Pillar 3: Develop Compassion
Empathy and compassion have a tumultuous relationship with higher education. Traditionally, emotions have had no place in the classroom. This was evident to me a few years ago when my college was promoting professional development activities around the “affective domain,” a practice that encourages educators to not only build their own capacity for empathy and compassion but to also help students develop their capacity for these two emotions. This particular incident took place in an Academic Senate meeting when a faculty senator from English bemoaned the college’s commitment to the “mushy stuff.” More specifically, she was “tired of all the mushy stuff.”
But I would argue that equity-minded educators couldn’t fully serve their students without feeling, at the very least, empathy. In a political climate that denies the lived experiences of students of color, women, religious minorities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, it is imperative that we not only give students a voice in our spaces but that we also develop empathy and compassion for the students who are stigmatized based on their identities. It is only then that we can truly serve their academic needs and position ourselves as allies.
The difference between empathy and compassion, however, is hard for many to distinguish. It was for me until I read Gregory Boyle’s book Tattoos on the Heart where he describes an instance in which he asks his parishioners, in this case, incarcerated young men, to define the two terms. The exchange goes like this:
“My students . . . seem to use these terms interchangeably: sympathy, empathy, and compassion. Like any teacher stalling until the bell rings, I ask these felons to define their terms.
‘Well, sympathy,’ one begins, ‘is when your homie’s mom dies and you go up to him and say, “ ‘Spensa – sorry to hear ‘bout your moms.”’
Just as quickly, there is a volunteer to define empathy.
‘Yeah, well, empathy is when your homie’s mom dies and you say, “ ‘Spensa, ‘bout your moms. Sabes qué, my moms died six months ago. I feel ya, dog.”’
‘Excellent,’ I say. ‘Now, what’s compassion?’
No takers.” (62)
Eventually, an inmate defines compassion in terms of religion. Later in the book, Boyle, in a more secular way, argues that “compassion isn’t just about feeling the pain of others; it’s about bringing them in toward yourself . . . in compassion, margins get erased . . . [compassion] means the dismantling of barriers that exclude” (75). He further writes, “compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship, of true kinship” (77). In other words, what differentiates sympathy, empathy, and compassion is how far we are willing to go to alleviate the suffering of others.
Furthermore, there is a reason why developing capacity for empathy and compassion is the third pillar – we must understand the identity-based obstacles our students encounter inside school and out, and we must understand how our privilege perpetuates these obstacles. Empathy and compassion exist within a hierarchy, and they describe very different ways of feeling. Empathy, as Boyle’s parishioners explain, is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes while compassion is the drive to get “in the trenches” with the students. Neither is possible without understanding our students’ lived experiences.
In fact, if we don’t recognize our students’ experiences with institutional prejudice and discrimination, the best we could do for our students is simply feeling sorry for them, what Boyle would simply call sympathy. This is akin to the white savior syndrome discussed in Pillar 2. If we can’t recognize our privilege, we can’t put ourselves in our students’ “shoes.”
In other words, empathy requires us to acknowledge our students’ realities. For example, if an African American student reveals that he experienced microaggressions in his business class, the act of acknowledging that the student did in fact experience race-based microaggressions and the ability to at least reflect on what that may feel like is empathy. Simply feeling sorry for the student only requires that we notice the student’s distress without actually understanding where that distress originated (this can look like a teacher telling a student that his teacher “didn’t really mean that” as an attempt to make him feel better).
Compassion, on the other hand, goes even further in creating an emotional connection with the student. Compassion compels us to act on our empathy, and it requires us to actively work with others in an attempt to seek justice and reconciliation, what Boyle calls kinship. In the example above, an empathic teacher will listen to the student’s experience, will acknowledge that the student’s experience is real (not a misinterpretation), and will provide words of encouragement. But empathy ends at these words of encouragement; this is as much as that educator is willing to get involved.
A compassionate educator, however, will take action. After listening to the student, this educator will help the student identify services, like personal counseling, this educator will help the student create a plan for discussing the microaggression with the offending instructor, or this educator may help the student file a grievance. This seems easy enough, but the actions that stem from compassion can require quite a bit of commitment and energy. I’ve had colleagues who have given rides to students who had unreliable transportation, provided snacks and lunches for hungry students, and even vouched for them in courts of law.
But compassion can be as easy as walking students over to financial aid and introducing them to a financial aid officer, lending a books to students because they can’t afford all of them, offering to schedule appointments with students outside of office hours because they have tight work schedules, or even simply calling students because they missed a class. What’s important is that we take a genuine interest in our students’ success and well-being.
Finally, it is important to recognize that educational equity cannot exist without compassion. Recall that educational equity requires two practices: the first is acknowledging our students’ lived experiences and the institutional barriers they encounter inside and outside school; the second is working toward the elimination of these barriers, whether it be for a small group of students in our class or a large group of students at the college. Empathy only requires us to only fulfill the first of these two practices. Compassion obliges us to work towards the second.
Without question, most people get into education because they care about students. What differentiates empathic teachers from compassionate ones is what they’re willing to do to help their students overcome institutional and socio-political barriers and discrimination. The former settles for words of support. The latter acts in the interest of justice.
Again, educational equity doesn’t require us to give rides to students or to buy them lunches. These are extreme cases. But every educator can help students identify resources, every educator can provide a quiet space in our offices to read or do homework, every educator can contact students who miss classes. It is the small actions that often mean the most.
As practice, here are some scenarios for you to reflect on. What would you do in each instance? What would your compassion look like?
A student disappears from class for two weeks, and when he gets back, he tells you that there was a death in the family. He had to travel to rural Mexico unexpectedly for a funeral, and he did not have access to email nor international calls.
A student unexpectedly gets pregnant midway through the semester and has decided to terminate the pregnancy, which requires a small operation and an enormous emotional burden. Hence, the student will need a few days off from school. How do you react when she shares this with you? What will you do when she gets back from her recovery?
A member of a student’s family is getting married, and it is a cultural expectation that she help plan the wedding, set up for it, and clean up. She will also be responsible for looking after her little cousins, nieces, and nephews while the adults run errands and prepare for the wedding. As a result, she will have to miss a week of class.
A student seems visibly upset in class, and when you ask him what is wrong, he tells you that another student used a racially derogatory term in class and the teacher did nothing about it.
A student with a physical disability is late for class almost every day, and when asked why, he says that the company that has been contracted to pick him from home and to drop him off at school is always late because the driver has to pick up other students and drop them off at other schools.
A female student approaches you and tells you that she feels uncomfortable whenever one of the male students in the class wears a shirt that features a scantily clad woman in a bikini
A student who serves in the Army Reserve has required training in two weekends, and he will have to miss two days of class. He will have no access to the internet while he is on base. Furthermore, this training will happen again in two months, and he may have to miss the final exam.