Empathy

Published on September 18, 2018

Two years ago I recall reading in the news about New Caledonia High School, a typical public school in the Bay Area. Everyone was going about the daily routine when suddenly shots rang out. Gunfire terrorized the students and faculty for 17 minutes before first responders arrived and were able to take down the attacker. Dozens of people were injured and a few died.

Does this story sound familiar?

If it does, it may interest you to know that I made it up. It probably sounds familiar because it fits a heartbreaking pattern of narratives that have played out in real schools across America for years. The loss of life in these situations is often overshadowed by the politically-charged debates that follow: guns are the problem, mental health is the problem, people are the problem, and so on and so on. No matter the side of the aisle, I hope it's fair to say that everyone has our students' safety as the priority; any other motive seems diabolical in my mind.

School shootings aren't the only examples of anger or violence in the world. Every day there are horrible things that make the news, and many more that don't. Nastiness, cruelty, and barbarity happen on a daily basis to lots of people. Dwelling on the scale of human inhumanity is a supremely depressing activity. An activity that leads to the question, why? Why are humans so cruel to each other? It is by no means a catch-all cause for the ills of human nature, but a decent proportion, at least, should be attributed to a lack of EMPATHY.

DISCLAIMER: What follows is an attempt to solve all of the world's problems.

Empathy is the ability to place oneself in another's shoes; rather than thinking first of self, a person thinks how another may be feeling. My earliest recollection of learning about empathy was in primary school (elementary or grade school for the Americans in the room). The motto of the school I attended in southeast England was:

God First,

Others Second,

Self Last.

Regardless of what you believe about the first line, the second and third lines are instructive for the present treatise. This motto was sung as the chorus of the school's hymn; it was emblazoned on the school's badge.

Though central to predominantly Judeo-Christian societies, the idea of putting others before oneself is not a uniquely western idea. Chinese society is largely centered on collectivism, which puts the benefit for the group above the benefit for the individual. There are many more examples from cultures around the world that are similar. Thus, I would argue that empathy is at the core of what most civilized societies believe. The trouble is that it isn't effectively taught, which creates that familiar dichotomy between theory and practice.

One society that has figured out how to teach empathy effectively is Denmark. Danish schools have time set aside each week where the students come together as a community to discuss challenges and appropriate solutions. Topics of the discussions include, but are not limited to bullying and exclusion. By cultivating communication and understanding from a young age is it any wonder that Danes are the happiest people in the world?

How would such a program work in the US?

From my limited experience of the US education system, I've understood that culturally this type of program could be a challenge to implement. Teachers are underpaid and overworked as it is, and laying the charge to transform the emotional education of the nation's children at their feet seems unrealistic. Furthermore, considering the propensity of iGen to exist virtually in 2018, the idea of in-person community building with open group discussions would seem more than foreign to today's students, it would seem alien. It's worth noting that Denmark has been working on this way of teaching empathy for almost 150 years, that's a long learning curve to catch up on.

Another way to teach empathy is through reading. In a recent post, I wrote about Bibliotherapy - reading literary fiction to improve psychological well-being. To take the idea further, there are studies that show reading literary fiction also improves the capacity for empathy. One particular study looked at how three types of reading material affected the capacity for empathy. This study found that literary fiction had a significant positive impact on the capacity for empathy, while non-fiction and genre fiction had no significant impact.

Eleven months into my reading challenge, I can attest to the benefits of reading literary fiction. From cognitive benefits to social benefits, I'm a passionate proponent of the power of reading, in general. If we get meta for a moment and think about what literary fiction actually is, it's not difficult to realize how it can teach us to better relate to other people. You have a behind-the-scenes view of a person's thoughts and feelings. You see the world through their eyes. You hear the world through their ears. What could be more powerful at teaching empathy than narrative?

So what?

Reading is great, we all agree, but what should we do about it? I firmly believe in personal accountability, so I'm actually going to avoid suggesting what other people should do. Instead, I'll share what I do because of this. I try to read literary fiction for 30 minutes every day. I also read children's fiction to my son for 30 minutes at bedtime.

When I started my reading challenge, I bought an Amazon tablet for $80 and downloaded more than a hundred ebooks, all for FREE with my Prime account. Today, there are Amazon tablets for $50. Under their publishing label AmazonClassics, Amazon has published more than 270 classic literary books for the Kindle format. Check out the full list here. There's also Project Gutenberg, which has published 57,000 ebooks for free.

Giving humanity more empathy is not something I can do. What I can do is take responsibility for my learning, and my children's learning. Governments and lawmakers won't solve society's apathy for empathy. Schoolteachers shouldn't have to do it. The tools are out there for those who want to be better. To quote the late, great, Maya Angelou:

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."