Empathy is Key: Rekindling the Desire for Learning Amid a Crisis of Curiosity

We're all searching for ways to ease the pain and stress of the quarantine. During Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) a good number of us have made new connections with each other and with a world suffering unspeakable losses to COVID-19, while living, and hoping, for an end in sight.

The concept of empathy matters more than ever—it's an issue that's garnered increasing attention over the past decade. Empathy should hopefully call to mind much-needed and celebrated educator qualities like nurturing and support as opposed to still being mistaken for a fancier version of coddling and enabling. There is definitely much more to learn about empathy and its vital importance for the roles played by schools, teachers, families and communities.

Here's a great place to start: if you're an educator or leader and haven't checked out A.J. Juliani's podcast series Leading with Empathy (Scratch Your Itch), you're missing out—yet another great listen suggested to me by my "Leading Digital Learning and Innovation" professor, Stephany Anderson!

In his most recent episode, which serves as a bridge between interviews, Juliani hints at future work that will explore what "empathetic" actually looks like as an everyday phenomenon and practice, especially through the lens of storytelling, which, as this episode proposes, might be an even more powerful educational resource than technology!

Storytelling, Juliani says, "builds empathy...Stories provide a window and a mirror into our lives and the lives of others. And isn't that what empathy's all about, right? Putting yourself in another person's position and predicament."

Technology has pushed and blurred the boundaries of what's possible. But for the more slowly evolved human brain, stories lend narrative coherence to content. Storytelling is therefore a fundamental mode of sense-making, a principle vehicle for what we commonly call meaning; it is an ancient practice that allows us to make sense of both ours and others' experiences, thereby fostering empathy.

To better understand the personal journey of the author, I've decided to start from the beginning of his podcast series, where there are some very interesting early interviews with Trevor Ragan, Angela Duckworth, and James Clear, among others.

I've begun to familiarize myself with Ragan and Duckworth, while Clear is a must read. I've had the opportunity to write and post here a little bit about Ragan's podcast. So I'd like to linger for a moment on Duckworth's current work in the context of her well-known book and eponymous TED Talk, Grit.

This seminal study has laid the foundation for some promising research, as discussed in Juliani's podcast interview with the guru of grit herself. They build on this portrait of resilience to also talk about equity, empathy, and curiosity. Retracing the steps of her inquiry, Duckworth explains that it was the achievement gap—"what a kid could do and what they were currently doing"—that kept her up at night.

At the outset of her career, Duckworth challenged herself to close this gap while teaching middle school; she discovered that her students' behavior was best explained by things like motivation, effort, response to frustration, confidence, interests, and curiosity. Conversely, "raw talent" did not appear to have any concrete predictive power when it came to performance and achievement.

These observations led Duckworth to embark upon a fruitful career in applied research psychology, where years later, she is now co-creator and director of the Character Lab, which specializes in "actionable" and science-based advice for parents and teachers. The motivation behind this research? Duckworth alludes to a "curiosity crisis" for students, arising from endless choices and distractions. This in turn results in negative behaviors that may fluctuate between two extremes: 1.), a kind of paralysis or inertia; and 2.), an aimless or never-ending search for self-purpose and passion; either of which may arrest one's full potential and development.

We've all seen stories of school refusal, teenage apathy, midlife crisis. But Duckworth aims for the root psychological causes, pursuing evidence that can be used in order to state, in plain and factual language, what we can do for kids NOW so that they, too, find themselves on a promising path toward becoming really good at what they do well into adulthood.

As in the animal kingdom, psychologists have found that we humans also tend to vacillate in turns, and not to engage simultaneously, between phases of exploration and exploitation, focusing on either foraging for new finds (opportunities, hobbies, passions) or safeguarding and building up our existing resources (habits, knowledge, skills). In the beginning, we want to nurture exploration while helping to hone the skills that ultimately prepare students to exploit whatever it is that they're good at and that gives them an ethos and a sense of purpose or value throughout their lives.

