Education of the Heart

“My hope and wish is that one day, formal education will pay attention to what I call education of the heart. Just as we take for granted the need to acquire proficiency in the basic academic subjects, I am hopeful that a time will come when we can take it for granted that children will learn, as part of the curriculum, the indispensability of inner values: love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness”
- Dalai Lama

Our Education of the Heart curriculum at Parachute Express Playschool, is comprised of several different programs to foster emotional intelligence from our “Random Act of Kindness Wreath”, to the “Fill the Bucket” program, the “Mind-Up Curriculum”and our “Peace Curriculum”. In our classroom, we strive to model kindness, compassion, empathy, honesty, generosity, The “Mind-Up Curriculum” is a research-based training program for educators and children. This program is composed of 15 lessons based in neuroscience. Students learn to self-regulate behavior and mindfully engage in focused activities, while nurturing optimism and happiness in the classroom, and increasing empathy and compassion. .

We incorporate numerous activities in our classroom to support our Peace Curriculum, from the “Peaceful Feet” activity, to our Peace Dove, to celebrating International Day of Peace each year to our Making Silence Game. Each day we sing about peace too; some of our favorite songs to promote a peaceful existence include “Peace Like a River”, “I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers”, “Peace Soup”, “Peace is it’s Name-o”, and more. We plant and nurture the seed of peaceful play and peaceful actions each and every day at Parachute Express Playschool. It is our heart’s desire that this tiny seed takes root and blossoms in every little heart as they move forward in life.

As educators at Parachute Express Playschool, our hope is that we can give our children the life skill to relax, to be conscious of their relationship to the world, to breathe through difficult emotions, to be present, to be emotionally intelligent, and to be mindful – an incredibly powerful gift.