Last Monday, we marked the date on the calendar that once-upon-a-time marked the beginning of the school year in the US: Labor Day. Of course, nowadays schools start back up at various times from the beginning of August to mid-September; some schools even have year-round attendance. Wherever you are in your school year, many Montessori teachers begin to look for flickers of normalization in individual children and of the class as a whole at this time of year. It seems an appropriate time to begin looking at factors that promote this sometimes-elusive state of being.
Dr. Montessori said that normalization is characterized by four things: love of work, concentration, self-discipline, and sociability. We have a common understanding of the first three of these – we know what they look like. But what about sociability? This is a term that we don’t often use. Montessori defined sociability as social sentiments of empathy and desire to help others. OK, but what is empathy and how do we promote these feelings within the classroom?
Empathy is a caring emotion, somewhat like sympathy but not synonymous.
Sympathy is understanding another’s feelings. Empathy goes beyond sympathy; it is a deeper emotion. When we feel empathy, we are able to put ourselves into the other’s shoes and feel, to some (usually lesser) extent, what they are feeling. We can think of sympathy being the act of an observer, while empathy is the act of a participant. This distinction may seem like hair-splitting. In fact, in colloquial language, we often use the two words interchangeably. Both might cause us to take actions to alleviate the suffering of the other. However, the feelings that accompany each are quite distinct.
Think of sympathy as being nearly synonymous with pity. When we pity another, there is a certain distance. I feel sorry for them. Sometimes we even consider that if circumstances were different, we might be in that situation. There, but for the grace of God, go I. But throughout there is a sense of detachment. Contrast that with empathy, where we are able to put ourselves in the other’s shoes because we have had either the same experience ourselves or one similar enough that their situation reawakens feelings that we had in our own situation.
Empathy heightens compassion: the drive to repair and heal the other, sometimes healing ourselves in the process. More to the point of normalization, empathy creates a sense of a shared experience with the other. Shared experiences (positive and/or challenging) are part of what transforms a collection of people to a team or a community. They are a silken tie that binds. Empathy builds up the classroom community to an extent that sympathy never will.
Let’s take an example from current events. Hurricane Dorian has been wreaking havoc along the Atlantic coastline from the Bahamas to New England. Many have perished; many more have lost everything. I can feel great sympathy for those affected by this force of nature – it must be terrifying and devastating. I can imagine feeling completely powerless in the face of this force of nature. Having grown up near the Great Lakes and having lived my entire adult life in the western US, the closest brush I have had with any kind of natural disaster is wildfires; I have been blessed to have had only near misses; I have never have experienced losing everything to something that is completely outside my control. Because this is so outside my personal experience, I find it difficult to put myself into their shoes. I can only imagine what it must be like to return to where my home or school once stood, or what it must be like to go for days not knowing if a loved one will be found. So, while I am able to feel tremendous sympathy for those affected by Dorian, I have no access to the depth of emotion that is born of empathy.
We promote empathy within the classroom both through discrete lessons/discussions and through mindfully navigating events that occur in everyday life. Here are but a few ideas:
– Give a short lesson on seeing situations from different perspectives. A quick demonstration will illustrate this principle. Arrange the children as if they were sitting along 3 sides of a square, with you sitting on the 4th side. Place a piece of paper with a strong straight line running down the center of the page in the center of the gathered students so that to you it appears like a vertical line. Ask the children to describe what they see. Those who are directly opposite you may describe the symbol as a vertical line segment, as the number 1, or as a lower case l. Those who are sitting on either side of you may describe the symbol as a horizontal line segment, or as a dash or hyphen. Can it be both? Ask all of the children if they can see the other perspective. (They will likely all agree that what you see depends upon the perspective from which you are viewing the symbol. If there is any hesitation, rotate the paper 90 degrees and ask the children what they see now.) Explain that with something as concrete as this it is easier to see differing perspectives. All it takes is shifting the paper. Both perspectives are equally correct. Most things aren’t this concrete. Present a topic that has no one “right” answer, such as deciding whether people should be allowed to bring their pet dogs (non-service animals) into a store. Ask the children to offer opinions from the perspective of the dog owner, a person who was once bitten by a dog, a person who is allergic to dogs, and a store owner. How might each see the issue differently?
– Give a short lesson on empathy and how it differs from sympathy. The discussion might be quite similar to that in this blog. Ask children for examples of times they have felt empathy or sympathy. This might be part of a year-long effort to build children’s emotional vocabulary. Research has shown that the better developed a child’s emotional vocabulary, the more likely he is to be able to express his feelings and needs with words, mitigating his need to act out physically. Similarly, this might be part of an overarching theme during the year of developing positive character traits, highlighting a different positive trait each week.
