On empathy

[osprey_archer]

We are finally - FINALLY! - getting started, testing the kids' reading speeds. Most of them take it in stride, although some of the sixth graders are already displaying the stigmata of test anxiety. They jiggle so hard it shakes the table, make silly errors, get fuddled in their words and pinched about the face as they read. It hurts.

"Ready?" I say. "Take a deeeeeeeeeep breath."

Sometimes it helps, and sometimes it doesn't.

I can feel myself falling into the attitude that so irritated me, sometimes, when I was younger (and sometimes irritates me still, when older people direct it at me): seeing and bleeding for the child's pain, thinking that there's something, or ought to be something, that I can do to stop it, and believing that I understand. Understand better than they do, even.

There is something infinitely condescending about believing that you understand someone else - someone you hardly know, yet - as if they were uncomplicated and could not contain multitudes. I know too many people who pride themselves on their empathy, and occasionally take it upon themselves to explain to me how I feel, except that they're totally wrong.

Sometimes I doubt the value of empathy. Not only does it lead people astray, so they believe they know how you're feeling and don't ask, but it also paralyzes them: they feel other people's pain so strongly that they can't bear to be there when other people hurt. I don't see that it doesn't anything that sympathy can't do better and at less cost. Sympathetic people don't take it as a personal affront when you tell them that, actually, they don't understand nearly as well as they think they do.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I don't feel this rush of fake understanding with the kindergartners and second graders that I'll be working with. I find them adorable but slightly perplexing, especially the kindergartners: it's impossible to hold a coherent conversation with them, as they won't stay on topic for more than a couple of sentences. This is going to make teaching them - interesting.

Comments

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

So many people thing teaching kindergarten is really easy--like babysitting. They don't get that it's hard because we are so far removed from that sort of thinking process, from those immature emotions and responses and reflexes. They're fascinating little beasties. Brilliant in ways adults have forgotten how to be.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think this too! Little kids' thought processes are fascinating.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

These people are clearly insane. Teaching kindergarten is probably one of the most difficult teaching jobs in the world, because you have to keep the kids on task CONSTANTLY - not only do they lack the reading skills to do worksheets on their own, or silent reading, but many of them can't focus without someone reorienting them all the time.

Or possibly the people who think teaching kindergarten is easy have forgotten how much actual teaching goes on? There's a lot less play time than preschool.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

I think, back in the before-times (like when I was a kid) kindergarten was more like preschool. There were no worksheets or reading or keeping on task. Kindergarten was about socializing outside of your family unit, not actually LEARNING much.
We learned our letters.
We learned to count higher than ten.
We learned how to be a more civilized human animal. Now kids enter kindergarten already reading! They've been in daycare or preschool, so they're more socialized, too. THAT, I think, is where that bias comes from.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It's very curious to have someone thinking they're empathizing with you when really they don't get it at all.

It reminds me of a Laurie Anderson performance piece in which she talks about going to palm reader who gets all her personal details wrong, so that she (Laurie Anderson) begins to feel like her hands are stolen documents.

(Okay, maybe the connection is hard to see, but it's the notion of someone telling you something about yourself with all confidence, and yet being wrong)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes. Because you can tell they really feel what they think you're feeling, and it seems so real to them that they can't believe that you aren't feeling the same thing.

Also, the stolen-document-hands has great creepiness potential. Have you seen Minority Report? One of the characters has to get new eyes so he won't be identified.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I did see it! It was a very cool concept, and I liked most of the execution, as I recall.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

I find them adorable but slightly perplexing, especially the kindergartners: it's impossible to hold a coherent conversation with them, as they won't stay on topic for more than a couple of sentences.

Now that's a fact. I think the best part about holding a conversation with kids (especially ones that age) are how incredibly serious they are.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes! Except when they're being deliberately silly, which is a hoot. But often they're no zanier when being silly than when being serious, so I'm not always sure where the dividing line is for them!