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Education Schmeducation
Teaching Empathy in Schools
We seem to have come full circle back to the "everything I needed too know, I learned in kindergarten" era. Share your crayons, people. And how would you feel if I kicked *you* under the table?
Anyway. One of the more interesting questions to ask about this article is "why are we suddenly worried that the kids aren't empathetic enough?" There's a theory (very persuasive, I think) that worrying about "kids today" is a substitute for worrying about their parents. "My kid might not get a job" is a projection of my anxiety that I might lose *my* job; "kids today can't manage money" stems from my worry that adults aren't managing money well.
So are people across the nation worried that adults aren't empathetic enough?
Looks like. See - "They should make the parents come as well,” she said. “I think there’s a sense of elitism, and a bit of arrogance, among the parents here.”
Most of the discussion in this article is about economic empathy. Don't conspicuously display your family's wealth in the form of sweatshirts. Do volunteer at that homeless shelter. To me, it looks like the concern over the recession era is hitting our schools in the form of "empathy programs." But that's just me.
I guess I have a few problems with this article, but they're not my usual problems with "New Academic Trend!" articles. For one, teaching empathy in the classroom isn't new. In fact, it's basic in most discipline cases: you begin by establishing the facts of the incident, and then you try and get Johnny to understand why hitting Billy was wrong. The weird thing about this article is that "empathy training" seems to cover anti-bullying programs AND social programs: "A photojournalism project showcases students’ work with the homeless, local charities and the environment" sounds more like an exercising in generating PR for the school than a behavior modification program.
And then there were lines like this: "At Public School 114 in the South Bronx, where David A. Levine, author of “Teaching Empathy,” has been running workshops since 2006, the principal, Olivia Francis-Webber said that the number of fights had dropped to fewer than three a month — from one to three a week — and disciplinary referrals were down to about five a month from nearly 20. Before, she said, teachers would “immediately admonish the child for bad behavior and send them to the office,” but since the empathy training began, they more often are “sitting down with students and finding out what’s wrong."
1) So you're saying that discipline problems are down, not because there are fewer fights, but because your teachers aren't reporting them? How is this evidence of success?
2) All the modern research shows that "sitting down with students and finding out what’s wrong" can be among the *worst* things to do with bullies. That's why the "self esteem" programs of the 80s have disappeared from schools.
You see, in the 80s, educators were told that bullies were aggressive because they had "low self esteem" and came from broken homes, and so anti-bullying programs focused on raising the self-esteem of students. And then psychologists did some studies and discovered that actually, school bullies tend to have very *high* self-esteem and came from all socio-economic backgrounds (frequently, in fact, from two-parent wealthy families). They tend to be narcissists and psychopaths (surprise!) who act out because they enjoy wielding power. And they enjoy attention. And they have no capacity for empathy. "Finding out what's wrong" with a narcissist or psychopath feeds aggressive behavior because the bully enjoys the attention, and learns that a good way to get attention is to hurt another kid.
And also: they can't feel empathy. So empathy programs are not going to work. At most, (and I think this is a good idea), they send the message that pretending to be empathetic will increase your social status. The psychopaths of this world may cotton on to that, but it will never make them empathetic.
We seem to have come full circle back to the "everything I needed too know, I learned in kindergarten" era. Share your crayons, people. And how would you feel if I kicked *you* under the table?
Anyway. One of the more interesting questions to ask about this article is "why are we suddenly worried that the kids aren't empathetic enough?" There's a theory (very persuasive, I think) that worrying about "kids today" is a substitute for worrying about their parents. "My kid might not get a job" is a projection of my anxiety that I might lose *my* job; "kids today can't manage money" stems from my worry that adults aren't managing money well.
So are people across the nation worried that adults aren't empathetic enough?
Looks like. See - "They should make the parents come as well,” she said. “I think there’s a sense of elitism, and a bit of arrogance, among the parents here.”
Most of the discussion in this article is about economic empathy. Don't conspicuously display your family's wealth in the form of sweatshirts. Do volunteer at that homeless shelter. To me, it looks like the concern over the recession era is hitting our schools in the form of "empathy programs." But that's just me.
I guess I have a few problems with this article, but they're not my usual problems with "New Academic Trend!" articles. For one, teaching empathy in the classroom isn't new. In fact, it's basic in most discipline cases: you begin by establishing the facts of the incident, and then you try and get Johnny to understand why hitting Billy was wrong. The weird thing about this article is that "empathy training" seems to cover anti-bullying programs AND social programs: "A photojournalism project showcases students’ work with the homeless, local charities and the environment" sounds more like an exercising in generating PR for the school than a behavior modification program.
And then there were lines like this: "At Public School 114 in the South Bronx, where David A. Levine, author of “Teaching Empathy,” has been running workshops since 2006, the principal, Olivia Francis-Webber said that the number of fights had dropped to fewer than three a month — from one to three a week — and disciplinary referrals were down to about five a month from nearly 20. Before, she said, teachers would “immediately admonish the child for bad behavior and send them to the office,” but since the empathy training began, they more often are “sitting down with students and finding out what’s wrong."
1) So you're saying that discipline problems are down, not because there are fewer fights, but because your teachers aren't reporting them? How is this evidence of success?
2) All the modern research shows that "sitting down with students and finding out what’s wrong" can be among the *worst* things to do with bullies. That's why the "self esteem" programs of the 80s have disappeared from schools.
You see, in the 80s, educators were told that bullies were aggressive because they had "low self esteem" and came from broken homes, and so anti-bullying programs focused on raising the self-esteem of students. And then psychologists did some studies and discovered that actually, school bullies tend to have very *high* self-esteem and came from all socio-economic backgrounds (frequently, in fact, from two-parent wealthy families). They tend to be narcissists and psychopaths (surprise!) who act out because they enjoy wielding power. And they enjoy attention. And they have no capacity for empathy. "Finding out what's wrong" with a narcissist or psychopath feeds aggressive behavior because the bully enjoys the attention, and learns that a good way to get attention is to hurt another kid.
And also: they can't feel empathy. So empathy programs are not going to work. At most, (and I think this is a good idea), they send the message that pretending to be empathetic will increase your social status. The psychopaths of this world may cotton on to that, but it will never make them empathetic.
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(Anonymous) - 2009-04-06 02:03 (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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*ducks rotten tomatoes and other readers with hand guns*