Suzanne Kryder interviews Laurie Mulvie and Sam Richards

LM: Really simply, empathy is really just a thought experiment where we attempt to stand in the shoes of another person, even another creature I would say, and see the world through “through the eyes of that being.”

SR: I think that empathy is an opportunity to see the world from a perspective other than the one that we’re used to using. Empathy is one of the most difficult things that a person can do.

SK: Our program is about peace. Why is it important to empathize with our enemies and try to make peace?

SR: Well, you know, authentic peace never happens without some degree of empathy, without some degree of seeing the other person as a being that has the same kind of value that you do.

We do a lot of work with militaries. In the conversations I’ve had with officers on different sides of conflicts, [I discovered] how much respect so many career military people have for their enemy, their counterparts who are at the same level and rank that they are.

It’s so fascinating to imagine that, in this world of peacemaking, here it is; people are able to come together who are deeply entrenched enemies and they’re still able to have a sense of understanding and respect and empathize with that person on the other side of the battle. I think we see lots of examples of that. It happens even at that level.

Without some degree of that, we will never get to peace.

LM: I know from many colleagues in conflict zones around the world that after you war with your enemies, you still have to find a way to live together on the same planet.

We have a colleague in Northern Ireland who said, “We killed ourselves for a number of years, but then had to go back to the beginning and talk.” That’s one dimension of it.

The other dimension is really who are our enemies? I think that we often get it wrong. I actually think that our enemies are a lot closer and they’re people that we think that we trust. That’s a whole other conversation, but I think that we do a bad job a lot of times in terms of deciding who the enemies are. Once you start talking to people, you may realize that they’re not your enemy. I think it’s a different world.

SK: I wonder if my enemy is me.

LM: And then there is of course that for sure.

SK: How can empathy be less of an enemy to themselves?

LM: Every external conflict is a mirror to an internal conflict. That’s how I see it. If I can’t love and accept who I am, I certainly can’t do that for people around me. It’s cliché on one hand. Most of us have heard that many times, but walking into that every day is really powerful and changing. I think we see it all the time when we look at this conversation about who is our enemy.

SR: Yes, and I think when we’re in the territory of empathy, it’s really difficult to sustain an argument with somebody else when we’re really at peace with ourselves. This is the core of Buddhist philosophy, but it’s really at the core of all philosophies and religions and spiritual perspectives.

SK: Sam, you teach a sociology course at Penn State on race and ethnic relations. What does that have to do with empathy?

SR: I think that if we are going to make any progress in the world of race and culture and building bridges between different subgroups, it’s really critical that we listen to the experiences of other people and the perspectives of other people. Without doing that, we’re not going to make much progress because we will remain in our own small little worlds.

LM: What’s difficult about that is that this word “empathy” has become so popular in some ways that a lot of people assume that they’re doing that, i.e. looking at the world through the eyes of others, but it’s really a difficult thing to do and to do meaningfully. I think you actually have to get through a lot of noise, where people think they have already done that, in order to actually take that step and see more than you’ve already seen.

SK: Laurie, it sounds like there is this noise that we have to get through. How do people do that?

LM: You know, I think it actually happens during those quiet inner moments when somebody else has been willing to be vulnerable enough, sincere enough, maybe undone enough in some kind of space that you’re in to be able to share something authentic and uncut and raw and not for prime time so to speak. Something opens in your heart and mind and it’s received. It’s an interesting combination between public vulnerability so to speak and this inner quiet. That’s not something that happens naturally and often in a fast-paced world.

SK: Sam, you said it’s important to listen and not remain in a small world. Why can’t I stay in my own little small world and just be with people I like?

SR: Truthfully, that’s fine as well. The difficulty when we do that, when we stay within our small world or geographic or sociological address (as Laurie likes to say) and we encounter the other, it’s difficult to not judge the other, not to have negative feelings to struggle with.

LM: Or just to be afraid.

