Teaching with Empathy

How to Transform Your Practice by Understanding Your Learners

Lisa Westman

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781416630500
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

What does it mean to teach with empathy?

Whether it's planning and delivering instruction or just interacting with others throughout the day, every action you take is an opportunity to demonstrate empathy toward your students, your colleagues, and yourself.

"I'm already empathetic to my students and their stories, " you may be thinking. But a teacher's actions, even unintentional and especially uninformed, can be implicitly shaming, compounding any disconnect students may already feel and undermining your efforts to create a safe and positive classroom environment. Rather than try to identify who needs empathy, start with the premise that all learners deserve empathy because it is a prerequisite for learning and growth.

In Teaching with Empathy, Lisa Westman explores three types of empathy—affective, cognitive, and behavioral—and clarifies how they intertwine with curriculum, learning environment, equity practices, instruction and assessment, and grading and reporting.

Through her own experience as an instructional coach, Westman shares tips and tools, real-world classroom examples, powerful stories, and even a bit of herself as she guides you to a better understanding of yourself and others. Ultimately, you'll learn what's possible when you let compassion and acceptance inform all aspects of your daily practice.

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Chapter 1

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The Empathy Crisis

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If you search "empathy and education," Google returns more than 73 million results, including an abundance of articles, blog posts, tweets, memes, and more. Of these results, more than 4 million are specific to empathy and the 2020 school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with an outpouring of pleas to "have empathy," "be empathetic," "get through this crisis with empathy." I clicked on dozens of my search results to get a sense of how empathy is portrayed. Many of these appeals hit me right in the gut; I could feel how earnest educators were in their efforts to do right by kids.

Other times the word empathy was used, though, I felt confused. At first, I wasn't 100 percent sure why I felt so unsettled, but then it hit me: for many of the results, empathy was a directive like "please have empathy." If it were as easy as just saying it, we would all be more empathetic. But there is much more to being empathetic than someone telling us to be that way.

This chapter will give an overview of what empathy is, what it looks like, and what is detrimental to empathic capacity as you work to ensure your schools are holistically empathetic learning environments. Before you read any further, consider completing the empathy pre-assessment, the personal self-reflection, and the educators' empathy checklist in Figures 1.1–1.3 to test your working knowledge of empathy and its intersection with education. The answers to the pre-assessment are at the end of this chapter, and you will also have a chance to retake it at the end of the book to see how your understanding grows.

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Figure 1.1. Empathy Assessment

(Answers are listed at the end of the chapter.)

1. There are three different types of empathy.
□ True □ False

2. Empathy is a personality trait.
□ True □ False

3. "I feel so sorry for them" is an empathetic statement.
□ True □ False

4. Empathy and sympathy are received by people in the same way.
□ True □ False

5. Empathy can be explicitly or implicitly conveyed.
□ True □ False

6. "I can imagine you are feeling a variety of emotions right now" is an empathetic statement.
□ True □ False

7. Empathy is a skill that must be practiced intentionally.
□ True □ False

8. In the absence of empathy, shame often results.
□ True □ False

9. Shame motivates humans to change their behaviors.
□ True □ False

10. Humans can grow their empathic capacity.
□ True □ False

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Figure 1.2. Empathy Self-Reflection

I can correctly identify my own feelings.

□ Yes □ No

Which statement describes you better?

□ I am comfortable with experiencing a range of emotions: happy, sad, excited, angry, frustrated.

□ There are certain emotions (sad, scared, excited) that I am not comfortable experiencing.

When other people are sad, I …

□ Try to make them feel better

□ Listen to them

On a scale of 1–5, how comfortable are you asking other people questions about their feelings?

I am aware of my implicit biases.

□ Yes □ Somewhat □ No □ I do not have any implicit biases.

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Figure 1.3. The Educators' Empathy Checklist

□ I correctly identify my students' feelings.

□ I experience my students' feelings from their perspective rather than mine.

□ I plan instruction with my students' perspectives in mind.

□ Before delivering instruction, I imagine I am each of my students and try to experience the lesson as them.

□ I examine my practice to discover areas where I may (inadvertently) be explicitly or implicitly shaming students.

□ I have clear learning intentions and success criteria for every unit of study.

□ I rely on formative assessment to guide instruction.

□ When needed, I assign students logical consequences rather than punitive punishments.

□ I have conversations with individual students in which I ask more questions than make statements.

□ I have restorative conversations with students in which I own my part in a misunderstanding or conflict (about academics or behaviors).

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What Exactly Is Empathy?

Author, researcher, and social worker Brené Brown, one of the world's leading experts on empathy, defines the term as "the skill or ability to tap into our own experiences in order to connect with an experience someone is relating" (2007, p. 33). Textbook authors Allen Ivey, Paul Pederson, and Mary Ivey (2001, as cited in Brown, 2007) also define empathy as "the ability to perceive a situation from another person's perspective. To see, hear and feel the unique world of the other" (p. 33).

