Fostering empathy and compassion
Tomorrow in school many students will exchange valentines and craft projects made from hearts. Teachers concerned with social and emotional learning also use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to educate children about empathy.
Rather than focusing only on the romantic aspects of the historical underpinnings of the day that celebrates love, teachers can broaden the interpretation. Educational settings should be places where expressions of compassion are fostered. Are empathy and kindness found at your school?
When students know that they are seen, it helps them to feel valued. Feeling cared about can lead to caring about others. Beginning the journey of compassion starts with caring about how others feel.
Empathy evolves when students are invited to look beyond themselves and connect in meaningful ways with others. When students empathize, they recognize and respond to the needs of others. Learning to care for others in the face of their suffering is one way to demonstrate kindness. Kindness is learned by feeling it. Being kind produces endorphins which make the person feel good. When one feels kindness, it can be reproduced. Acts of kindness help people connect with others. Some feel that teaching such matters of the heart are as mandatory as academics.
Teachers can influence students’ abilities to care for others by exposing them to different worldviews. This can help them to reduce stereotyping, embrace differences, and counteract bullying. One way to do this is by introducing stories with characters from other cultures which provides an opportunity to understand those differences.
History is filled with cultural encounters and misunderstandings that led to many conflicts and wars. My visit to Pearl Harbor took me on an emotional roller coaster ride through one such experience.
The boat ride over to the USS Arizona Memorial was somber. After seeing the bombed remains of sunken ship of sailors who had drowned, the reason for American involvement in the war took on a more visceral component. This glimpse at the hatred for the Japanese at the time was easier to grasp.
My stroll down the aisles of the shore side museum past the next four years of war battles is a blur now, but the huge depictions of the Atomic bomb mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still vivid in my mind. They turned my stomach.
The Japanese attacked. The American retaliated. Unnerving death and destruction resulted.
I was drawn to an exhibit near the end featuring a picture of Sadako, a two year old Japanese girl who survived the bombing. Her older brother remembered that he’d seen skin melt off of people as he looked for her. She’d been blown out of the house, but appeared fine.
Ten years later, after being diagnosed with leukemia from the radiation of the bomb, she practiced origami or paper folding in the hospital. She hoped the legend which said the folder of 1000 paper cranes would have long life, good luck and restored health would come true for her, but she died at the age of twelve having folded about 600 cranes. Her friends and family finished the remaining ones and she was buried with them.
Seeing 1000 colorful paper cranes hung by her picture brought tears especially since Sadaku wrote, “I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.” Sadako displayed empathy for the American’s whose bomb had killed her. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is a book that I share with students.
My trip to Pearl Harbor had blurred the lines between the innocent and the perpetrators. It felt exceedingly disquieting. Empathy can be that way. It is a muscle that needs to be exercised. Intentionally cultivating compassion and empathy can be done by selecting stories, picture books and novels that illicit a sense of connection. Fiction fosters empathy.
The road map to empathy starts by recognizing the shared humanity in others. It also includes appreciating differences and imagining what we would do in another’s shoes. This can instill courage such that students learn to stand up for what’s right and not standby when others face injustice.
Teachers can build the empathy muscle by sharing stories that enable students to walk in the shoes of those who have different experiences than their own. When we immerse ourselves in the experiences of others, we can learn to see beyond stereotypes and shift into deeper understanding.
May your Valentine’s Day be filled with the love of those you know and a developing sense of empathy for those you are just now discovering in this increasingly shrinking global community.