When I left for the March break I was feeling rather down. Certain events had happened between some students at school that were making me feel depressed and shameful. I was becoming discouraged by the narcissism I was seeing around me and feeling responsible yet powerless at the same time. I started wondering whether my personal observations of an increase in self-centred behaviour over the years was unique to me. Are young people really becoming more self-involved? If so what are the long term effects and what can we do about it?
It turns out I’m not the only one with anecdotal evidence of a rise in narcissism. There are plenty of psychology articles out there that claim the same. The current celebrity university admissions scandal seems to further prove my point. Increased social pressure to achieve academic success is an obvious contributor to the problem. If you are so focused on yourself and your needs and your goals, how do you have the time, energy or desire to think about others? Participating in volunteer work and service initiatives becomes an exercise in the betterment of your resume not your community. Social media may also be partly to blame as people are constantly trying to promote themselves and get “likes” etc…I have also read, however, that your personality is pretty well established before you are old enough to join any of these social media platforms. Other psychologists suggest that smaller families, less time for free social play and too much unwarranted praise might also be contributing to a general decline in empathy in today’s society.
What are the long term consequences of a self-centred culture? I can speculate, but frankly I don’t know. What I do know is that the world is actually better off now than it has been in the past in a lot of ways. For example, there has been a huge reduction in extreme poverty globally from 43% in 1981 to 14% in 2011 according to the World Bank. There’s also progress in literacy and education rates, health care and technology. There are still, of course, many challenges to sustaining this development while minimizing our environmental impact. The most imminent danger that threatens to derail all the progress we have made and need to continue to make is climate change. If we are living in a world where people are becoming more self-centred, how can we get them to care enough about this issue to do something about it? Can we teach our students empathy? Can we harness their narcissism for good? I think the answer is we can do both. I can try my best to give students the opportunities and experiences to see how their actions have consequences for others and make a change. If all else fails then at least maybe I can get them to care enough about their own futures to do something to make it better.
In thinking about my action plan and my observations of negative student behaviour I have really been focusing lately on this part of my HMW question“…empowers students to solve real world problems in their community?” The word empower means to “encourage and support the ability to do something.” I think part of my role in encouraging and supporting my students has to be in building their capacity for empathy so that they care enough to do something. I have been striving to do this throughout the year in different ways. The best example comes from our biology unit which focuses on human health. This unit revolves around patient case studies. Within each case study is an embedded moral issue that we unpack and discuss. For example, one patient has type II diabetes. Through diagnosing and learning more about this patient we talk a lot about the relationship between obesity and diabetes and how we cannot judge people who have what we might perceive to be a preventable disease. Our patient with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy leads to a discussion about organ transplants and whether or not everyone should be required to donate when they die. We brought in a guest speaker who had a heart transplant to share her story.
I think storytelling in this climate change unit would be a great way to continue to expose students to the experiences of others. This is an interdisciplinary unit with humanities. I would love to embed powerful human stories into this unit. How convenient for me then that one of the most incredible stories I’ve heard in a long time is that of Greta Thunberg who was the impetus behind the March 15th global student strike against climate inaction and is now nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Hopefully this is someone my students can relate to and feel inspired by. Greta’s storytelling is so interesting because she really doesn’t sugar coat anything. Her TED Talk is not an ooey-gooey message about hope and positive thinking – it’s a call to action based on the fact that she thinks it’s a load of crap that adults messed up the planet and now she and other children have to suffer the consequences. It’s a very powerful message. The climate strike also makes it very clear that there are at least 1.4 million young people out there that DO care enough (about themselves or others) to take action and that keeps me hopeful and optimistic. Let’s just try and keep the momentum going!
Another idea I had was to be able to connect my students with others around the world maybe through Flipgrid. If there’s anyone out there that is reading this and wants to connect, please let me know! I also think having some guest speakers come in and share would be great too. If I could find someone who has experienced the effects of climate change first hand that would be interesting. Finally I think it is important that we as teachers model empathy. If I expect my students to make “One Simple Change” then I am going to do it along with them.
I’ll stop there for now as I continue to plan the unit. I am really going to try to embed this idea of building capacity for empathy into each lesson. So here are some questions I have for anyone who’s reading:
- Can you explicitly teach empathy?