Although these definitions are straightforward and clear, empathy remains widely misunderstood, and our assessment of our own ability to take the perspectives of others is often skewed (Szalavitz & Perry, 2010, p. 1). Contrary to popular belief, empathy is not something people are born with or without. Instead, empathy is a skill that we are born with the capacity to demonstrate, but like all skills, it must be cultivated and continually sharpened.

Empathy is also multifaceted, comprising three different types: affective, cognitive, and behavioral.

Affective empathy is feeling what others are feeling; this is the emotional part of empathy. We sense that someone is sad, and we mirror their response and feel sad in return. For example, when we see someone else cry, we may cry in return. We will feel the sadness the other person feels.

Reflect: What emotions are you most able to feel? Why? What emotions are most difficult for you to feel? Why?

Try This: For one week, keep a journal of your interactions with other people (e.g., friends, family, colleagues). When you interact, note the other person's feelings. Then, write down how you knew the person felt this way (i.e., was it their tone of voice, facial expression, something they said?).

Cognitive empathy is the perspective-taking component: recognizing that other people have thoughts and feelings separate from our own. We go beyond feeling what a person is feeling and try to step into that person's shoes. We ask ourselves, "What might it feel like to be sad under the circumstances another person feels sad? What factors contribute to this person's experience of this feeling? How might this differ from my experience?"

Reflect: Think of an example of when you have demonstrated cognitive empathy. How did your perspective differ from another's perspective?

Try This: Continue with your journaling. Indicate how your perspective of the situation played a role. Did you think about what you would do if you were the other person? Or did you think about what you would do in their situation as you? Now, jot down what additional factors this person has to incorporate into their decision making (e.g., gender, age, race). How might these factors influence their perspective?

Behavioral empathy (also referred to as empathic concern) is what prompts us to act. This is when we feel, take on another perspective, and are driven to respond (Riess, 2018). It is what causes us to stand up to bullies when someone else is the victim. It is what informs how we vote in elections. This is our call to action.

Reflect: How often do you seek to understand your students' feelings and perspectives before planning instruction?

Try This: Engage in a conversation with a student and tally the number of questions you ask versus statements you make. Did you make more statements or ask more questions? The next time you chat with a student, ask a question when you feel like making a statement. Note the difference in your understanding of this student's perspective when you ask more questions.

In terms of planning instruction for students, our goal is to consistently and intentionally exhibit empathy that falls somewhere in between cognitive and behavioral. You may be wondering why we wouldn't always aim for behavioral empathy. The reason is that some professions (e.g., health care workers, social workers, teachers, police officers) are predisposed to something called "compassion fatigue" simply by the sheer number of exposures to the feelings and experiences (often tragic in nature) of others. It is (sadly) impossible to act on every empathic impulse, and acting isn't always appropriate; sometimes, genuine understanding is more suitable. Educators must strike a balance between thinking and acting—or better yet, thinking before acting—in the proactive approach that we consistently take to ensure we are educating students in an empathetic learning environment. Chapters 2–7 illustrate the proactive measures we can take with stories, examples, and ideas.

What Does Empathy Look Like?

Demonstrating empathy has physical markers as well as cerebral attributes. How we stand, our facial expressions, our tone of voice, and more can indicate the depth of our empathic capacity to others.

Have you ever watched someone feed a baby and noticed that the person feeding the baby opens his or her mouth just as the baby does when it eats the spoonful of food? This is an example of mirror neurons at work. Mirror neurons are a relatively new discovery (by neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti and Vittorio Gallese at the University of Parma in Italy in the 1990s). How large a role mirror neurons play in empathy lacks consensus by scientists and doctors, but they do agree that mirror neurons exist and are activated when we feel something that others are experiencing (Marsh, 2012).

Mirror neurons also play a role in how we perceive others. Although mirror neurons allow us to feel what others feel and sometimes mimic what other people do, they don't automatically result in identical behaviors. For instance, if I am watching a horror movie, my mirror neurons allow me to feel scared for the protagonist, even though I am not personally in danger. My response to feeling afraid for this other person's plight is to hide under a blanket. Someone else's response might be to turn off the movie. If my friend shares that she is terrified of a stalker in a real-life situation, my mirror neurons cause me to feel scared, just like she does. I am so frightened that I am not conscious of the look on my face or that I'm anxiously tapping my foot on the ground. My mirror neurons may allow me to feel what another is feeling, but how I respond physically may or may not be empathetic.

The majority of what we communicate is nonverbal; some experts say up to 93 percent (Thompson, 2011). To demonstrate empathy, therefore, we must note what our bodies are saying, as well as our words. Helen Riess, a clinical psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, identified seven keys to nonverbal empathetic behav...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. The Empathy Crisis
• Chapter 2. The Intersection of Empathy and Curriculum
• Chapter 3. The Empathetic Learning Environment
• Chapter 4. Empathy and Equity
• Chapter 5. Empathetic Instruction and Assessment Strategies
• Chapter 6. Empathetic Grading and Reporting Practices
• Chapter 7. Where Do You Go from Here? Actionable Steps to Become a More Empathetic Educator
• References
• About the Author
• Related ASCD Resources
• Study Guide
• Copyright