Putting the "cornerstone of empathy"
in my curriculum has been really easy
to do. It starts on the first day, where
we start with icebreaker exercises that go
beyond just the standard introduction
- "Hi / my name is / my major is / my expected graduation date is..."
And instead, share facts about ourselves
that we wouldn't otherwise
share in an academic setting. And that
activity alone helps to dissolve some of
the barriers - helps us all feel a little
bit vulnerable, a little bit nervous, and
a little bit willing to take risks.
Because when we come together collectively
to share those stories, people start to
realize that, again, we have more
similarity than we do difference.
My students are first confronted with their
assumptions, and their knowledge base,
identify through their own experiences, how
they come to understand where they're at.
And then, we do a series of activities,
whether that's an assignment, a reading,
a conversation, or a physical activity,
to reinforce the content that we're
working with and to challenge their
assumption - their baseline assumption -
and, in the process, they come out with
this reflective piece that is embedded
into every assignment, where they are
expected to expand upon what it is that
they actually learned, and how it is that
they shifted their action going forward
based on that experience.
And oftentimes what we uncover, more often
than not, what we uncover is that the
experiences working with individuals
above and beyond just the team dynamic
that comes with group projects typical to
college courses, gives them an opportunity
to really get to know people and learn how
to enact those communication skills, so that
they can not only bridge the gaps between
the differences, but be able to elevate
those similarities to the surface,
and then work together.
One particular experience that I offer
to my professional communications
students is an exercise on interpersonal
closeness. After talking about units on
listening and speaking effectively, they
start to engage in an exercise where they
think that they're being paired together
to practice listening and speaking
effectively. And they spend 45 minutes
going through incremental questions that
are designed to sort of unlock higher
levels of interpersonal disclosure. And it
becomes this sort of scenario where they
don't recognize that they're in the hot
water until it's too late. And you would
find it really interesting to walk around
the class as these partners are paired up.
They're seemingly opposite ends of many,
many spectrums, and they come together and,
ten minutes in you hear something like,
"Well, I haven't really shared that with
anybody, but since I've already told you
about my relationship with my mom..."
And these personal disclosures come out
and amplify over the course of 45 minutes.
And then I bring them together in a
non-verbal communicative state, where
they have to simply sit across the table
from each other and engage in a mutual
gaze, in silence, for 4 minutes.
Doesn't seem like a long time, but after
you've done this level of disclosure,
and this level of learning and connecting
on an empathic level with another human
being, that incredible act can be very
profound. I have looked around my classroom
to see students crying as they're staring
at one another, complete strangers 45
minutes prior, simply because of the
connection that occurs when we actively
listen empathically to the people
that we're connected to.
That experience is one that I will continue
to integrate into my courses as often
as possible, because of the amount of
connection and barrier disillusion that
comes from that one class session.
I've gotten student feedback that,
I had a non-traditional student in his
forties, come tell me that he, in his
lifetime, had never, ever, sat in silence
with another human being, and just
looked at them. And, to go halfway through
your life, potentially, and not have an
experience like that, to me, is tragic, so
I'm very excited to figure out how to
motivate the students to get to this space
where they feel comfortable connecting
interpersonally like that. And it really
does bring that empathy to the center
of their learning experience.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community