Empathy in Education: Sticky Ideas and a Constellation of Promises

• In Event: 28.075 - Feminist Affect Theory and Education: The Cruel, Complex (and Politically Inflected) Emotions of Teaching Today

Abstract

Building on Lauren Berlant’s conceptualization of cruel optimism, I propose that discourses of empathy in education work to obscure the very conditions of social injustice they are meant to alleviate. Drawing on my research with practicing Greater Toronto Area (GTA) teachers, as well as my own years of experience as a high school teacher, I argue that behind most invocations of empathy in education are pressing systemic issues, unaddressed.
Our wish to address injustice in its various forms is frequently coupled with the hope that we may do so through some sort of intersubjective transcendence – specifically, though the hoped-for miracle of uncomplicated empathy. As a result, in my work I treat empathy not as a discrete concept, but rather as a constellation of promises. In this formulation I am indebted to Susan Verducci’s (2000) theorization of definitions of empathy as constellation, and Lauren Berlant’s articulation of a “cluster of promises” (2011).
What are the promises animating the enthusiasm for empathy in education, those “sticky ideas” from which educators then have trouble extricating themselves? In this talk, I focus on four: the idea that knowledge of our students’ circumstances translates into an understanding of their inner lives; that meaningful understanding is possible outside of social context; that “knowing” is preferable to embracing the unknowable, and that teacher empathy is a necessary condition for our students’ flourishing.
Drawing on my analysis of teacher narratives, I argue that knowing something about our students’ interests or circumstances (lack of school supplies; preferred reading materials; home life; fondness for llamas) is not at all the same as having an understanding of their inner lives. Furthermore, teachers cannot meaningfully empathize with their students unless they learn about and implicate themselves in systems of oppression which shape the social context of their and their students’ lives.
Relatedly, the emphasis on empathy as achievable leads to teachers risking thinking they understand something they may not. Teachers not trying to empathize with their students, and instead operating from a thoughtful approach to human rights, individual students’ needs, and an awareness of what is unknowable, may be a much more promising stance than risking false understanding.
Ultimately, even if we as educators accept empathy as an ideal (and I don’t advise this) teachers’ relationships with their students cannot be predicated on an expectation of empathy. Ensuring that students are safe, well, and in possession of the conditions they need to learn and flourish is a societal expectation that needs to be upheld by all facets of society. The individual teacher’s empathy, while not inherently harmful, should not be constructed nor accepted as a necessary condition.

Author

• Polina Kukar, University of Toronto