2 Tips For Creating Compassionate Students

From the desk of Alice…

One of my favorite times of the day is my morning commute.  Because I often work on different projects in different locations, it is not uncommon for me to have a commute that is an hour or more.   During this time I get to sip my coffee, enjoy some time alone, think about the day ahead, and listen to the radio.

Over the years, I have grown to love the Hidden Brain stories on NPR that are “conversations about life’s unseen patterns.”  The voice I hear on the other end of these stories is Shankar Vedantam.  He is NPR’s social science correspondent and the host of the Hidden Brain podcast.   He focuses his reporting on “human behavior and the social sciences, and how research in those fields can get listeners to think about the news in unusual and interesting ways.”  And it works on me every time.  I start thinking about unusual and interesting things for the rest of my drive.

One of the topics they have covered is compassion.  It turns out, almost like everything else, there are people that research this stuff.  They actually get to research compassion. And because I have an interest in schools, my mind started to consider how important this is when we are teaching children social and emotional skills.

For those of you who don’t have twenty minutes to spare, I will hit the highlights for you:

1.  Practice the norm of reciprocity.  This basically means if you’re nice to someone, or you open up to them, they are likely to do the same thing for you.  This is one of those simple ideas that is worth explicitly teaching to students.  Their life experience may not have allowed them to feel this yet, but we can create cultures in our classrooms and schools to foster reciprocity.  Kindness matters.  Small things like saying hello, looking at people when they speak, holding the door, picking up something off the floor, actively listening, and generally being helpful are all acts of compassion.

2. The power of empathy creates compassion.  Your relationships with others change dramatically when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes.  This one can be tricky with students because we don’t always know all their circumstances.  However, we can have conversations with them that help to broaden their thinking and consider multiple perspectives.  When you have students consider multiple ways to problem solve an issue or role play, it can expand their capacity for compassion.  Written reflections are also a way to include opportunities to have students consider things from a different view and offer insight.  Reading books and discussing character motives can also help students step outside of themselves and possibly use that insight with classmates.

In North Carolina, we are quickly approaching the height of testing season.  It has been my experience that the anxiety and pressure during this time can make people lose their minds and any sense of compassion gets lost, too.  Ironically, this is the time when we need the MOST compassion.  Our students need it, our families need it, and our colleagues need it.

Maybe if we work to teach these two tips to the students over the next few weeks, we can all soak up a culture of compassion in our schools.