By Arundhati Ray

The day's headlines are a roll call of violent acts that make no sense. Is the world going mad? No, say psychologists, we are simply losing the ability to empathize.

Throughout the world, teachers, sociologists, policymakers and parents are discovering that empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured in order to give peace a fighting chance.

As the world grapples with violence that plays out in public and personal domains – in battlefields and on playgrounds – the challenge is to reinstate and reaffirm values of tolerance, cooperation and respect. It is becoming increasingly evident that the ability to identify with others, and hence to respond appropriately to them, is crucial.

It's a lesson that humans are continually challenged to re-learn. The concept of empathy has been around for a long while. Most of the ancient religious systems such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism are imbued with it. In nature-centered systems like that of Native Americans based on interconnectedness of everything, animate and inanimate, the guiding principle for righteous action is empathy.

But empathy, and mastery of emotions in general, have been neglected by rationalism and the "hard" sciences, which have become such powerful forces in modern society. Education programs increasingly focus on powers of reasoning, cognitive ability, and rational thought to the exclusion of emotional literacy.

The former have been seen as measures of intelligence and indicators of a person's potential for success. Feelings and emotions have been devalued, their display considered a sign of weakness and lack of control.

This single-minded pursuit of cognitive intelligence is one of the greatest ironies of our times. As science and technology have made the world into a vast global village, human beings find themselves ill-equipped to succeed because they lack the abilities and skills that such a world without boundaries requires. To thrive in today's world depends on the ability to work cooperatively with strangers, to be tolerant, to respect and appreciate differences, and to be able to resolve conflicts in a constructive manner.

Legitimizing the Importance of Emotions

In our personal lives, the fallout of the neglect of our emotional selves is evident in many ways, including child abuse, poor parenting skills, escalating rates of violence among children, and teen suicides. Social pressures encourage us to disconnect from our emotional selves, and when we do, our repertoire of emotional responses gets severely limited. The emotional resources we bring to a challenge are frayed and depleted, resulting in behavior that is antisocial and self-destructive. ¹

In response to these challenges, a concerted, cross-disciplinary movement has emerged that legitimizes the importance of emotional abilities and social awareness skills such as empathy. The seminal work of two American professors, John Mayers and Peter Salovey, has contributed significantly to validating for the scientific community the role of emotions.

David Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence has helped to popularize the subject, finding itself on the cover of Time magazine in 1995. This encouraged the corporate sector to add the ability to empathize to the set of strategic skills and financial acumen expected of managers.

While the ability to empathize is finally earning priority status in the adult world of work in areas such as business, childcare and parenting, the field of learning exhibits the greatest formal emphasis on nurturing empathy. The reason for this, according to psychologists, is that the socializing patterns a person develops as a child tend to last a lifetime.

So if emotional literacy skills are honed at the same time one learns the traditional mathematical and literacy skills, there is a good chance people will turn out to be caring and compassionate adults who are good at managing relationships. Because they are in tune with their emotions and can be appropriately responsive to others', they will be good at creative problem solving and great teamworkers. Furthermore, developing empathy in early childhood is correlated to development of a strong set of personal ethics.

Elizabeth Morris, principal of the U.K.-based School of Emotional Literacy, endorses this view, and states that emotional literacy, "can no longer be ignored as an optional adjunct to the school – or family – agenda." ²

All over the world, today, there are programs that regard teaching children to walk in someone else's shoes as altogether serious business. In a primary school in Toronto, Canada, for example, a group of 10-year-olds, participants of a Roots of Empathy program, learn to read an infant's body language and respond appropriately.

Across the Atlantic, in England, early childhood centers are experimenting with Early Childhood Adventures in Peacemaking – a curriculum that integrates conflict resolution, social and emotional learning, and appreciation for diversity. In the crowded streets of Mumbai, India, an organization called MelJol encourages elite private school pupils to team up with students from the city's poorly-equipped municipal schools to plan and execute a series of childrights campaigns. And in steamy Medan in the North Sumatra region of Indonesia, young persons from traditionally segregated communities – indigenous Indonesians and Chinese – attend the same school – Yayasan Sultan Iskandar Muda, set up by Sofyan Tan – thereby breaking down centuries of racial prejudice.

Empathy – A "How To" Guide

The process of developing an ability to empathize involves distinct stages. The first step is self-awareness: we need to be able to identify our own emotions, recognize them for what they are and acknowledge them. A crucial precursor is allowing ourselves to experience emotions rather than blocking them.

Being cognizant and in tune with our own emotions enables us to undertake the next step: becoming aware of another's emotions. The wider the range of emotions that we can experience and the higher our emotional literacy (the ability to correctly identify and label our emotions) the greater our chances to correctly "read" another person's emotional message.

