“Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like,” says Rita Pierson, a teacher, counselor and administrator for 40 years, in a TED talk.
TED Talks Education, a one-hour program on teaching and learning, will air May 7 and May 9 on PBS.
Study: TV can teach empathy to preschoolers
February 20, 2013 by
When 3- to 5-year-olds watch less violence on TV and more shows featuring cooperation and friendship, they’re less aggressive toward other children, concludes a study published in Pediatrics.
One group of parents received guides highlighting positive TV shows for children and newsletters encouraging them to watch with their kids and discuss the best ways to deal with conflict. Researchers called monthly to help parents set television-watching goals for their preschoolers.
The control group got dietary advice, but no guidance on TV watching.
After six months, parents in the group receiving advice about television-watching said their children were somewhat less aggressive with others, compared with those in the control group. The children who watched less violent shows also scored higher on measures of social competence, a difference that persisted after one year.
Low-income boys showed the most improvement.
“It’s not just about turning off the TV; it’s about changing the channel,” said Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, the lead author of the study and a University of Washington pediatrics professor.
Preschoolers average 4.1 hours of television and other screen time daily, according to a 2011 study.
“Law enforcement sources” believe Adam Lanza was motivated to kill Newtown’s children by “violent video games“and his desire to outkill Andres Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, reports CBS. “Call of Duty” was his favorite.
Lots of failure, little effort to learn from it
September 21, 2011 by
John Thompson writes about “no excuses” schools after reading Paul Tough’s New article, What if the Secret to Success is Failure? Tough describes how KIPP co-founder David Levin tries to teach “perseverance and empathy” as well as academic skills.
In inner city schools, there is plenty of failure but rarely is there an effort to cultivate grittiness, resilience, and skills for rebounding from failure.
High-challenge schools have imitated the easiest of Levin’s methods by putting up signs saying “Whatever It Takes!” and “Failure is NOT an Option!” Thompson writes. They forget Levin’s concerns about the “socio-emotional aspects of learning.”
Here’s the model:
First, principals and teachers who supported Levin’s vision would start by calling a faculty meeting and proclaiming an unflinching focus on instruction, as well as a system for providing remediation. . . . a system of rewards and punishments for students and teachers, along with additional paperwork would be announced.
. . . at first, these initiatives always worked pretty well, and often they were spectacular successes. After a few weeks, however, the issue for teachers would become the minority of students who failed to comply.
By October, teachers push loudly for consequences. Faculty meetings degenerate into shouting matches. Eventually, complaints about students’ behavior are labeled “excuses.” If the principal tries to send the worst discipline problems to alternative schools, they’re sent back quickly.
Thompson wonders what could have happened if the system had tried to teach perseverance and empathy.
What if the failure to meet classroom behavioral standards had not been dismissed as the teachers’ failures with classroom management? Think of the difference it would have made if educators in neighborhood schools had the ability to draw a line and enforce standards. Then, the failure of a student to control his or her behavior could have become “a teachable moment.” We could have helped students develop the resilience required to be a good citizen in class.
“Had we been just as serious about teaching students to be students as we were about teaching subject matter, could we have avoided our reform wars?” Thompson asks.
Teaching empathy to the ‘Me’ Generation
July 24, 2011 by
In hopes of Teaching Empathy to the ‘Me’ Generation, Capital University’s Empathy Experiment immerses students in the experiences of the working poor, reports Miller McCune Online. The Columbus, Ohio recruited six volunteers for a no-credit course.
The eight-week program required, for example, that students undergo a temporary eviction, be processed and stay a night at a homeless shelter, and go a night without eating. “It was a good chance for students to, frankly, get out of their comfort zone,” (trustee Ronald) St. Pierre says. They were to move from sympathy to empathy.
College students are 40 percent less empathetic than students a generation ago, concludes University of Michigan psychologist Sara Konrath.
Spending a day in a wheelchair may teach students something about the challenges of mobility for the disabled. I don’t think it’s that easy to simulate poverty.
Are texting teens losing empathy skills?
June 18, 2011 by
Texting teens aren’t learning empathy skills, according to psychologist Gary Small, who spoke at a Hechinger Institute seminar on digital learning in California.
The digital world has rewired teen brains and made them less able to recognize and share feelings of happiness, sadness or anger, said the UCLA professor of psychiatry and aging, who has also studied adolescent brains.
“The teenage brain is not fully formed,” Small said . . . “I’m concerned that kids aren’t learning empathy skills. They’re not learning complex reasoning skills.”
Small noted that up to 60 percent of synapses in the brain are pruned away between birth and adolescence if they aren’t used. He cited the oft-quoted Kaiser Family Foundation study from 2010 that showed teens spend half their waking hours with technology, from cell phones to computers and/or television. The study found that typical eight to 18-year-olds devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day, or more than 53 hours a week. Thanks to multitasking, they are actually packing a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes’ worth of media content into those seven and a half hours.
Other researchers disagreed. Teens are adding media interaction to face-to-face interaction, said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist who directs the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s research on teens, children and families. Teenagers say they’d rather be with their friends in person than communicate via electronic devices, Lenhart said.
Sympathy for AIG
April 14, 2009 by
When they talk about teaching empathy, it usually doesn’t involve feeling bad for financial workers who’ve received bonuses from their employers’ billion-dollar bail-out packages. But a class of fourth graders near Houston have sent letters — nice letters — to AIG employees, reports the Washington Post.
(Rebecca Chapman) stood before her students and stoked the populism in their young souls. Pretend you are taxpayers, she said. Now, think about AIG paying bonuses even after the government had committed $180 billion to bailing it out.
“Can you believe it?” she asked.
The children hissed and moaned, sounding much like the elected officials and talking heads who had been eager to out-outrage one another.
“I got them all riled up,” said Chapman, 29.
Then she turned the tables.
“What if you were an AIG employee?” she asked. Imagine if you had not been involved in the deals that ruined the company but were left to clean up the mess. What if you had to pay back money you felt you had earned? What if your family had received death threats?
A student suggested writing letters to AIG workers.
The children adorned their messages with peace symbols and smiley faces, rainbows and vivid red hearts. “Hi AIG. Not all of USA hates you,” wrote one student. “We know you’re not villains,” wrote another. “Keep working hard, dudes! Keep eating your vegatabos!” advised a third.
I find this charming — and odd.
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