Parents and teachers are worried.
They believe that today's kids are growing up in an unkind world and that learning to be kind is even more important than getting good grades. But, when it comes to defining "kind," parents and teachers don't always agree.
That's according to a new survey of some 2,000 parents and 500 teachers from the educational nonprofit behind Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop.
Kindness is well-trod territory for Sesame. Here's actor Mark Ruffalo trying to teach a Muppet named Murray about a very big word: empathy.
The folks at Sesame Workshop worried that too much of the world doesn't understand empathy ā or doesn't try hard enough to feel other people's pain.
"We ... were concerned what the long-term impact of that would be on children and society as children grow older," said Jeffrey D. Dunn, CEO of Sesame Workshop. "This survey confirms our concerns. It is time to have a national conversation about kindness."
Indeed, a whopping 86 percent of teachers (and 70 percent of parents) admitted to worrying often that the world is an unkind place for children.
[For more of this story, written by Cory Turner, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/ed...me-study-in-kindness]
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