby: Compassion in the School System

Gissele overdub: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our worlds. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content.

Today we’ll be talking about bringing compassion into the school system, and we’ll be talking to Kara Cosby, who is the Compassionate School Project Teacher at Englehart Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky she has delivered the Flourish curriculum in grades K to five for six years and is a Compassionate Schools Project Flourish teacher trainer.

She’s also a certified mindfulness director with Whole School Mindfulness. She has completed a master’s degree in elementary education and teaching from the University of Louisville, and has a master’s in education and educational leadership and administration from [00:01:00] Asbury University. Please join me in welcoming Kara.

Hi, Kara. Hello. Hello. Hello. I’m so excited to talk to you because I think compassion in the school system is so, so needed, especially at this time. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you started in this work. How is it that you became this compassionate schools.

Project teacher.

Kara: Okay, so I was a fourth and fifth grade teacher in JCPS. I moved away to Denver, Colorado. I taught for two years there. And then when I decided to come back to Louisville, I kept seeing these positions called the Compassionate schools project. I had no idea what it was but I saw there was several.

So I applied for them. And then I, of course, after applying, started investigating to see, okay, what is this compassionate schools project? What do they do? And then when [00:02:00] I dove a little deeper and found out like what it really involves, I thought, wow, because. I am totally into vision boards, and I had had on my vision board for about a year that I was going to teach yoga.

And so when I found out that this position actually incorporated mindful movement I was so excited. And so that’s how the whole journey began.

Gissele overdub: I love vision boards, and I love being able to kind of align with your manifestation. So that’s, that’s pretty exciting.

Kara: That’s what it felt like, that full circle moment.

Gissele overdub: Yeah, for sure. I love it when life happens like that. Tell us a little bit about what sort of, curriculum you delivered to the young people and maybe perhaps how you define compassion.

Kara: Okay, so the curriculum is broken into 7 units. It starts from the beginning where it’s all about self and, and just learning how to be your [00:03:00] best self and just what is compassion. And so we dive into that first. It’s a very short unit, but then it travels after you introduce compassion into emotions.

Unit three is like all about being your best self. self. So we talk about like what we need to be our best selves. I love the emotions unit because it gives me the chance to show inside out, which is literally one of my favorite cartoons. And so Oh, as it goes from self, it moves into friendships and relationships.

So we moved from self to friendships, relationships, just how we interact with others. Then the last two units are like community based. So it moves out of. I mean, it’s still about relationship building, but much more on a wider scale. And so we finish out with unit seven, which is a community service project.

You come up with the project for your school and it’s something that you guys do for the community. And that’s how it all ends every [00:04:00] year. So for me, In terms of like what compassion is in my definition probably has changed so many times, but ultimately, you know, when I ask the kids, what is compassion, you know, they’re like being nice and they think it’s about being nice to others, but I really teach them that compassion is about kindness and it’s not just about being kind to other people, but learning how to be kind to yourself first.

Because you are first. Then once we take care of ourselves, then we can go out and be our best self for everyone else. So that’s really, I love the way it flows. Now there have been times where I have gone out of order just because of like, what’s happening in school. So like, if I see. One year, I think the kids were just having a really hard time.

It was the very beginning of school year, but they were having a hard time getting along. So I really dove into unit five first, which was like all about friendships and cooperative learning and just how to work with people. So we, we kind of jumped around that year.

Gissele overdub: [00:05:00] I think that’s such a great idea because we are meeting the kids where they’re at, right?

Kara: habit. Okay. You know, they’ve been having it for years, so you can kind of do that, but not with your kindergarten. It’s because it’s like their first time.

Gissele overdub: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And is this program embedded within this school? Like, is it something that happens every year or is it just a, it’s a limited time project?

Kara: So the Compassionate Schools Project is actually like a study, you know, it started off at As a study with the University of Virginia they were like doing a lot of data keeping in the beginning and, you know, it was all like trying to gauge how this program would impact schools. And I guess over time, you know, the, the survey part wrapped up and they got the research and then.

It kept going. it has happened every year and it is like, a class. So in every school probably does it different, but my school utilizes it as like a special area or itinerant class, like along with PE and art and things like [00:06:00] that.

Gissele overdub: Beautiful, beautiful. And can you share a little bit about some of the outcomes that you’ve seen, like sort of the impact on the children who have taken this course in particular?

Kara: I feel like you know, the great thing is we start in kindergarten. So the real the real proof is in watching a child who came in at kindergarten and is now graduating fifth grade, you know, so they’ve had it for six years.

And so over that time, I really get to see the change in behavior. Now, I will say, like, if I think about there’s this one particular student that I always meet. Use as my example when he came in, he was a first grader, very angry, would storm out of class over the smallest things and would curse at teachers.

I mean, he, he was just a very emotional child, but over the years I noticed that he could learn [00:07:00] to regulate and he. Like if he got upset in class, he would like go off to a corner. So now instead of storming out of the room, we’re learning how to go find us a space by ourselves. And so over time, I just watched how his reactions they changed, you know, and I don’t ever, you know, try to take credit, like, Oh, CSP did that, you know?

But I think maturity and. You know, they’re learning these skills every year. And the one thing I do love is like the lessons are by like K and one have the same lessons. So if you came in and kindergarten, you’re going to see the same deck lessons again in first grade. And then when you go to second grade, a whole new set of activities and things, and then the same thing for fourth and fifth, so you really get to kind of see kids move through the different grade levels and just how the activities change.

But I think the core. You know, the core is like the calming and focusing, And we’re [00:08:00] breathing, we’re stretching, and those things are consistent. And so I feel like over time, it really teaches the kids how to regulate, you know, when they face different adversities in life.

Gissele overdub: And this is so important because I think the school system doesn’t really teach Children, how to regulate if they expect them to know to come in knowing that but some kids don’t always have that or get that example at home. And so the school does give them the opportunity to, with your program, it’s giving them the opportunity to practice a very, very important skill, especially in leadership.

You sort of need empathetic people who are able to regulate their own emotions before they manage conflict. That’s very important in leadership. And so I think what you’re doing is phenomenal. What has been the engagement from the teachers and the principals in terms of the, the program?

Kara: My principal loves the program. His kids [00:09:00] actually, you know, came through the CSP project. So, you know, he would come back and tell me stories like how they were coming home and teaching their little brother the fresh start sequence. And so, you know, that’s when I’ll begin to hear little stories, you know, and the teachers in that way also will report back like on, you know, things people are doing in class or, you know, he all of a sudden he was getting upset and he found his anchors.

And so, you know, over time, I feel like. You know, there’s just been little things that happen and it kind of brings it to the attention. Now I have teachers who love CSP and they will come in, sit on a mat, you know, they’ll join us for coming and focusing and then they’ll leave and go have their planning.

I’ve really with whole school. So whole school didn’t really come into the picture until the past two years. But with whole school, it has really opened my eyes in terms of how to expand beyond my classroom and how can I bring in teachers and how can I touch t