Ngākau Aroha (Empathy)

For the next two weeks we will be talking to our students about expected and unexpected behaviours, as they relate to a variety of settings and situations. For example, the expected behaviour when you meet someone for the first time, when someone is upset, when you are at someone’s house, when you are at the movies, at the supermarket, etc.

These are often hidden rules, that children may or may not be aware of.

Teaching these social norms relates to our school value: Ngākau Aroha (Empathy). Our students will learn to observe social situations more carefully and understand that their own behaviours are linked to others’ as well as our own emotions.

What makes a behaviour expected is that it encourages others to feel calm or possibly even pleased in response to the social behaviour. And the opposite is true, what makes a behaviour unexpected is that in response to the behaviour people who witness the behaviour feel stress or possibly become upset by it. At the end of the day, when we do expected behaviorus it makes us feel better about ourselves.