Duckworth and Juliani are naturally drawn, in the course of this interview, to the work of educators and scholars focused especially on empathy, which is a "place to start." It would actually appear to be THE first step. It takes time to "rekindle curiosity," as Duckworth notes, likening the process to building a slow-burning fire from scratch. Can we insert Castaway or favorite Survivor episode here?

The problem with curiosity, as Duckworth notes, is that there is no "yardstick" for it in the education and working worlds. For example, her own curiosity has to do with her truth, her lived experiences, but she would be the first to say that despite whatever adversities or opportunities she has had along the way, she has also developed character. When I think about character—which Duckworth defines as very similar to Martin Luther King's and Aristotle's conceptions of it, namely, social and emotional competencies and the basis of a life well-lived—I envision it as an outgrowth of grit and resilience, encompassing these and the other qualities, like mindset, empathy and curiosity.

A useful exercise in empathy that Duckworth suggests is the two-column list: "worries" on the left side and "resources" on the right (more popular terms on the Web are respectively "pains" and "gains"). This also represents a significant exercise in equity. It is obvious that these lists will vary widely, but it's the details, the powerful stories, which are able to lead to greater understanding. Here, we also have a clear, winning strategy for building a more inclusive classroom. Anyone not genuinely moved by any level of disparity, even if represented in a single student, should not be working in education.

At this point in the discussion we can all take a natural pause, a much-needed timeout, to reflect on what it is that we, as educators, are doing and can do for students and their families with such disparate lists of worries and resources, pains and gains. How can we nurture that exploration phase for those students who don't have quite so many things at their disposal that would allow them greater opportunity to find their purpose and passion in life?

I don't pretend to have an easy answer. In my very first blog post, I talked about how we can be more understanding of our students' needs in this unprecedented time. I've also taught in many diverse settings in NJ public schools, one of them being Union City, New Jersey, one of my absolute favorite places to teach. Where I am teaching now, in a close-knit and high-performing suburban community, the needs and resources are very different. The kids are the kids you have in terms of school attitudes and outlooks; it most often has to do with the community, school, and family cultures that shape the local working environment. As they say, it takes a village. My job is relatively easy, since I  have students who adapt fairly well to the demands of remote learning.

However, when I look back on the road thus traveled, I wonder how many of my former Union City students, for example, would have taken to ERT virtually from their homes. I know many would be fine; others I had the chance to know, not as much. There is so much inequality in New Jersey schools, that I cannot help but imagine the damaging effects of COVID-19 on the lives of many students and their families.

One could just as easily dismiss "empathy" as another edutalk buzzword, a now overused idea in the jargon of education. It is by no means easy to provide all students with the things they need to explore their passions married to their purpose, their truth, so that they can find the skills they need to hone for life.

But if empathy is nothing else than the relentless effort, doing whatever it takes—including the psychology, the pedagogy, the refinement, the art and the practice—to get all students there, what left is there in education? In the end, businesses may debate the economic merits of empathy, but there is not yet an abundance of it in the education world. Let's start by trying to connect with each one of our students during this crisis. Unlike higher-ed students, P-12  students cannot demand some of their tuition money back; their parents may or may not get a check from the IRS, but they're not getting their education tax dollars back. They depend on us, and we all have to make the effort to dig deep inside, grow, learn and always do better, in order to do what's right in service of our kids.

