It is Friday morning, and the students in Tara Brenno’s second-grade class at Chautauqua Elementary School are standing in a circle, singing around a soft blanket spread on the floor. Their voices drift into the hallway, where a mother stands just outside the door with her 5-month-old infant.

“Hello, Baby Utah,” the children sing. “How are you? How are you?”

Visiting instructor Alix Clarke nestles the baby in her arms, and the duo makes their way around the circle, stopping in front of each singing child to say hello.

Thus begins what has become a monthly visit by baby Utah, as part of a program called Roots of Empathy (ROE), with similar programs in countless schools across Canada and roughly 100 schools in the United States.

The program is designed to reduce negative social behaviors among children, such as aggression and bullying, and increase those behaviors called “pro-social”: sharing, caring, cooperation and the ability to include others.

As part of this program, Clarke, a trained ROE instructor, visits Brenno’s classroom each week, and Baby Utah — as he is known in the program — comes once a month with one of his parents, Sarah and Brian Lowry.

The week before Utah visits, Clarke works with the students on a theme in preparation for his arrival, and encourages students to pay attention to the relationship his parents have with him, how he has changed since his last visit and his temperament. She also teaches them about caring for an infant and just how challenging it can be to meet a baby’s needs.

“They learn that a crying baby is never a bad baby. It is a baby with a problem, and you have to learn what the problem is,” Clarke said.

When Utah visits, he lies on the blanket — his own space that the children are allowed on only if invited — and the kids watch him and ask questions of his parents. And, as long as Utah is happy, the children get to hold him, a popular part of the day.

The week after Utah visits, Clarke steers the conversation to what the children learned, and then, in a vital part of the program, the students connect their new knowledge to their own lives and feelings, as well as those of their classmates.

It is all a lesson in what Roots of Empathy founder Mary Gordon calls “emotional literacy.”

Clarke, an Islander with more than 20 years of teaching experience, calls it something else. “It’s magic,” she said. “It’s just magic.”

Brenno, a teacher for 12 years, said she feels honored to pilot the program at Chautauqua.

“I thought it sounded really fascinating,” she said. “And anything that helps children build empathy is valuable.”

Over the course of her years as a teacher, Brenno said, students seem to have become more challenging — less empathic — and she would like to stem that tide.

The program on Vashon has been under way less than two months, and when Brenno talked about the program, Utah had been to the class only twice, but she was positive about the experience so far.

“I am really pleased,” she said. “I love seeing how the kids interact with the baby.”

The boys, she noted, seem particularly interested in Utah.

Indeed, on Utah’s second visit, one boy asked three times if he could hold him, and early on in Utah’s third visit, the boy said wistfully,  “I would love to hold him again.”

Brenno is also happy to see seeds of the program carry over into the students’ coursework. One recent day they had been talking about feelings with Clarke and then for their writer’s workshop, Brenno had them write about “a big feeling.” She had not seen the students so engaged with a topic before, she said, and she feels certain their enthusiasm was related to the work they had done so recently with Clarke.

School counselor Yvette Butler visits Brenno’s classroom for most of the Roots of Empathy sessions. She, too, is pleased with piloting the program.

“We are always looking for things we can do to support the social and emotional development of students,” she said. “This was an avenue we hadn’t explored before. It really seemed to fit with work we were already doing.”

While she notes it is fun to watch the students connect with Utah, she is looking at the program and its effects with a critical eye. She is watching how the students engage in conversations and lessons and how they take any new skills from Roots of Empathy and transfer them to other areas.

Shortly before Utah’s most recent visit to the classroom, Butler said she expected they would have a better feel for the program in a couple of months. But during that visit, Butler said, she observed a few students who often have a challenging time socially, noticing they were singing the songs, making eye contact with Utah and completely engaged.

“It is interesting to see how a baby can bring that out,” Butler said.

More study of the program and its results are in the works at Chautauqua, but she made clear this type of approach, which aims to support students’ emotional and social development in a whole group at once, is optimal.

The Lowrys share that sentiment, Sarah said recently, adding that she and Brian both enjoy the classroom experience and take turns bringing Utah.

“It’s neat to see the kids so excited about tracking a baby’s development,” she said.

Utah, too, she said, seems to enjoy being with all the kids.

“Even the first time he was smiling and making eye contact,” she said. “He seems more happy in social situations.”

Sarah Lowry works at the University of Washington School of Social Work, which is involved in poverty research. Findings often point to the importance of early childhood education, and Roots of Empathy ties in to that area well, she noted.

“I’d love to see a program like this continue,” she said. “Hopefully it is something Vashon will embrace.”

Roots of Empathy began in 1996 in Canada, when Mary Gordon was working as a kindergarten teacher there. She had hoped to change the lives of her students, but instead was confronted by the harsh realities of many of their lives. At the root of their problems, she said, was a lack of empathy. Babies, she notes, make the perfect teachers because their emotions are on full display, and they respond to love, no matter who gives it. With those insights, Gordon created the program, which is now in every province in Canada, and is starting to move across Europe and the United States after starting in the Seattle area.

“We want to be in every single corner, nook and cranny of the United States of America,” Gordon said. “We plan to change the world child by child. … North America has an opportunity to help world learn to get along better.”

Considerable research has gone into ROE and its curriculum, Gordon noted, and results have shown consistently that with this program in place, bullying and other forms of aggression decrease and positive social behaviors increase.

Gordon also stressed Roots of Empathy is not an “anti-” program, but a “pro-” program. It is not just about quelling bullying, Gordon said, but about creating kinder, more empathic children.

“If we give them the time and space and model of love, they change from the inside out,” she said.