Choosing Truth

By Jeffrey Bowen

There were no warning labels

On the life I chose to make,

But I knew I’d never find the truth

Unless I made mistakes.

And truth is something better

Than unreasoned certainty.

I believe the truth remains that way

No matter what you think you see.

Science doesn’t always prove a theory,

But at least it goes beyond some claims.

I’d rather learn what’s really real

Than find some fool who I can blame.

So my life will always stay with reasons.

It’s a choice I had to make.

At night I sleep much better

Knowing knowledge isn’t fake.

I am searching for a better world,

With room for joy and wonder,

But meaning lies in simple truth,

Without it we soon blunder

Into making bad decisions

And selling false realities.

I’d sooner hear the honest truth,

That’ssave who I chose to be.

We have to have the will to doubt

Amid the consequences.

After all we’re human,

And sometimes lose our senses.

But always rise above mistakes.

Learn more than what we’ve lost.

Truth belongs with certainty,

It’s always worth the cost.

Should Empathy Become A High School Graduation Requirement?

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­What if we required every high school student to demonstrate empathy in order to graduate?  I can already hear an avalanche of reservations triggered by educators who would object to one more mandate on their instruction, and by parents who might wonder just what empathy is and how to assess its presence in their children.

Let us put the mechanics aside for a moment, and consider the meaning and context of such a seemingly outlandish idea.  First and foremost, what is empathy and why do we need it? 

In current psychology, the term works in three related senses:  first, knowing another person’s feelings; second, feeling what that person feels; and third, responding to someone else’s concerns by word or deed.   Simply put, this means stepping into another’s shoes, both cognitively and emotionally, and really understanding or relating to what they are going through.    

Empathy can appear almost instinctively at a basic emotional level when you read another person’s facial expression and cannot help but mimic it.  On a higher level, it requires social awareness and understanding.  For example, a doctor who is treating a dad’s case of cancer should listen responsively and receptively not just to dad, but to all of the family members who are affected.  After compassionately digesting those collective concerns, the empathetic doctor should reach beyond a clinical explanation and really treat the whole family.  In fact, research has shown that such doctors generate better medical results with their patients.    

Another way of looking at empathy involves considering the effects of its absence. Daniel Goldman, an expert on social and emotional intelligence, calls these effects the “dark triad”.   They include believing that others exist to adore you (narcissism), that selfish ends justify the means, and that emotional pain and remorse in relation to others is meaningless. 

The preceding makes a strong case for empathy as a life skill.  But what difference does it make for our schools and their inhabitants?

 According to growing research evidence, not to mention common sense, a big difference!  Students with high levels of empathy reportedly display more classroom engagement, better communication skills, and more prosocial behaviors than their peers.  Extensive comparative studies document an 11-13 percentile point advantage in test scores for students who participate in focused social-emotional learning programs.  The most recent studies show international consistency of findings and both immediate and enduring effects.   

Consensus is growing around the idea that empathy is best activated when teachers not only demonstrate it themselves, but also build it into their daily instructional practices.  The competencies teachers should nurture include:  effectively reading emotions; recognizing and validating the feelings of others; finding positive ethical compasses; compassionately embracing cultural and historical perspectives; controlling one’s emotions; practicing kindness; collaborating to reduce conflicts and solve shared problems; and community service projects.   

Challenging teachers to inspire student competencies like these is not unrealistic because it already prevails in most classrooms, but may not yet be formalized in the curriculum.

Our state’s newly mandated mental health education requirements promote “attitudes and behavior that enhance health, well-being, and human dignity.”  The implications of social-emotional learning accompany our State Education Department’s extensive written guidance for strengthening the mind-body connection physically and emotionally.

 Extracurricular activities and school community events may foster wonderful opportunities to build empathetic relationships.  The values and practices of parents can set the primary stage for positive mental health in school and community   Principals and district leaders can make the term a watch word and heighten cultural awareness in a multitude of organizational ways.  What is even more, as our students look toward the future, they will find employers prize employees who exercise relevant social and emotional habits.     

The difficulties of measurement work against empathy becoming a graduation requirement anytime soon.  However, widespread attention to positive mental health as a curb to bullying and substance abuse suggest our journey toward empathy is well underway.

A good way for parents to help children think about empathy is to ask them before bed to tell you about a time that very day when they saw a teacher, classmate, or some other individual perform a remarkable act of kindness or empathy.  Try this out on yourself and you might sleep better.

