Empathy, Compassion and Action to Improve our World

Today, while listening to the TED radio hour on NPR, the focus was on compassion.The stories demonstrated how media and social media make it so easy to criticize others in 140 characters or, as a general practice, via cable shows that encourage debate involving diatribe, interruption, and lack of respect for others. As I looked for the link, I realized that this must have been a rebroadcast from a year ago, yet, I have not witnessed any improvement.

With all of the shootings, anger, sadness, finger-pointing, and bigotry that seems to be escalating of late, I have been trying to focus on stories and examples of hope, the kind that The TED Radio Hour was trying to encourage. I show my advisees the TED talk by Matt Cutts that encourages us to try something new for 30 days. One can add or subtract a practice to make oneself feel better.

But,we must go beyond ourselves. Yesterday, I came across this simple and important image and despite looking and looking, I cannot find the original source. Nonetheless, I will share it and hope that if the author sees it, s/he will know how much I appreciate it.

This morning, I read this short blog post by Rusul Alrubail.  She posed two powerful questions:

*What if blogging can be used to shed light on important issues and amplify voices of individuals that need to be empowered?

*What if we can use our platform to give an opportunity for someone else to build theirs?

I don't know if "the universe is sending me a message" but I do know that I want to promote hope and not despair, to promote action not surrender. Perhaps, then, these various sources of media can provide hope if we look for it. Here is my 30 day challenge to anyone and everyone who will take it: 

For the next thirty days, make every effort to actively show compassion. Some possibilities:

* Be sure to look a service worker in the eye, ask how s/he is and truly care, and thank him or her;

* Think of those who have less than you and take action to offer some help via a good or service. At this time of year, we seem to focus on what we want for the holidays but, what do others need?;

* Be an upstander, not a bystander - when you see something hurtful and wrong, speak up, stand with those who need support;

* Make friends outside of your circle and truly listen to their stories;

* Respect others' differences, don't tolerate, respect;

*Take responsibility for your actions and growth.

I believe, I truly believe, we can make a positive difference...and here is my deeper hope, that with 30 days of practice, these acts will become infectious habits.

LISTEN - EMPATHIZE- STAND UP- ACT 

Mistakes can be a good thing.

Last month my two year old watched as I took two plates out of the dishwasher at the same time in one hand. Crunch. I chipped the bottom one as I smacked the top one onto it. She noticed and made my mistake very clear to me. I let her know that yes, I made a mistake. I should have taken out each plate separately. Then I said to her that every time we make a mistake we can learn a lesson from it.

It is so important to remind students that making mistakes is acceptable. I have always felt that we learn far more from our mistakes than our successes. Students feel more and more pressure every year to make no mistakes and to have the best grades. They worry about getting into "the perfect college" and having the "perfect record."  Their focus is on a product and not a process. They have let their value as people get caught up in a number or letter rather than the journey of learning.

For years I coached and I always felt that the teams that had "perfect records" (no losses) actually had more problems ahead of them than those who lost games. When we lost a game it was often because we made mistakes (and sometimes because the other team simply was much better). Yet, those mistakes gave us a clear focus for making adjustments, for practicing more effectively, and perhaps most importantly, for giving us the tools for dealing with disappointment.

In the same vein, making mistakes in class gives us an opportunity to examine our approaches and practices in more detail. I do not simply mean that students make mistakes. I make mistakes. I use them as opportunities to remind students that all of us are growing and learning all the time. When I first started teaching I worried when a student asked a question and I didn't know the answer. I felt like she expected me to know everything because I was the teacher. Of course, that's how I felt about my teachers when I was in school. Thankfully, I learned that it was perfectly fine to model continued learning. I do not have to know everything and I do not have to have students believing (falsely) that I do. We can explore answers to questions together. We can explore the process together. We can make mistakes along the way together. How liberating!

Of course it is important to try to anticipate mistakes that can put one in danger and to choose paths judiciously. I hope that I model to my students that they can venture into discussions and test out ideas. They may make mistakes or they may create new avenues of interpretation. If we don't challenge ourselves and, if we are unwilling to make and learn from our mistakes, we simply stagnate.

Every time my daughter sees the chipped plate she reminds me that I made a mistake. Yes, I did, and I know that she is watching and learning from everything I do. I am learning, too.

Bill Gates's ideas close doors rather than opening them

For the sake of full disclosure, I am an independent school teacher and the product of a rural public school system with relatively small classes. My partner teaches in a large, suburban public school in a working class community. While we both teach, we have completely different careers because of the contrast in the expectations, bureaucracy, and freedom in our two, very different environments.

In his recent Op-Ed in the Washington Post, Bill Gates argued that we need more teacher development to turn around the achievement of public school students. Oh, my. Must we blame the teachers yet again.?Perhaps we should add one more national plan with a catchy title or set of tests (and pre-tests, tests, post-tests) to assess student achievement.  When was the last time that these Foundation heads or bureaucrats actually sat in a classroom for an extended period of time? Have school administrators tried to plan and implement daily or unit lessons of their own?  How many of them ever taught?

Could the problem be the sheer number of students in a classroom? Gates says no. According to him, "perhaps the most expensive assumption embedded in school budgets - and one of the most unchallenged - is the view that reducing class size is the best way to improve student achievement." He goes on to say, "one approach is to get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students." He suggests that paying these teachers more (not based on degrees but their proven ability) will make up for increasing class size.

Really?  When teachers are given classes of 30+ students and told to teach so that students perform well on standardized tests, how does that create a culture of learning? What is the motivation for students? Are we forcing teachers to be motivated by tests and not lessons? How does this prepare students for the future?

Gates suggests that we should pay the best teachers more and give them more students. Is increased pay the answer for those teachers who take on extra students? A public school teacher with the same amount of experience and same level of education (by degree) earns more in my county than most teachers in independent schools in the area where I live. My classes are smaller and we have more freedom. Both achievement and learning are on a high level in my school. We can give our students personal attention. Does salary drive the motivation and quality of teaching in my school? No. The combination of class size and opportunties to innovate in the classroom make teaching a joy. We can give detailed  feedback on student work rather than a mark on a checklist. When my student load is 60 and my partner has 170, and both of us teacher in the Humanities, does it take a lot of thought to figure out whose students will be able to get more attention in class and with their written work?

There are some incredible public school teachers who, despite the system, are creating true learning communities. It's disheartening to hear what some talented teachers have to do to help students learn rather than prepping them for tests. They should be indentified, applauded, and set out as role models but not isolated as only the top 25%. Give teachers a chance. They should be given smaller classes not more mandates, more tests, and more criticism. Let's praise those who touch the lives of our youth. Let's give them help.