Education for Empathy: building healthy relationships at school

[Guest Contributor - sheyla baumworcel]

Empathy is a skill that develops emotional self-awareness, it is a basic personal skill. It means feeling the emotions of the OTHER. This ability develops naturally in children, for example; a child becomes distressed when he hears another child crying. But when a slightly older child recognizes emotions, they begin to realize that the other person's emotions are not their own. Therefore, even though it is an innate ability (we are born with it), empathy needs to be developed with practice.

Paulo Freire teaches us: "At the end of a learning process, what remains is an emotion." Improving empathy from an early age is essential to fostering positive relationships, fostering understanding, and creating a supportive learning environment. Here are several strategies for increasing empathy in a school setting:

1. Self-knowledge is the first component of this journey, Socrates, the Greek philosopher, said: "Know yourself." Having self-knowledge means demonstrating understanding of your emotions, your strengths and weaknesses, your needs and your motivations. In this sense, the opposite of empathy is antipathy. However, empathy is just the ability to feel another's pain and may or may not include kindness and compassion. In other words, in empathy, I feel the other person's pain. Kindness is when I can help you with a tissue or a hug. Compassion, in turn, leads me to action, to attitude. How can I actually this person whose pain I feel and observe?
2. Emotion is nourished by emotions, the more emotions we recognize in ourselves, the more easily we understand other people's feelings, which is why it is important to work on the pillars of emotional intelligence at school, so that coexistence between people becomes more harmonious. Daniel Goleman suggests the name 'Emotional Literacy' that is, recognizing different emotions (there are more than 30) and recognizing individual diversity and intensity, as each person feels it in their own way. Furthermore, emotions do not happen by themselves, they are a reaction and can appear together; for example: how am I today? Have a lot of pleasant energy or today, or am I low on energy today? Am I very sad or a little sad? Am I really mad, or was I just upset? I'm sad and worried, or I'm happy and excited.
3. The importance of teachers working on emotions is to enable better coexistence among people at school, avoiding fights, arguments and even depression and improving the involvement of students, teachers, coordinators, inspectors, supervisors, etc. The key to successful conflict resolution is to extend it outside the classroom, into the playground, and into the cafeteria, where encounters are more intimate. To achieve this, some students may be trained as mediators, a role that can begin as early as elementary school. Organize community service projects or volunteer opportunities for students. Engaging in activities that involve helping others can develop a sense of empathy, as students directly experience the impact of their actions on those in need.
4. Active components for working on empathy in schools: emotional, cognitive and behavioural skills.

• Emotional skills: identifying and expressing feelings, dealing with feelings, controlling impulses, reducing tension, distinguishing feelings and taking action.
• Cognitive skills: Reading and anticipating reactions to tense situations. Using steps to solve problems, understanding the other's point of view, understanding behavioural norms.
• Behavioural skills: Non-verbal – communication through facial expression and Verbal: making clear requests, reacting consciously, listening to others.

5. Teacher Training - The distance that school and educational society aims to reduce is the one we currently live in, a time of social inequality. Each person is an emotional universe. Being in the classroom means being in contact with different states, therefore it is urgent to be aware that teachers play a crucial role in modelling empathetic behaviour. At school, by cultivating a positive and inclusive school culture, individuals will live with greater self-knowledge, greater self-regulation, greater emotional autonomy, empathy, ability to act better in relationships.

I strongly recommend that students, teachers and parents get involved in these workshops, which can be weekly, inserted into school classes to improve emotional intelligence, redirecting the focus of training to the limbic system. The limbic system is a set of interconnected brain structures that process emotions, motivated behaviours, and memory. It is made up of several areas of the brain, including the thalamus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, and other brain nuclei. We need to help professionals break?old?habits.

About Sheyla - She has a degree in pedagogy from Universidade Candido Mendes (1976) and a postgraduate degree in psychopedagogy from CEPERJ (1998). Sheyla has extensive experience in the area of Education, with an emphasis on Teaching-Learning. She wrote the book Dicionário Amoroso de Valores and published the games Deck of Keys of Convivência and Roda da Conversa for children and teenagers. She has published numerous articles, some of the notable ones being ‘Early Childhood Education beyond Neuroscience in the book Entretecendo Saberes’, and ‘Me and the Other - playful tools for socio-emotional skills’ in the book Contributions of Neuroscience for an Integrative Education, contributing to the article. She is an alumnus of the Happiness Studies Academy and it has been my privilege that I can call her a peer and a dear friend from Brazil. In the short period that we know each other, she has shared many insights with me which has deepen my understanding in the interdisciplinary study of happiness. To know more about Sheyla, please visit her LinkedIn profile.