Teaching and learning empathy – and why it is important
My last blog post described how Taekwondo training can promote empathy development and with that, kindness towards others as students learn to relate to each other through a shared experience to, in the spirit of Taekwondo, create a more peaceful world.
I hear often that society seems to become more selfish, uncaring, and unkind and that human interactions seem to be increasingly based on what one can “get” from another person rather than, as Price-Mitchell (2015) points out, expressing empathy to the needs of others.
These sentiments are expressed by individuals of all ages, from young children, adolescents, and adults alike. It appears that some individuals feel that environments, that most individuals find themselves in for many waking hours, are uncaring and unkind, ranging from schools to workplaces. Can that situation, or the environmental culture be changed and can empathy be taught at all?
In classrooms, as Heick (2015) states, teachers can teach just content to the students or they can also teach the students, whereas the former would just be transmitting knowledge that needs to be mastered and that the latter would be that teachers take the student himself or herself into account, by getting to know the student and learning about commonalities, or simply finding out, who they are. This might be an important tool to possibly understand why a student all the sudden experiences a drop in grades or is not paying attention. It could possibly be argued that this type of mindset could be transferred into the workplace, by instead of just expecting people to do what they are asked to do, to also learning a bit about them, their strengths and their weaknesses and then building on their strengths for a more productive (and happier) workforce.
What can parents do, to help raise caring individuals as opposed to children who are just demanding and only think about themselves? Lahey (2014) argues that empathy is more than just being able to take the perspective of someone else, it is the ability to understand and respect another person’s point of view, despite disagreements. Lahey then offers five suggestions to parents on how to teach empathy: a) be a role model that shows children are valued and treated with compassion; b) point out the importance of being kind to others; c) allow children to practice empathy by letting them reflect on the experiences of others; d) allow your children to think about more than one perspective to better understand others and finally, e) encourage children to develop a way that they can be empathic despite difficulty, which will also help them better understand possible prejudices towards others. She finally posits, that teaching empathy skills to children makes their environment more peaceful, be that environment the family or a classroom.
What else does learning to have empathy involve? According to a recent article in BBC online (2015) , it involves listening, active listening, a skill that most people, myself included, probably need to practice more. Listening allows for really hearing what another person is saying, regardless of age, which further might us help to see more than just the physical person, but really what is underneath, by being mindful about everyone that we encounter, and by actually talking and listening to them and their experiences.
As I argued in the last post, we might not all share the same experiences, maybe we just share one, or a few, but we do share and with that, can promote understanding, a caring attitude and with that kindness towards others.
Empathy, if taught at home and in school and practiced in any environments that humans find themselves in, can thus become a life-skill that promotes understanding, respect, and hopefully, a more peaceful world.
BBC (2015). Can you teach people to have empathy? Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33287727
Heick, T. (2015). Teaching empathy: are we teaching content or students? Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-empathy-content-or-students-terry-heick
Lahey, J. (2014). Teaching children empathy. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/teaching-children-empathy/?_r=0
Price-Mitchell, M. (2015). Acts of Kindness: Teaching children to care. Retrieved from: http://www.rootsofaction.com/art-kindness-teaching-children-care/