Empathy training gains ground in schools

Used to be, if a student behaved badly s/he was sent to the office. Now, at Public School 114 in the South Bronx, a teacher sits down with students and finds out what's wrong. P.S. 114's principal told the New York Times that the school's had workshops run by David Levine, author of Teaching Empathy, since 2006 and has seen the number of fights drop from 1-3 a week to "fewer than three a month." The Times published this story a while ago, but I hope this growth trend is continuing. It's ever more important in the current highly charged climate (see below).

The Times says similar workshops are being held in the high-end community of Scarsdale, N.Y., where one parent feels parents should be attending them too! Eighteen states "require programs to foster core values such as empathy, respect, responsibility and integrity." One such state is California, and "Los Angeles is spending nearly $1 million on a nationally known program for its 147 middle schools called Second Step that teaches impulse control, anger management, and problem solving as well as empathy. The Times gives other examples but adds that some people are questioning "whether such attempts at social engineering are appropriate for the classroom or should remain the purview of parents" and extracurricular programs (and whether there's even enough to teach academics in school). I can understand the question, but all this isn't just addressing "Mean Girls" – it's also addressing cyberbullying. I wonder if these programs are folding online behavior into the discussion. It should be there! If kids don't distinguish much between online and offline, why address social cruelty in one "place" and not the other? I think the need for other-awareness and perspective taking in all aspects of our lives (not just children's) is increasing as – enabled by digital media – the world crowds in on all of us more and more. But what do you think? Feel free to email me via anne[at]netfamilynews.org, comment below, or join the discussion at ConnectSafely.

'Continuous partial attention...'

...leads to "continuous partial empathy"? "Continuous partial attention" is the way some researchers are describing what's happening when people communicate or socialize with social-media tools like Twitter, instant messaging, chat, texting, etc. Fast Company looks at a new report from the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC, which argues that the brain is quick to recognize and empathize when people see physical pain or fear in others but "much slower to recognize and empathize with emotional pain.... What this means is that, in a media environment where our social encounters happen very quickly, we may not be giving our brains a chance to generate appropriate compassion or admiration." I wonder if writer Jamais Cascio (or the researchers, if this is their concern) is factoring in the fact that social-media users usually bring existing "real world" relationships to their social-networking, IM, and Twitter accounts, relationships in which empathy is often already established - that tweets and profile comments are not the all of their relating and socializing. SN comments are more effect than cause of relationships.

But what this does suggest to me is that empathy, citizenship, and anti-bullying training in schools needs to be sure to fold the "continuous partial attention" element of online social networking into instruction. And what we might teach students is consideration - giving consideration as much as being considerate. Referring to what business consultants have been calling the new "attention economy," another Fast Company writer, Richard Kadrey, cautions - wisely, I think - that "what's limited isn't attention, but consideration [emphasis his]. Not just hearing, but listening. Not just seeing a message, but understanding its meaning." I think that goes for the social-media-enabled participatory culture in which our kids are so active. Think about this comment of Kadrey's in the context of teaching new media literacy: "It may be worth considering how we'd structure our digital world if the point wasn't just to 'pay attention' but to 'give consideration'" - perhaps another way to look at both critical thinking and empathy.

Anti-bullying & -cyberbullying reports, projects

So far this year there have been four suicides in the US because of bullying, writes Chicago mental health examiner Jerilyn Dufresne, marking the suicide of 11-year-old bullying victim Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover in The Examiner. His mother is asking her state government, Massachusetts, to investigate the school Carl attended, MassLive.com reports. The family of a 17-year-old bullying and suicide victim in Ohio is suing their school district for violating the boy's "civil right to safety, as well as the family's 14th Amendment rights to raise and educate Eric [Mohat] in a safe environment," the [northern Ohio] News-Herald reports. In the UK, counselors at BeatBullying, a nonprofit organization, have trained 700 teens to mentor bullying victims in both face-to-face meetings and through a new Web service called CyberMentors, Mirror.co.uk reports. YourCanterbury.co.uk adds that "over the next two years, the new CyberMentors project will be brought to other schools across the country as part of the national peer mentoring pilot announced by the Government." The New York Times recently zoomed in on Scarsdale [N.Y.] Middle School's strong emphasis on empathy training to reduce bullying. It refers to the Character Education Partnership, a nonprofit group in Washington, saying that "18 states - including New York, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska and California - require programs to foster core values such as empathy, respect, responsibility and integrity." Another such approach is the "CAPSULE" anti-bullying instruction program that has been tested in both US and UK schools (see my earlier post). And there's a new children's book out about cyberbullying, Don't Hit Send Just to Fit In. Here's background on US case law where cyberbullying and schools are concerned, from attorney and educator Kathleen Conn in Educational Leadership and London-based Childnet International's wonderful anti-cyberbullying resource (and moving video) at Digizen.org.