- If so what do you do?
- How can you measure your effectiveness?
Please share!
Thanks for reading.
Some Sources:
Definition of “empower” from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press
Haynes, S. (2019, March 20). “It’s Literally Our Future.” Here’s What Youth Climate Strikers Around the World Are Planning Next. Retrieved March 21, 2019, from http://time.com/5554775/youth-school-climate-change-strike-action/
Gray, P. (2014, January 16). Why is narcissism increasing among young americans? Retrieved March 21, 2019, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201401/why-is-narcissism-increasing-among-young-americans
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Icon vector created by freepik – www.freepik.com
These are such powerful questions! I’ve never used Flipgrid to connect to students outside of my own classroom (I’m not the expert Laura said I was at all), but I love this idea. I have heard of “mystery skypes” where students ask questions to another group until they figure out where they are from.
Also, check out the short One Earth videos. They are really well done. Here’s an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QzjqOl2N9c
I used to use them when I taught social studies.
Here are a few more of the videos. They are hard to find online now! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyvKix9ifkfC-x9WXuMwwWg
Thanks again!
That’s an amazing video! Thank you so much for sharing. I’ll definitely use that one and explore some more.
Great Q’s. When we read “Unselfie” in our PLC (which is all about this question – feel free to borrow mine ;)) I asked students to rate how important they felt empathy was and then I shared some of the data and stories from the book and asked again. We had a good discussion about the fact that great leaders and successful people almost all show strong empathy. They came to see it as a desirable trait through a different lens. We then did a survey I designed to determine the state of empathy in our class; then I shared the results (not great) and asked them what changes would have to happen to improve our collective empathy? We posted these in the class and I would sometimes point to it when I saw a lack of empathy being displayed. Students completed the survey again at the end of the year and generally agreed that we had become more empathetic as individuals and a community. Baby steps?
Rob!! Thanks so much for reading this and commenting. I really appreciate it. And I will be borrowing “Unselfie” from you. I think what you did in your class was awesome. Thank you for sharing it with me.
@jagostino,
I love that you pose this as a question and then do your honest, authentic, humble, researched best to discuss both sides of the argument. This is a GREAT blog post that brings in current discourse and your own classroom application and action plan reflection. You’ve even discussed ways in which digital pedagogies (FlipGrid) can help increase student engagement!
Does your school have a sister school somewhere in the world? Is it part of RoundSquare or any other world citizenship service initiatives? I love your idea of building empathy into each lesson; I believe you are spot on that this type of generational malaise is contagious and will need consistent repetition towards questioning, accountability, and advocacy, to create enough learning impetus for students to incorporate it as a value.
So impressed by this and glad to read your thoughts. Keep them coming… please!
Thank you for your feedback Eric! Now that I think about it we actually have a very strong connection to Global Pathways School in India so maybe that is something to look into.
Hi Jules!
Thank you for this AWESOME post! Of course I love the idea of building empathy through stories, it’s that idea that grounds my practice as a librarian. I know in the interdisciplinary work our Middle Schoolers do, they read some fiction that deals with climate change. Some of it is really fun, because you can get right into those end-of-the-world, dystopian scenarios that students tend really to enjoy reading.
Two more quick resource ideas: 1) Check out the Digital Human Library https://www.digitalhumanlibrary.org/ It is a catalogue of experts you can bring into your class via webcam or interact with using VR or AR. Mostly free, too! 2) A person resource – maybe touch base with @acampbellrogers, a senior social studies teacher who investigated fostering empathy with her geography students.
Can’t wait to see where you go from here!
Laura
Thanks Laura! The Digital Human Library is something I had heard about and completely forgot existed. Thanks for reminding me and now I’m off to find a relevant expert to bring in to my class! I also found a series of short stories on Amazon called “Warmer” – and apparently there is a genre known as Cli-Fi! I found the series bevause of this New Yorker article. I’m thinking I might play 10 mins a day of the story that centres around a 13 year old girl each class.
Awesome! I’m going to share that New Yorker article with the Integrated Studies teachers. Thanks, Jules!
@jagostino –
This is a wonderful post that explores honestly some feelings that I think many of us experience. I know for me it was good to hear you say those things, as I often read peoples’ blogs and think, “wow, students at that school must be so much more ‘x’ than those at mine!”
