Benefits of Empathy In Education

• A Good Teacher is a Good Communicator

"Despite this, genuine communication between teacher and student can only occur by showing a willingness to try to understand the students’ feelings. Empathic listening in the classroom:

• • Reduces tension and hostility between teacher and student

  • Promotes honest communication and builds trust and confidence

  • Gives the teacher time to clarify his/her thinking

  • Enhances the students’ self respect and natural friendliness towards the teacher

  • Keeps communication alive and active"

Educators as Active Listeners

Jackie Gerstein

"The benefits of active listening include:

• Positive classroom culture which can lead to a positive school culture,

• Improved teaching and learning,

• Better teacher-student relationships,

• Learners see themselves as active partners in their own education; they become more invested in their learning,

• Learners feeling that they are in a safe environment where they are willing and able to express concerns, ask questions, ask for help, take risks."

How Empathy Affects Learning, And How To Cultivate It In Your Students

By Saga Briggs

November 1st, 2014

“The education system forces people to unlearn the empathy they were born with. It’s a system based on always seeming strong, contributing to the economy, and being number one. Being number one is the rule of game, and how we relate to others is fundamentally dismissed.” –Bernard Amadei, Ashoka Fellow and founder of Engineers Without Borders USA

"Here are just a few cognitive benefits associated with empathy:

1. Fosters insight into different perspectives and promotes genuine open-mindedness

2. Discourages hasty and superficial problem examination

3. Facilitates construction of more fully elaborated and frequently novel problem models

4. Discourages belief rigidity

5. Encourages cognitive and personal flexibility

6. Practices persistent probing, engaged examination of an issue in alternation with flexibility (Gallo)

As you can see, there’s a strong link between empathy and critical thinking skills."

Empathy in the Classroom: Why Should I Care?

By Lauren Owen

November 11, 2015

"3 Benefits of Empathy in Education

1. Empathy builds positive classroom culture.

With the diversity of students entering classrooms each day, paralleled by an increase in globalization, it's more necessary than ever for teachers to actively construct a positive classroom culture. ...

2. Empathy strengthens community.

Given that the definition of empathy involves understanding another's feelings without having experience, empathy sets students up to deepen relationships with their current classmates and people that they know outside of school...

3. Empathy prepares your students to be leaders in their community.

Leaders must understand the people that they lead and be able to show that they care. Leadership articles emphasize human development as an essential leadership quality..."

10 Ways empathy will transform your child’s life

By Katrina Cavanough

"Increasing empathy in schools is now being shown to decrease the incidence of bullying both in the playground and in the classroom. Empathy is a powerful force within your child’s emotional toolkit, and research has shown that when children and adults are connected to their sense of empathy, they are more likely to have:

• 1. Greater ability to learn at school and achieve better academic results

  2. Less likely to become a bully at school

  3. Lowe rates of depression and anxiety

  4. A greater capacity for positive behaviour with friends, family, and in the community

  5. More tolerance of difference and diversity

  6. Better skills to look after their feelings

  7. Better communication skills

  8. Greater sense of belonging

  9. Ability to be more caring towards others

  10. Become highly successful leaders in their chosen field"

- Suspensions (Reduces school suspensions.)

• Study: Brief intervention to encourage empathic discipline cuts suspension rates in half among adolescents

• "A brief intervention aimed at encouraging an empathic mindset about discipline halved student suspension rates over an academic year. This intervention, an online exercise, can be delivered at near-zero marginal cost to large samples of teachers and students."

  • Jason A. Okonofua,

  • David Paunesku,

  • Gregory M. Walton

• Teacher empathy reduces student suspensions, Stanford research shows

  • "When teachers think empathically, and not punitively, about misbehaving students, they cultivate better relationships and help reduce discipline problems, Stanford research shows. "

• A Focus on Empathy, Not Punishment, Improves Discipline

  • "New research at Stanford University encouraged middle school teachers to take on an “empathetic mindset” when students were being disciplined. The study found that the number of pupils who were suspended across the academic year halved, from 9.6% to 4.8%...."

• Teachers Can Reduce Suspensions by Practicing Empathy?

  • According to a new study, empathic discipline cuts suspension rates in half and improves student-teacher relationships.

• Why empathy in the classroom is so important

  • "A new study out of Stanford shows that when teachers maintain an empathetic mind frame, students are less likely to be expelled."

+ Learning

+ Learning better

"If we think, however, that empathy is effective only in the one-to-one relationship we call psychotherapy, we are greatly mistaken. Even in the classroom it makes an important difference. When the teacher shows evidence that he/she understands the meaning of classroom experiences for the student, learning improves. In studies made by Aspy and colleagues, it was found that children's reading improved significantly more when teachers exhibited a high degree of understanding than in classrooms where such understanding did not exist.

This finding has been replicated in many classrooms (Aspy, 1972, Ch.4; Aspy and Roebuck, 1975). Just as the client in psychotherapy finds that empathy provides a climate for learning more of himself, so the student in the classroom finds himself in a climate for learning subject matter, when he is in the presence of an understanding teacher."

Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being Carl R. Rogers,

RULES OF KINDNESS:A BACK-TO-SCHOOL EMPATHYTOOLKIT

"How Empathy Helps Students From the Making Caring Common Project

• • Higher engagement

  • Higher academic achievement

  • Stronger and more positive classroom community

  • Stronger communication skills •

  • Lower likelihood of bullying behavior

  • Less aggressive behaviors and emotional disorders • More positive relationship"

Carl Rogers speaking at UCLA 4/3/1967

https://youtu.be/UzqZffjl4D8?t=33m6s

"There is anther condition the for self initiated and experiential learning. And that is empathic understanding. "