Sunday, November 9, 2014

My FIRST big takeaway

After reading chapters one and two of Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen, I found one of the concepts he presented really stayed with me. Jensen's list on page 19 of behaviors displayed by children in poverty painted a clear picture of some of my own students. The list included "'acting-out' behaviors, impatience and impulsivity, gaps in politeness and social graces, a more limited range of behavioral responses, inappropriate emotional responses, [and] less empathy for others' misfortunes." The children who show these specific deficits in "soft skills" are often punished for behaviors they can not yet understand nor rectify. We expect kids to enter school with a myriad of skills that many of the children do not yet have and may never learn without a teacher's specific guidance and effort. We need to show patience, with these children in particular, and teach them (over and over and over again) how to handle various situations that crop up throughout a school day, and ultimately throughout life.

On page 18, Jensen provides the reader with an "Emotional Keyboard" (fig. 2.1) on which he notes there are only six 'hard-wired' emotions which children do not need to be taught in order to experience. Only six! Those six feelings include sadness, joy, disgust, anger, surprise, and fear. The amazing implication of this information is that the majority of kids (who are not living in poverty) are able to learn the additional, more complex emotions from their parents and family.

Emotions that Jensen lists as taught include humility, forgiveness, empathy, optimism, compassion, sympathy, patience, shame, cooperation, and gratitude. How difficult life must be without these emotions in your repertoire! Reading these lists, I found myself understanding why my own students demonstrate 'hard-wired' emotions when 'taught' emotions would be more appropriate. As a speech-language pathologist, I work exclusively with children who are identified as having a disability of some sort. Whether it is an articulation disorder or something more complex, my students often have additional challenges to overcome and compensate for in academic situations. Kids in poverty with disabilities have the added challenge of not getting their basic needs met from one day to the next, which is a reality I must consider in my treatment style with these children.

{Sidenote: I must mention that I do wonder about the validity of the information on 'hard-wired' emotions, only because I recall learning (in a child psychology college course ten years ago) that infants responded with what seemed to be empathy when they could hear another child crying (by starting to cry themselves). I am not arguing that Paul Ekman's research is not valid (as I have not had the opportunity to read the article cited), but I would be interested to know if infants are born with empathy, but it is somehow 'untaught' through the course of their childhood, or if what I've previously learned was false.}

4 comments:

  1. Interesting comment on whether or not children are hardwired with emotion. As a parent I have seen my own children cry at an early age because their brother or sister was crying. Was it empathy or was he or she just scared?

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  2. I was wondering the same thing! I also remember learning about that in child psychology. I think we are born with some sort of empathy, but maybe if it's not recognized or built upon, it can begin to diminish. We might have feelings of empathy, but if we are raised in a household where the motto is "suck it up" or "deal with it" because life is tough, our view of what empathy is begins to change. We no longer know how to properly handle those situations.

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  3. I enjoyed reading your comments. I have been reading on the topic of child empathy as well. There seems to be a lot of research to suggest that children begin to develop patterns of empathy at an early age. I am reading the book, "Roots of Empathy" that was suggested last year by Mr. McNeff. This training program starts with children at age 5 and provides interaction/observation time for them with a helpless infant where they learn to empathize at times with the baby when his needs aren't met and he is unhappy, or vice versa. It's an interesting model.

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  4. Thanks for your comments! It may be that when infants cry in response to another infant or child crying that it is the fear response and not empathy at all. How could we tell? Perhaps we could study scans of infants' brains at different times when they cry and compare them to older children who are showing empathy? Maybe there is a study like this already, and I'm just not aware of it. I may have to check that book out, too!

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