Anniversary (a poem)

Anniversary

It’s a cycle of death today on this blooming day of spring.
With April comes restrained optimism and tearful eyes.
“We’d love to keep you but we can’t.”
And so the same fate is handed to my colleague on her birthday.
We find ourselves adrift on stormy seas of uncertainty.
Then my mother raking the heavy leaves asks, “You know your nonna died today?”
The birds sing, and I remember how much my grandmother loved them.
How many nonni and how many parents have disappeared into the blasting sirens as children from the window wave goodbye?
“I love you but we can’t be together.”
How many of their stories got to be told?
Have yet to be told?
How many memories were written down?
How many others forgotten?
The weight of mortality,
An insidious invader,
Settles into humanity’s hearts and lungs.
My only fear would be to transmit this new malady to my mother.
So I stay inside, tend to the garden, and pass the time anyway I can.
The mind wonders, the connections grow, and the dead, hopefully, are with us.
Those who survive have no choice but to land on their feet.
Everything endures until it doesn’t.
None of us shall remain forever to see it.
I hold onto the faith that our beloved will watch us from above until we shall one day join them.
This just gives me peace but is not required by reason.
I want to believe in a plan.
The power of search is motive enough to traverse the roughest waters.


-RG, 4/7/20

Anniversario

Oggi è la morte che ci gira intorno in questa primavera in fiore.
Arriva in aprile l’ottimismo, moderato, con ancora le lacrime agli occhi.
«Vorremmo tenerti ma non possiamo».
Lo stesso accade alla mia collega il giorno del proprio compleanno.
Siamo in un mare tempestoso alla deriva senza bussola.
Poi mia mamma, spazzando foglie pesanti, mi dice: «Sai che tua nonna è morta in questo giorno?»
Sento cantare gli uccellini e mi ricordo quanto mia nonna li amava.
Chissà quanti nonni e quanti genitori sono stati portati via a suon di sirene spiegate mentre figli e nipoti li salutano dalla finestra?
«Ti voglio bene ma non possiamo stare insieme».
Chissà quante storie avrebbero potuto raccontare?
E quante ancora da raccontare?
Chissà quanti ricordi messi per iscritto?
E quanti altri dimenticati?
La consapevolezza della mortalità,
Invasore maligno,
Penetra nei polmoni e nei cuori dell’umanità.
L’unica mia paura sarebbe quella di trasmettere la malattia a mia madre.
Io allora resto dentro, mi prendo cura del giardino, passo il tempo come posso.
La mente rigira, i legami aumentano, e si spera i morti siano sempre con noi.
I sopravvissuti non possono fare altro che arrangiarsi.
Tutto è eterno finché dura.
Nessuno sarà in grado di rimanere, di vederlo.
Io continuo ad avere fiducia nella protezione dei nostri cari finché un giorno ci rincontreremo.
Almeno così avrò la pace senza bisogno di spiegare.
Voglio crederci ancora.
La ricerca è capace di domare le acque più agitate del mondo.

-RG, 7/4/20

Getting Candid: A Learning Culture for Thriving Organizations

This week I listened to a great podcast recommended to me by Dr. Stephany Anderson, who teaches my Leading Digital Learning and Innovation course at Monmouth University School of Education. It's official — I'm a total convert!

The podcast is called The Learner Lab; the podcasters are Trevor Ragan and his fellow Train Ugly team or "tribe." Their speciality is training individuals, teams and organizations for continued success by enlisting a wide array of research-based strategies oriented toward a culture and a philosophy of lifelong learning — or growth mindset. These strategies work because they focus on building productive, personalized relationships with individuals and groups.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about The Learner Lab Season 1 final episode, "The Key to a Better Learning Culture with Daniel Coyle and Amy Edmondson."

After having played this episode twice, with copious notes on the second listen, my next pursuit will be to read Coyle's The Culture Code and Edmondson's The Fearless Organization. Both books offer valuable insights into answering the question: What allows teams to work better together?

In this episode, this question is introduced by podcasters Trevor and Alex, beginning from the well-known Aristotelian premise that a team is greater (or sadly, sometimes lesser) than the sum of its individual members.

It's not really so much the dynamism of the individual members. Rather, it's the interaction of the group that's key. As they put it, the podcasters want to know what's in the "secret sauce" of productive interaction that leads to high-performing teams.