– Model empathy. This might be through current events like Hurricane Dorian or even through positive events like the home team winning a big game. Research indicates that one of the reasons we enjoy watching sports is that the same parts of our brain light up when our team is successful as when we ourselves are successful! (There’s your geek-out fact for today!)
– Use empathy in problem-solving. When there is something to be brought to the attention of the class (for example, disappearing pencils or not returning materials to the shelf) explore as many different perspectives as possible. How does this phenomenon appear from the perspective of someone needing a pencil or a particular material? How does it appear from the perspective of someone who used a pencil/material and did not return it? How does it appear from the perspective of the adults in the classroom? How does this appear from the perspective of a visitor to the classroom? Are there other perspectives to be considered? Only after all of the perspectives have been considered, ask the children to brainstorm a solution. (BONUS: This will sometimes result in a more lasting resolution of the problem.) NOTE: Any Grace and Courtesy lesson involving role-play that you already give in your classroom can be expanded ever-so-slightly to include learning about empathy simply by asking each participant in the role-play how their role made them feel.
– Use empathy in redirections. Ground rules/classroom contracts set expectations for behavior. When expectations are unmet or contracts are broken, if we can guide the child(ren) to trace the unfortunate event back to overtly identify how their choice affects others in the classroom, we help children see the linkage between their actions and the feelings of all. It helps us stay out of punishment or “carrot and stick” mode of classroom management. Additionally, it gives children access to more than just their own feelings when making future choices, giving them the tools necessary to act with greater intentionality.
– Use empathy in conflict resolution. When we see a situation from another’s perspective, differences can dissolve and barriers can break down. Even when this perspective shift seems to not immediately cause a softening of position, practicing seeing a situation from another’s perspective is building a skill/habit that can help avoid future confrontations. In conflict mediation, after each person has expressed their view of the conflict, ask each person to describe the situation from the other person’s perspective, including what happened and how it felt. This is more powerful than asking them to merely paraphrase each other because they are not just relating events or fact; they have to shift their perspective to see how the other feels about the events. “From your perspective, you were just doing your test-tube division problem and all of a sudden my foot knocked the racks and tubes, scattering the beads. You must have been really frustrated and angry.”
– Use empathy/sympathy in literature. Ask how characters must have felt in different situations (both positive and negative). BONUS: ask children if they feel empathy for the character, sympathy for the character, or neither in a particular circumstance.
There are probably a dozen more ways to weave the concept of empathy into everyday classroom discussions. Most needn’t take much additional time, just a bit of effort to mindfully incorporate it into what we already do. In so doing, we are creating more normalizing events for our children and our classroom. Perhaps more than that, we are shaping the children to be more considerate, inclusive people throughout their entire lifetime. It is far easier to be angry with or marginalize those whose perspectives we cannot see than those whose perspectives are already in accord with our own. And in so doing, we are practicing the education for peace that Montessori described.
Greater peace and more effective normalization? Yes, please!
Reflections for Adults: In what situations do my children naturally empathize or sympathize with others? In what situations do they see only their own perspective? What steps can I take to help them be more flexible in their thinking and more authentically accepting of others’ perspectives?
In what situations do I naturally empathize or sympathize with others? In what situations am I convinced that my perspective is the only valid perspective? How would it benefit me to be better able to look at things from a different perspective? How would it benefit those around me?
When have you had a disagreement with someone (parent, teacher, close friend, acquaintance, someone you just met) when you felt like the other person just didn’t understand why you felt/believed the way you did? Did you explain yourself and feel like they weren’t hearing you? What do you think might have happened if you had paused your efforts to convince the other person that you were right, and instead tried to understand why they felt/believed so differently? (This reflection might also be effective for children a bit later in the year – once they have more experience with self-reflection.)
Reflection for Children: Think of a time recently when someone had something really exciting or really sad happen in their life. Were you able to be excited for them or sad for them? Did it remind you of something similar in your own life?
Here are a few websites with more ideas on teaching empathy: https://www.parentingscience.com/teaching-empathy-tips.html https://www.wikihow.com/Teach-Empathy-to-Adults (yes, it says Teach Empathy to Adults but these are straightforward activities that are accessible to our children) https://www.edutopia.org/article/4-proven-strategies-teaching-empathy-donna-wilson-marcus-conyers
“Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.”
Arundhati Ray