I love your ideas for embedding empathy into your science lessons – such powerful examples of how all teaching really is, or at least can and should be, interdisciplinary.
Have you checked out #GridPals? Flipgrid has a tool embedded right in it to allow you to connect with educators around the world. Worth checking out!
Jen
Thanks for the suggestion Jennifer! I will be sure to check out #GridPals.
Bonjour Juliana. I think it’s a great idea to include in your lessons values that are essential to the development of empathy. I do find that today’s young people lack empathy for each other and it is true that they are self-centred and have little gratitude for what they have received. They need to be confronted with humanist questions and through lessons, units, projects, trips, school outings, they can be sensitized to these deeply humanist causes that call upon a certain emotional intelligence whose empathy is not innate but develops according to our experiences, our environment. We are also role models for our students and it is our actions and what we are ready to do that inspires them to want to change this world in which we live and that we want better and this begins with us, parents, educators and those we will meet on our way and make us what we are today. Keep doing what you’re doing. My heart goes out to you! @cgazet
Merci Corinne! I appreciate the response and feedback.
Juliana, love your post and love that you’re thinking about these things. I agree –empathy is a starting place for everything as we guide these kids to be citizens of the world. I know in my experience the times I’ve seen the most empathy grow in and be expressed by my students is when I’ve taught in integrated classrooms. When our kids are learning side by side with other children of disparate social contexts the they must learn to see the world from another’s point of view.
I worked once in a primary international school that opted to keep a girl with down’s syndrome amidst her peers rather than pitching her out to a special school, a practice that would have been the norm there. The kids in her class — and me too — learned from her lessons in empathy that still guide me in my life and teaching practice. I worry that our kids in our independent system breathe too rarified an air, their service is practiced “out there” and their lives lived in here, a homogeneous and protected realm. How do we encourage kids to see that in our lives we have room for all kinds of perspectives and beliefs? That we learn most when we are open to knowing that we dont already know everything? That the answers aren’t already in us?
Thank you SO MUCH for reading this Sara! All the things you worry about are on my mind as well. I wish I had the answers to your very important questions.
Love love love these March break musings, Juliana!
I personally think when it comes to empathy, we can inspire this way of thinking, we can plant seeds to nurture it, we can certainly shine spotlights on it when we see it in action, and we can tease it out of young people. I don’t even know if it always needs to be “taught” exactly, as I think it’s a regular human condition, such as love, compassion, or awareness. And there are definitely barriers that can be put up to hinder this kind of thinking.
My students are doing a reading challenge to find “one book to build courageous empathy”. The challenge is modelled after CBC Canada Reads and we basically give them a long list of books and we slowly vote the list down to 5 and then have a moderated debate.
The idea of “courageous empathy” is one I find interesting, as it suggests a layer of action. Not only feeling something, but doing something risky because of your empathy.
And yes, I’d love to hook our students up over Flipgrid if it could work out logistically. Let’s talk offline 🙂
Thanks for reading Celeste! Sounds like an amazing reading challenge. Part of my ID unit has an action component and I would like to borrow the idea of “courageous empathy” from you! I hope we can connect more at the next F2F.
Thanks Juliana for a great provocation. I echo the sentiments above and would add the following. I know that @ddoucet has experimented with Flipgrid so you may want to reach out to him. Also, check out Parlay Ideas here: https://parlayideas.com/templates/ and how their process can encourage empathy-building.
What I was most struck by was your comment on community service: “Participating in volunteer work and service initiatives becomes an exercise in the betterment of your resume not your community…” You should connect with me about our approach at Havergal through the Forum for Change. We have a philosophy that actively works against this to try and focus on building the empathy skills and not the resume.
You’ve clearly struck a chord here with our community, and it’s important for all of us to wonder why. I think one answer might be the system itself. When academic achievement is the highest priority, that requires focus on no one but one’s self. When getting into the University of choice is the highest priority, the focus in on how to present one’s self to others. But if we can seize opportunities outside of these priorities, which are not going away anytime soon, then we can build something of a counter narrative. Eventually, the cognitive dissonance caused by this on the other will be enough to move schools, educators and students to a more holistic, balanced approach to education… #dreaming
Thanks,
Garth.