They discuss a five-year investigation by Google on the inner workings of group performance. Quite shockingly, after mining the data for correlations, Google learned that the following variables — variables that many of us tend to consider important — actually DO NOT predict team success:

• location of teammates
• consensus-driven decision-making
• extroversion of team members
• individual performance of the team members
• workload size
• seniority
• team size
• tenure

Instead, it was the ways the teams interacted that mattered. The podcasters then compare this outcome to a completely separate and different study, by Daniel Coyle, which led to the findings presented in The Culture Code. The author spent four years on the road studying groups from sports teams to high-profile heists, and what he found among the strongest groups was the same discovery as Google's: a high energy "electric vibe" among the members.

Amy Edmondson's concept of psychological safety has answered both Google and Coyle's search for an explanation of the link between group interaction and high performance. With two decades of research to back it up, Edmondson gives us the idea in a nutshell: Have we created a work environment where we're candid, where we speak up?

As Edmondson clarifies, psychological safety does not mean being happy or nice or polite or avoiding upsetting or disagreeing with people. It's something deeper than that. Being candid means stumbling and falling and picking each other up. Moreover, psychological safety "is needed for meeting standards" because to meet these, you need to speak up and take risks.

Needless to say, it is gratifying to have this very feeling — something many of us risk-takers have reflected on through our passions and our endeavors — validated as fact by the research. One sacrifices job security with risk, as Edmondson herself points out. But if you DON'T put yourself out there, you'll go unnoticed, and that's no way to keep your job either.

The podcast episode builds on these great observations by presenting the phenomenal success story of the Grinnell College Women's Volleyball team. Four seasons ago, they had won only two games. This last season, however, the team improved by leaps and bounds, finishing second in the conference and winning more games than any other athletic program in the College's history. The focus of the team this season was on building psychological safety, using Coyle's book The Culture Code.

In this context, the Volleyball team and podcasters outline the three stages or "buckets," as Edmondson calls them, of creating a better learning culture through psychological safety:

1. Stage-setting: Let's be real about the work we’re going to do. This means managing expectations, owning the fear of failure and the potential struggles, answering the why questions and the underlying motivations and science behind them, and creating group buy-in. A lot of “up front” energy is required to set the stage for building a growth mindset.
2. Proactive inquiry:  Inviting feedback encourages a feeling of safety and invites engagement and action. If I pose a thoughtful question, I'm not getting "a mute response." For example: Am I right? Will this work, boss? However, in order to invite engagement, you often have to model it! If I’m unwilling to tell you I messed up, how can I expect you to do the same?
3. Monitor your responses: How do you respond to a mistake? How do you respond to honest feedback? The way we respond can encourage safety. Inviting input enjoins problem-solving: Is the response productive? Even if critical?

For example, the Grinnell team has a philosophy of discussing mistakes in progress rather than focusing on outcomes. Tensions are seen as a source of fuel. The point is not to be the best of friends (or fake friends) but to promote continuous feedback.

Coyle and the podcasters wind down by posing the question: How do you build a safe environment? The science points to the signals that are sent through action and behavior. It is essential to send and resend behavioral signals of safety: you matter, you belong, we’re in this together — for example, the meals we eat together, our travels together on the road.

A final takeaway is the need to welcome newbies into the culture on day one without putting them through a process of proving themselves or some sort of initiation. As Coyle suggests, for new and veteran team members, it’s like lighting and relighting a candle. I am able to say to a great coach who sparks that light: You see me the way I see me. The best coach believes in me and gives me a sense of individualized belief.

This podcast episode provides powerful evidence that we have to invest in our culture of learning if we want to succeed. The way to do this is through the cyclical stages of building psychological safety.

That's why, when I thought about all this research, I titled this blog post "Getting Candid," as these discussions remind me of Kim Scott's radical candor that Katie Martin outlines in her book, Learner Centered Innovation. Indeed, the learning culture principles of candor and safety apply equally well to schools and classrooms! As I have learned, a product is only as good as the human relationships behind its creation. It is the bond between people that endures—our teamwork, our agency, our empowerment.