{"id":609,"date":"2012-11-02T12:22:01","date_gmt":"2012-11-02T16:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ivyrun.com\/wordpress\/?p=609"},"modified":"2012-11-02T12:22:01","modified_gmt":"2012-11-02T16:22:01","slug":"friday-find-why-empathy-is-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=609","title":{"rendered":"Friday Find: Why Empathy is Important"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog post showed up in Zite this morning: Glimmers of Hope in the Education Debate<\/a>. The writer makes the case that the two<\/a> sides<\/a> are not as far apart as it might seem. \u00a0He shows several places where the seemingly rigid accountability movement is opening to the possibility of non-cognitive skills:<\/p>\n

Friedman gives a nod to the Common Core Standards, adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia \u2014 and long anathema to many in the progressive educator circles \u2014 which establish clear learning goals and competencies in math and literacy for students across multiple grade levels. Quoting Duncan, he cheerfully writes, \u201cFor the first time in our history, a kid in Massachusetts and a kid in Mississippi will be measured by the same yardstick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even there, however, the battle lines are no longer quite as rigid as we tend to think. Earlier this year,Expeditionary Learning<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 known for an educational model built on Outward Bound, with an explicit focus on empathy, collaboration, and self-discovery \u2014 was hired to\u00a0develop the curriculum and professional development training<\/a>\u00a0for grades 3-5 of the Common Core for the state of New York.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big deal, because for the first time, it means we don\u2019t have to choose: we don\u2019t have to choose between academic learning and non-cognitive development; we don\u2019t have to choose between overly burdensome (and by many accounts, meaningless) standards and nothing at all; we don\u2019t have to choose between the interests of teachers and the interests of those who control them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s worth a read: the cynical side of me couldn’t help but think that Flowers was being a Pollyana, something she says of herself. The people she reads might be interested in redefining “highly skilled worker” but I haven’t heard a whole lot of discussion of empathy in the mainstream discussion. \u00a0Maybe Paul Tough<\/a>‘s book will help form a foundation for discussion. And, maybe I’m just in a negative mood since my current read is Jonathan Kozol.<\/p>\n

The blog post is part of a larger website focused on empathy<\/a>, which is sponsored by Ashoka<\/a>, an organization that strives to develop the citizen sector of society. They believe that empathy is an important 21st century skill:<\/p>\n

We know that a child who masters empathy at the age of six is\u00a0less likely<\/a>\u00a0to bully ten years later, and that, for students, having one supportive relationship with an adult outside the family can be the\u00a0difference<\/a>\u00a0between success and failure as an adult. And we know that far from being a “nice-to-have,” empathy\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and the various skills it entails \u2013 is increasingly critical to our success at home, in the workplace, and in the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was also intrigued by the writer’s comment that he had a Google alert related to empathy. \u00a0That was not the kind of search time that occurred to me so I signed up. The first email included a wide range of articles from a report about research that shows empathy can override analysis<\/a> in the brain, a description of a new app<\/a> designed to make commuting on the London Tube less stressful, and an interview from The Salt Lake Tribune where a CEO discusses the characteristics of great leaders<\/a>, one of which is empathy.<\/p>\n

I was a bit surprised by the depth and breadth of articles and am looking forward to future alerts. There are articles, well written blog entries and lots of videos. One series tells the story of a Tokyo teacher and his students who write notebook letters to each other:<\/p>\n