Thank you for your feedback Garth and I would love to hear what you are doing at Havergal. Hopefully we can connect at the next F2F!
Juliana,
Great blog post. I love how many people have engaged in the conversation.
I personally believe that most struggles we have in the classroom these days are an indicator of a need to explicitly engage with the idea and embed the ideas into our curriculum in the same way we teach our actual curriculum.
I believe in the natural human capacity to have strengths. Just yesterday we heard from Dr Lea Waters, (https://www.leawaters.com) and it was a very useful reminder! Check our her ted x talk – and I plan to write a blog on her talk – so stay tuned!
Thanks Allison! I will definitely check out the Ted talk and I look forward to reading your post about it!
I have given my grade 7 homeroom a “Secret mission” to help get them thinking about kindness, and thinking outside of themselves – 8 weeks of secret missions that if another teacher on campus mentions their success to me they earn points. Our challenge last week was to set the dining hall for the whole school (we have a whole school sit down), this week is to push in chairs (Everywhere on campus. The library, classrooms, dining halls etc). It’s not perfect, but it’s got them thinking outside of themselves and working together.
@jagostino Wow! What a thread. This is awesome!
I want to loop in @acampbellrogers
Her action plan last year was actually….(insert drumroll here)
‘How might we integrate empathy into the curriculum to encourage action?
Action Plan – https://cohort21.com/allisoncampbellrogers/2018/04/20/slow-thinker-fast-world/
Hello synergy!
A quote from her post….
“At the outset, I had a couple of ideas for what I hoped would be positive outcomes. As a parent and a teacher, I had been reading about the concerns around youth and excessive use of technology correlating with the decline in social connections. I felt that perhaps we could take these same tools that are responsible for students looking inward, and flip the outcome to use them so that students might look more outward. Part of the core of the IB diploma program, CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) is woven into the curriculum. I took this opportunity to pose the following question: How can VR build empathy and encourage action? ”
You are definitely going to want to connect at the final face to face!
@acampbellrogers
@jagostino – Wow! Loving the conversation generated and the sharing of diverse approaches. I lived with these questions for my action plan last year as @jmedved mentioned. At the outset I wanted to learn more about using tech to encourage empathy, and so I experimented with VR: the first topic I tried out was forced migration, I wanted students to understand the experience of Syrian refugees living in Jordan. I showed a VR doc called ‘Clouds over Sidra’ , a story told by a teenage girl. I think what appealed to me about this was that I felt that my students might be able to relate to the narrator because of her age, and the way she described life and longing in the refugee camp. I was hoping that I could encourage empathy by having the students see themselves in her story. So, I agree, storytelling is a most powerful medium for generating empathy. There are so many great VR resources out there now … of interest might be the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab https://news.stanford.edu/2018/10/17/virtual-reality-can-help-make-people-empathetic/
and this TED Talk was excellent: https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_milk_how_virtual_reality_can_create_the_ultimate_empathy_machine
I moved on to looking at fostering a culture of empathy in my classroom and broader school – what wonderful ideas you shared on this @mwilcox ! Love the secret missions!
Another good read to explore:
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/46980/why-empathy-holds-the-key-to-transforming-21st-century-learning
Look forward to following your next steps Juliana!
I am so inspired and so humbled by what I read here. These are the sorts of conversations that should form the core of what we do as teachers. As the DuFours have pointed out, teachers have to first decide what it is students need to learn (“What do we want each student to learn?”). So often we take this for granted. After reading your post and the many comments that have followed I feel as though our school’s mission has been unpacked before me. As we have often discussed in our school, relationships are at the core of teaching, and by extension empathy is central to everything we do as teachers. I firmly believe that students will only grow in empathy by developing heart-to-heart relationships with other people, and particularly with other people outside their circle of familiarity. Experiences like our school’s India service trip are perfect examples of where students hearts are touched, empathy is built, and the learning is deep. I was happy to hear you speak of the significance of having someone come in and tell a story. In an earlier post you indicated that the students didn’t prefer to have guest speakers. I think that they perhaps are telling us that not all guest speakers have a compelling story to tell, for when a speaker can relate to students , the impact is both deep and long-lasting.
Your post and the ensuing conversation gives me hope for the future of education. Thank you, Juliana!