Doug Johnson

Most of these columns, updated and edited, can be found in my book School Libraries Head for the Edge. Buy it and I might be able to afford a nicer nursing home one day. Thank you.

Building capacity for empathy

Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, January 2009

A group of Toronto researchers have compiled a body of evidence showing that bookworms have exceptionally strong people skills. … Their years of research … [have] shown readers of narrative fiction scored higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than those who read non-fiction texts.

The quote above comes from a fascinating article published by Globe and Mail about how reading fiction builds social skills and empathy:

Most of you reading just said, “Well, duh! Haven’t we known this for years?” But isn’t gratifying to have our observations confirmed?

Empathy? Social acumen? Are these essential skills for surviving and thriving in today’s economy? Our national associations and gurus seem to think so.

From ISTE NETS 2007 …

Students … develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures. …use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions.

From AASL’s Standards for the 21st Century Learner 2007 …

Students will: Consider diverse and global perspectives in drawing conclusions. …show social responsibility by participating actively with others in learning situations and by contributing questions and ideas during group discussions.

From Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind …

Not just logic, but also EMPATHY. “What will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others.

The unsung hero of many a successful enterprise is empathy. Understanding the needs and desires of others is critical for leaders, salesmen, politicians, lotharios, preachers, CEOs, writers, teachers, consultants … well, just about everybody. The better one understands others, the more effective one can meet their needs, appeal to their self-interests or, I suppose, manipulate them.

With a global economy, our empathy needs to extend beyond our next-door neighbor. Multi-culturalism and global awareness simply means understanding, not necessarily accepting, the values, motives and priorities of cultures other than those in which we grew up. (You mean not everyone values lutefisk and lefse!)

The question is, then, can empathy be learned - and how? Is there a small muscle somewhere in the mind or soul that can be exercised, stretched and built that allows us to more fully place ourselves in others’ shoes? Or sandals? Or moccasins? Or bare feet?

Reading fiction - especially when the setting is another culture, another time - has to be the best means of building empathic sensibilities. How do you understand prejudice if you are not of a group subject to discrimination? How do you know the problems faced by gays if you are straight? How does it feel to be hungry, orphaned, or terrified when you’ve always lived a middle-class life? By harnessing the detail, drama, emotion, and immediacy of “story,” fiction informs the heart as well as the mind. And it is the heart that causes the mind to empathize.

Viewing the world through the eyes of a narrator completely unlike oneself, draws into sharp detail the differences of experience, but also the similarities of the narrator and reader. And it is by linking ourselves through similarities - common human traits - that we come to know others as people, not just stereotypes.

Happily, empathy building through reading doesn’t end with childhood. We adults can be just as moved – and influenced by novels. My nominees for best empathy-building novels I’ve read recently are Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (reading it left me with a better understanding of autistic children) and Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (the author’s experience of the horrors of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and difficulties of cultural assimilation are profound.)

Unfortunately, as school budgets are stretched, school library funds that purchase quality fiction and school library professionals who select and promote quality fiction are too easily axed, replaced by reading programs, specialists and tests of basic comprehension.

Our politicians and educational leader rarely ask: If one can read but is not changed by reading, why bother? Empathy is an ability that is difficult to objectively measure. As a result, many educators simply ignore it, like they do too many affective skills. It’s essential that we librarians fight for our programs and budgets.

Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird gave this advice to his young daughter:

“If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

It’s perhaps fitting that those of us who have experienced Lee’s book have indeed had our quotient for empathy increased by reading it.

Mick, Haley “Socially Awkward? Hit the Books” Globe and Mail. 10 July 10 2008.
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