Roots of Empathy

This is in response to the CBC's presentation on Roots of Empathy on Friday, September 29th's edition of The National.

If a program like "Roots of Empathy" is required in school - the underlying assumption is that children are not learning enough empathy. And if this is the case, The National should expose or postulate what some of those reasons might be. In the presentation, these were simply glossed upon (so much for investigative reporting...) as vague child cruelty - bullying on the school yard, a sense of alienation/isolation, etc. - in essence, nothing concrete put forward.

Well, as a parent of three young children, as well as a High School teacher with the Toronto District School Board, I would like to put something forward (which can also serve as a story idea for The National).

Our system of mass schooling as an institution is a system dedicated to social control and the manufacture of consent. In spite of the best intentions of many teachers, admin, and policy-makers, the institution works against empathy in the following ways:
1. Families are pressured to hand over their children to Early Childhood Educators and Daycare providers at extremely early ages. Instead of creating national and provincial policies that keep families together for longer, we are more concerned with removing the child from the home and giving them to credited "specialists." It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to see the alienation and isolation effect this has on young children.

2. Once children enter the mass schooling system - usually by age 4 - this alienation and isolation continues but now the institution starts to impose itself with regards to power struggles. We often talk about child bullying - or the "cruelty of children" - but this "cruelty" is merely learned from the institution of school itself. What is school, but a pressure cooker to compete and succeed, where even primary students are evaluated and given marks on their efforts? (EQAO starts at what, Grade 3?) Where standing in line for "safety" reasons, obeying teacher orders and instructions are more valuable than independent choices? Where responsibility over their educational lives (and arguably the right to self-determination) is held by the authoritarians: teachers, administrators, and policy-makers? Very quickly children learn what the rewards and punishments are for conforming or not. Very quickly children pick up on the relationships of power between themselves and the adults as well as the hierarchical relationship amongst the adults themselves (teachers-admin-support staff). But then we are surprised when children play out these power positions amongst themselves - as if this is simply the result of "the cruelty of children."

So now, after we have pretty much ripped young children from the hearth of family, given them a sense of isolation and alienation, exposed them to the effects of power and marginalization and they begin to re-enact those same jockeying for power in the realm where they have some control (the playground, cyberspace, etc.), we are shocked that they lack empathy. So let's create a program that puts a band-aid solution on this gross social scar.

In spite of the benefits of Roots of Empathy - which could be only short-term anyway: is there any evaluation/assessment made during the program? Are students tested on empathy? If so, a sure-fire way of making sure they equate empathy with the oppression of the classroom...
Rather than a program like "Roots of Empathy" we need to criticize and re-think the very notion of the institution of school.

The Beach School is an independent school in the East end of Toronto now in its fourth year. It is a small community of just under 20 Staff and Students based on the following principles:

1. Democratic Governance - every member whether four years old, or fifty years old, has the same power in the running of the school; free to put forward motions; and the determination of school rules. It is based on the premise that children learn democratic participation by being given the power and responsibility within the school community - more importantly, this power is a "right" of their communal membership.

2. Self-initiated Learning - where students are free to pursue their own interests and are not given a value judgment on those choices.

3. Age-mixing - The school accepts students aged 4-19 and are free to engage with and learn from anyone.

4. Due Process - Students (and Staff) who transgress another’s rights are not arbitrarily punished by an authoritarian, but go through a system of due process by the community.

The Beach School is by no means a "utopia" - as democracy is difficult even amongst "educated" adults. Therefore to new initiates, it poses even more challenges. But at the heart of the school is a recognition of human rights and the right of self-determination that adults demand, and an ethics of care for social interaction and community building.

The "Roots of Empathy" is a very appropriate term. Rather than seeing children as inanimate widgets that need to go through the factory of schooling, we need to build schools that treat children with basic human rights, with basic human dignity...with love and empathy.