Most of the students I service for EBD need to develop their social skills. It is almost impossible for my students to make any other social gains without first developing empathy. They need to identify and understand someone else’s situation, feelings, and motives.

Examples of empathy in a classroom include lending a helping hand, sticking up for a child who is being teased, or taking time to get to know a new student. Empathy is caring about those around you.

Means and ends
My students sometimes act as if they believe the ends justify the means, and that it doesn’t matter what they have to do to get what they want. They sometimes seem concerned only about themselves.

I have watched children interact with each other, teachers, parents, and others, and have sometimes been surprised at how uncompassionate they appear. It seems OK to not hold the door for someone, or help someone pick something up. Some will even laugh or heckle instead of helping. In some cases they have seen or heard adults be disrespectful with each other and are imitating them.

Measuring results
As a special-education teacher concerned with helping students behave in a more caring way, I decided to create and ad-minister an “empathy survey” just before I began implementing the Morning Meeting of the Responsive Classroom approach and again three months later. I thought I could use it as a measuring tool to provide indication of growth in the social skills goals that my students are working towards in their in dividualized education plans (IEP’s).

The results of the survey showed growth in empathy. Following are three questions from the survey, and their results.

Question 1: What would you do if you found a $10 bill on the school bus, you didn’t know to whom it belonged, and no one was around? Would you A) keep it; B) turn it in; or C) share it with your family and friends? The initial survey results were: A, 8; B,5; C,3. The results three months later: A,3; B,9; C,4.

Why?
When I asked some of the students why the number of people who would share the money had increased, they told me it would seem less wrong if the money were shared. There was also the reasoning that since the students didn’t know to whom the money belonged, they couldn’t trust the bus driver to give it to the right person. After discussing this with my students, I felt that if they had known to whom the money belonged, most, if not all, of them would have given it back to the person who dropped it.

Have a seat
Question 2: You are riding the city bus and all of the seats are full. An elderly person gets on the bus. Do you: A) stay seated; B) hope someone else offers the senior his / her seat; C) offer your seat to the senior?

The initial survey showed that 6 students would keep their seats and 7 would hope that someone else would give the elderly person a seat; only 3 said they would offer their seat to the elderly person.

The final survey demonstrated that only 2 students would keep their seats, 7 would hope someone else would give up his or her seat, and 7 would offer their seat.

Gossip, bullying
Question 3: If one of your best friends in school started talking about one of your classmates, making fun, calling him or her names and spreading rumors, what would you do?

Throughout the surveys, the students answered overwhelmingly that they would do something to try to stop the harassment. In the initial survey, the majority response was to tell the teacher or the educational assistant.

Empowerment
The growth that I saw in the results from this question was that by the final survey, the students had become empowered: they responded that they would tell the person making the comments that he/she should not be saying those things about another person. Many of the students also said that they would ask the offender how he/she would feel if those things were said about him/her.

My survey was not scientific, but it shows a gain in the students’ social skills, and I attribute that gain largely to the Responsive Classroom practice of daily Morning Meetings. I believe the meetings to be the best tool I have for teaching empathy.

Erik Moe teachers special-education students at Downtown Open School, Minneapolis.

This article first appeared in Origins: A Newsletter for Educators, Fall 2003