Children Full of Life

Children learning how to be human. The good kind of human. In college we learned a lot of social experiments on the savagedry of human behavior. In our modern society it's very clear that people have the capability to do unimaginable cruelty to one another. It's gotten to the point where good deeds are over commended, because we no long experience them.

Mr. Kanamori, a fourth grade homeroom teacher in Japan, takes an introspective approach in teaching his students empathy and compassion. He teaches them a way to be "happy" in a way that doesn't revolve around acquiring possessions or instant distractions. You learn to be happy because you are giving, and you are being supported by those around you.

This documentary brought up some interesting memories, as these students deal with issues such as death and bullying. I thought about my 5th grade classmate Billy Garcia who died when he was hit by a diesal truck. How we dealt with that as a class at the time left an imprint in my mind. As kids we learned how to bury tragedy quickly and silently. In "Children Full of Life" I finally learned what I needed to hear all these years later.

I've only given a snippet of what I've taken away from this documentary. Below is a brief article that CBC, the network that created the documentary, described about the award winning series.

http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyemonday/feature_270904.html