1/16/2019

Lessons I Learned from Teaching U.S. History

 Lessons I Learned from Teaching U.S. History

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 I learned some unforgettable lessons from my first year of teaching U.S. history to high school juniors and seniors in 1969.   Nearly all of my students were white and economically advantaged in Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Maryland.   My curriculum was framed by a thousand-page tome entitled “The American Pageant”.   A department mentor supplied a course outline, some time-worn mimeographed worksheets, and a cranky overhead projector.  Mostly I was left on my own to journey through the textbook’s exhaustive chronology of political, economic, and military developments.     

Naturally I wanted to help my 125 students remember enough to pass the course and graduate.  Yet I also rationalized that I could use history as a tool for critical thinking and big ideas about American character.  

Was I ever naïve!   I was trying to inspire interest in a textbook crammed with the publisher’s mind-numbing interpretations.   Besides boring my classes with a slew of forgettable historical facts, I was doing little to make our past relate to the present.  

 In 1969 we were passionately, sometimes violently launching the beginnings of the civil rights movement.  I had watched the skylines of Baltimore and D.C. burning the year before, as the national guard patrolled our streets.  There was growing discontent over the Vietnam war, and protests were getting louder and lifestyles were turning psychedelic.   My students and I remained comfortably oblivious to events of the day.  It actually surprised me when just one of my most rebellious students skipped school to listen to the daily reading of the war dead on the steps of the Capitol.  I persisted in disassociating the day’s issues from my teaching though ironically, by Valentine’s Day, I had received my draft notice and would spend the following year in Vietnam.

Another fallibility was my tendency to lecture and harness myself to the textbook as a main resource.  I was only trying to stay one factual step ahead of my most assertive students, but I was defaulting to advice I once heard from a workshop presenter: “I am here to teach, you are here to listen.  Raise your hand if you finish before I do!”  

Finally, our textbook, which still sits on my bookshelf, comes back to haunt me.   The American Pageant has been reprinted 13 times, but it continues to prove its original author’s observation: “Old myths never die – they just become embedded in textbooks.” 

Pageant is just one of 18 current texts examined by historian James Loewen whose best seller, “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” makes it abundantly clear that we are still trapped by Eurocentric misconceptions that “precolonial” native Americans had little to contribute to our culture, lacked technology (including guns), and had no idea what was really meant by property ownership.   Multicultural diversity and mutual accommodation were quite real 300 years ago, but the textbook I used as a resource never let this interfere with the story that white society was superior in every way and sanctioned by God.  

If I were teaching our history today, given adequate primary sources, I would start by coaching students to understand that acculturation works in many reciprocal directions.  I would ask them to enliven their learning by investigating their own ancestry as well as the embedded roots of today’s hot issues.  I would urge my students to ask why questions, the kind that demand the use of primary sources and live interviews.  

As for our native population, these days I would ask my students to consider what is meant by “America First” when we have 326 Indian reservations in our country, each one considered a sovereign nation.  Indeed, I have learned that history is a moving target.  We interact with it constantly, and thereby it changes. Ignoring our past may not mean that we repeat its mistakes, but its echoes send important messages. 

  Fortunately, as my first year of teaching flew by, I began to discover how to make U.S. history an empathetic experience.  An English teacher colleague and I were given time to co-teach a short course on World War I.  By mating historical events with fictional novels, we tried to immerse our students in the emotional grips of war and its devastating consequences.  We sought to help students feel how others felt, and to encourage and integrate different perspectives.   At other times, I staged debates and encouraged my students to present reasoned arguments, so they could advance and defend both sides of issues.  I started to rely on cooperative and differentiated approaches, hoping to individualize lessons and to avoid the one-way street of endless lecturing.

As I gained ground in teaching, I grew to appreciate the challenge of making history topically relevant and fair minded.  It is tempting to grab pieces out of context, but it takes enlightened teaching to help our children see it clearly and without premature and poorly informed judgments.

 Our collective civic future is at risk.  We have let our own history become a stomping ground for publishers rather than fertile territory for critical thinking, for exercising communication skills, for self-discovery and compassion.   There are multiple dots between America’s past and present.   When we connect those dots, we must look between the lines to see and feel the whole landscape with its many different routes to truth.