Can empathy and compassion be explicitly taught?
In our fourth iteration of TECHO Week Without Walls at ASFG, I was asking myself that very question as I helped to organize 100 affluent private school students to go out to a marginalized community where people live in extreme poverty to build houses. Maybe because in my Capstone Seminar class we had just read stimulus materials that included an excerpt from the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s The Book of Joy, with quotes like: “we can also experience happiness at the deeper level through our mind, such as through love, compassion, and generosity,” or maybe I just wanted to push the students to a greater understanding of inequality and poverty, I came in with the goal of having our students really empathize with the people we were serving through our project.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Atticus Finch in Harper lee’s To Kill a mockingbird
More than just showing up for a weekend to build a house, I really wanted the students to learn about the people in the marginalized communities we were working in and understand their reality. Most importantly I wanted them to understand the people in these communities in the way Atticus Finch taught Scout to understand others: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” Even before arriving at the community, I wanted the students to really imagine what it’s like to live in a neighborhood without running water, electricity and paved roads, in a way that was interactive and educational.
English teachers would agree that teaching literature naturally lends itself to developing the skill of empathy: using imagination to understand human nature and human experience that may outside our own experience. But (even as English teacher!) I believe service learning is another great opportunity for this type of learning to take place. While these may be lofty educational aspirations, even business reports, like the one offered by McKinsey Quarterly agree that: “Social, emotional, and technological skills are becoming more crucial as intelligent machines take over more physical, repetitive, and basic cognitive tasks.” Empathy is listed as a key soft skill. So how do we teach students empathy?
“TECHO taught us that united we can accomplish a lot: not only can we build a roof, we can help build a future.”
Empathy Lesson
I came up with a simple but powerful lesson, that also included the Sustainable Development Goals, a great tool for organizing discussions about poverty and other social justice topics. I introduced the SDGs with this great video that I never get tired of and students seem to enjoy. Then, I had taped most of the SDGs on a grid on my board and I had cut up different scenarios that capture the reality of people living in the communities TECHO serves. Students were then asked to match the scenarios to a specific SDG on the board. Once all the scenarios were up on the board, students had to choose 1-2 scenarios and write how they would feel if that scenario was their reality.
Students were thoughtful in their responses and when we debriefed about the activity, students recognized that being aware of this reality can help shape their reactions to the community. Overall, during the build, students were very positive and hardworking. But I had a hard time discerning if I had met my teaching goal of growing empathy and compassion in my students. I mean the 10 houses were standing and students were healthy and safe but how much did they empathize with the reality of living in extreme poverty?
Student Reflections
Students had to complete various reflective activities after the construction and their work is the best evidence I have for addressing my question. One 9th grade student wrote:
“My thoughts of this TECHO experience at the beginning was that we were going to make a house and find someone that really needed this house. From my perspective at the beginning, this was just another school project that counted as a grade. But the more we advanced in building this house and the more time that we played and “lived” with the family, the more I understood about the situation that the people we were building the house were living in. These families barely had the basic needs to live. Some didn’t even have the basic needs. But only after talking with the family and comprehending the background story, I comprehended that they really needed the house. But then I thought, how can we live in a whole different society than these people even though we live only a few kilometers apart, and how we have a very dumb mind that only thinks on wasting money in un-needed things.”
A screenshot from another 9th grader’s video on the TECHO experience:
Reflections pointed to a greater impact on a student’s goals for the future:
“The past three days gave me the opportunity to see firsthand the conditions in which some families live simply 25 minutes away from my own home. A home where I am able to shower with hot water and sleep on my own bed without having to share with my siblings. I do not have to face the worries of not having enough food tomorrow or if I will be cold during the night. I was able to witness how such young girls like Fernanda and Ingrid face their reality everyday without knowing what lives beyond their town. While I have been lucky in my life, they have had to fight for survival and no child should have to do that. I realized that poverty is so much more than not having money, I realized that it depends on who you are and the family you are born into. No one has a say in that, therefore, no one should be punished for it. This weekend was about more than just handing over keys of a new house to Liz and it was about more than reflecting upon what we built. It was about truly comprehending the importance of the things we have in life and how grateful we should be that we all are able to go to school every day and shower every night. I do feel slightly guilty that I went to such a poor community for three days and saw what it was like: run-down streets, old houses, not healthy food, and the fact that I am able to go back home so easily is slightly despicable on my part. While I could easily say this and then go back to living my life, I am now able to appreciate that I do not have to suffer like Ingrid and Fernanda, I understand the difference between us and I am grateful that I was able to at least play a small part in giving them a little more shelter to sleep under, however, I hope that one day I will be able to do more for them than build a house, I hope that I will be able to help them and others like them.
Goals for Curriculum
Psychology science says we can teach empathy and I earnestly believe it. Whether I achieved my goal this time around is hard to say but at least some seeds were planted. At the end of the day, as cheesy as it may sound, teaching students empathy and compassion should be at the forefront of all curriculum. Social and Emotional Learning has been gaining a lot of traction across but apart from throwing empathy into the one more thing to do pile, I agree with this educator that “it can be incorporated into all subjects,” even math! We can help our students to help the world and, as the Dalai Lama said, be happier because of it.