Good listening (which involves asking questions, filling in gaps and emotionally intelligent guesswork) is essential, as is the ability to interpret nonverbal cues. Sensitivity, of course, is crucial because the more sensitive one is, the greater is the ability to pick up the most subtle emotional nuances.

Being able to correctly and comprehensively read another person's emotional messages empowers us to intuitively identify with the person. We are able to imaginatively insert ourselves in the other person's situation and experience it intimately. And this, in turn, ensures that we feel and hence make an appropriate emotional response.

A simple example: when a person is scared he may react with aggression. Empathy allows one to accurately interpret the emotional trigger for this behavior and respond in a manner that addresses the feelings of fear (with reassurance, understanding, etc).

Learning initiatives that consciously nurture empathy among young people have devised a variety of approaches and methods. The programs featured in this issue of Changemakers Journal demonstrate that there are numerous ways in which the ability to empathize can be successfully cultivated and reinforced among children.

Programs like Loreto Sealdah School and MelJol encourage empathy by creating opportunities for children from very different backgrounds to interact as peers who learn to work toward common goals. Children from vastly different socio-economic contexts learn to relate as friends who are bonded by mutual respect, compassion, understanding and affection.

Some programs have developed curricula that are explicit in their aims to encourage tolerance by inculcating empathy. Delhi-based Ankur, for example, encourages its young participants, most of whom are slum dwellers, to celebrate differences and revel in diversity. Another Delhi-centered program, Pravah, takes privileged kids on a journey from "me to we" by going through a series of lessons carefully designed to open their abilities to empathize.

Theater and role-playing exercises are acknowledged tools for enhancing the ability to empathize because they expand our emotional spectrum, train us to assume different identities, and insert us in another person's reality. For Swati Lal, a second-grade teacher in Kolkata (Calcutta), it's the very core of her curriculum. Her entire approach to teaching is "feelings-based." Whether it's studying reading, social studies or current affairs, learning is built on a foundation of the ability to identify with another's situation.

Peaceworks' crusade against communal conflict and the protection of democratic values is based on using the arts as catalysts for developing empathy. The initiative harnesses the potential of films, literature, drama, music and arts to transport one to different realities in order to develop tolerance, appreciation of diversity and mutual coexistence among students and transform them into peace activists.

Ulitmately, Empathy Equals Survival

For all their differences in approach, these programs share certain common strategies. First, space for introspection and reflection is built into the structure of every program so that self-awareness is possible.

Second, all subscribe to the principle that empathy can be encouraged only when the facilitator (teacher, leader, mentor) is an empathetic person. Teachers' reactions to situations and people, their ability to handle their own emotions and relate to others', has a direct impact on their ability to determine the emotional development of a class. Thus, even when a program's primary focus is young people, it is crucial to include teacher training.

Ultimately, the survival of our species may depend on our collective ability to empathize: to be aware of our own feelings and to have the capacity for relating to and interacting with others in a "pro-survival way." Steve Hein is part of a group of researchers in this field who have created a Web site on emotional intelligence. Hein makes a convincing argument for the need to regard empathy as an important factor in evolution. He argues that our ability to empathize is one of the primary ways that our emotions contribute to the survival of the species, and this is one of the ways nature slowly evolves towards a higher level of survival. ³

John Lennon's anthem to world peace prevailed upon us to "Imagine all the people living life in peace . . . Sharing all the world." With our imagination we can see Lennon's vision. With empathy we can make it happen.

1. For more information on this, particularly for the way it underscores the impact of society's deliberate efforts to suppress the emotional abilities of boys, see Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, Raising Cain, Harvard University Press. Kindlon, an assistant professor in the Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry and the HSPH Department of Maternal and Child Health, and Thompson, a psychologist at a Boston-area boys' school, share what they have learned in 35 years of combined experience working with boys and their families. Using research findings and case studies to support and illuminate their argument, the authors paint a portrait of boys who are systematically steered away from their emotional lives by adults and peers, and who – in contrast to girls – receive little encouragement to develop qualities such as compassion, sensitivity, and warmth. The result is to leave boys with a limited repertoire of emotional responses. Moving from diagnosis of the cultural malady to prescription for its cure, they identify the social and emotional challenges that boys encounter in school and show how parents can help boys cultivate emotional awareness and empathy. "The difference between boys who overcome adversity and those who surrender to it always comes down to the emotional resources they bring to the challenge," the authors write.
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2. www.schoolofemotional-literacy.com
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3. www.eqi.net
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