Empathy and Belonging

The following post is based on my notes for my presentation at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai in March 2019:

Empathy may well be the key skill for the 21st century. Today, more than ever, it is vitally important for us to engage with people who are very different from ourselves in order to become aware of the diversity of how people think and to discern our own assumptions. Stereotypes and confirmation bias are significant learning challenges, particularly in an aggressively monolingual country like Australia. Educators have a critical function, at a moment when we live in filter bubbles and echo chambers, to create safe spaces and facilitate points of confrontation to break single identities. This is about how we teach. Know your students, know their worlds, be genuinely interested, and be prepared to be uncomfortable. Relationships are the killer app. If you haven’t seen it, watch Rita Pierson’s TED talk, Every Child Deserves a Champion. If we want empathy and belonging with students then we need to ensure it is happening with teachers. Teachers get better by working in teams. Teachers cannot become better teachers in isolation from each other. Teaching must become infused with a genuinely collaborative ethos. Use protocols, like those available from the School Reform Initiative, to build collaboration.

Mobile phones have given individuals great power and accelerated cross-cultural exchange. Modern kids are more tolerant and more accepting of different backgrounds. Kids now have the digital participatory skills to be political activists. Just think of Greta Thunburg’s speech at the UN and David Hogg’s response to school shootings in the US. On the negative side, algorithms are turning children into numbers and undermining the concept of individual freedom in front of our eyes.

Younger people are often more tolerant than us, but adults play a critical role and we need to acknowledge our power. Modelling is crucial. Don’t overlook micro-incivilities like ignoring others, talking over others, or making stereotypical judgments about abilities. Listen to others’ experiences. Reflect on what we hear and learn. This is an effective first step to creating more inclusive workplaces. We can leave this for the next generation to carry forwards. In History, this is why we teach topics like the US Civil Rights Movement, the fall of the Berlin wall, and the struggle against apartheid. None of these historical moments were inevitable. They required individuals, communities and institutions to turn the arc of history toward justice. The moment you set an example, the status quo is cracked, and others will follow. Remember Rosa Parks and look at Jacinda Ardern’s recent leadership in New Zealand as a model of inclusivity. While we consider these issues we should also reflect on the challenges of decolonising the curriculum.

We deal with challenges better by reframing them as “tensions”.  Tensions cannot be eliminated, but they can be managed. To manage tension, we need to remember that change takes time, but that steps to involve everyone into the enculturation process, building in specific opportunities to explain and exemplify the changes we want to see, will help. Progress towards inclusion is made in small steps.

In Chimamanda Adichie’s extraordinary TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story, she relates how impressionable we are in the face of a story. She says, “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person…If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story.” A single story robs people of dignity and emphasises differences rather than similarities.

At a time of increased conformity and standardisation in education, I like to offer the Reggio Emilia approach as a different path of possibility. One of Reggio’s key aims is to look at what children can do, rather than what they can’t. In Reggio Emilia schools, children with disabilities receive first priority and full mainstreaming under Italian law. Instead of being labelled “children with special needs” they are labelled “children with special rights.” Every child is seen in terms of the resources and potential they bring, rather than what’s missing.

For too long teachers have allowed others to set the agenda. The teaching profession requires curriculum disobedience in the same manner that university professors protect their academic freedom, and the upholding of professional ethics, just as the medical profession adhere to the Hippocratic Oath. In education discourse some voices and groups have been privileged, while others have been marginalised, ignored or silenced.  We need to amplify diverse voices and tell the stories of those who are already showing us how to do this work in our day-to-day practice.

It is about building networks and flattening hierarchies so that teachers can collaborate and build consensus via coalition and networked knowledge sharing. Networked activist teachers can jump-start a global movement to change education by allowing teachers to take the lead as a trusted and meaningful part of the global education conversation.

 

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