SR: Just to be afraid. The fact is we live in globalized world and so, at some level, for almost everybody, it’s important to at least have some kind of understanding of what the other worlds are.

LM: I think that there are also some people who are “bridge” people, the ones that go into different worlds and learn about those worlds and come back perhaps to their own world and share; “Hey, those people are like this, not like that,” or “We don’t have to be afraid of this or that.” I agree with what Sam is saying. Not everybody is going to do that or needs to do that, but I think the knowledge that it isn’t one or the other; either I’m totally local or totally global is the important piece. There are places where those worlds come together and that can be more meaningful and rich. It doesn’t have to be filled with fear and insecurity.

SK: What are a few things that our listeners could do to increase their bridges or their empathy?

SR: I think the most important thing that people can do is talk to people with whom they have not had a conversation. Most people are willing to talk. Whether it’s a rich person talking to a poor person or a poor person talking to a wealthy person or an urban person to a rural person or a Christian with a Muslim or a Jewish person with a Buddhist, just reach out and have those conversations.

LM: I agree. The simplest way to go from objectification, i.e. being an object or seeing somebody as an object to seeing them as the subject of their own lives is literally to talk to them.

I always say how amazing it is now that we have video conferencing technology, which we use a lot at World in conversation. We have dialogues that are virtual with students here in the U.S. and in different countries all around the world. It amazes me that as soon as the video goes on and people can see each other’s gestures and smiles it immediately changes the way people see each other. Suddenly, our students in Palestinian territories or Afghanistan are real. They’re real people talking about relationships and family and jokes. It sounds simplistic and superficial, but it’s actually profound. Literally just saying “hello” or saying a few words to somebody you thought you couldn’t will change the game fundamentally.

SK: I wonder if we’re asking too much of people for them to be empathetic. I’m thinking about the brain. You mentioned fear and judgement. Doesn’t the brain do that normally? How do we overcome that? Are we asking too much of our human brain?

LM: I think sometimes we are asking too much, so I think we have to recognize that there are limits to our ability to do that. As I know in the work that we do, just training facilitators is labor intensive. It involves all parts of us; mind, body, spirit. We have to limit that and that’s not something that people like to realize. When we have those interactions, they make a difference that’s bigger than thinking we’re going to do it for everybody.

SR: I also would like to respond. The research on children reveals that children are much less discriminatory than adults. There is a level at which it’s learned. It’s incumbent upon us to unlearn that.

SK: You’ve suggested talking to people. What if some people who are listening aren’t that great at talking? What are few tips about how to talk to people who are different?

SR: I often say to just start small. We have a growing population of Muslims in the United States and we have a growing chorus or ongoing chorus of people saying Muslims are dangerous. There is some degree of fear and trepidation.
Learn how to say “peace be upon you, Assalamu Alaykom,” and when you see a Muslim, just say that. It’s like walking up to someone and saying “Hello. Good day.” Just that simple engagement is phenomenal. You do it a few times and then you do it more times and in different ways and before you know it, you’re engaging in a way that you never thought you could.
LM: I want to underline in this, if you can’t talk, the most profound things happen when you’re listening. I think dialogue is important because a lot of times we don’t know what we think until we say it and then often, as we’re saying things, that’s not exactly what we mean, so we have the opportunity to revise our own beliefs and thoughts.
Probably the more profound side, I know it has been for me, is what I’ve been able to learn simply by listening in a deep way to things I haven’t heard before. I think actually what we all need to do is listen. I think that’s really what empathy is, it’s about listening from a different position than the one you’re use to listening from.

Suzanne Kryder interviews Eric Butler

SK: Eric Butler, what is empathy?

EB: The definition in the dictionary is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. The complicated word in that definition is “understand” because in order to have empathy you have to understand. In order to understand you have to do an action for the thing you’re trying to understand. “Empathy” is an action word.

SK: “Understand” is hard because what does “understand” mean to you?

EB: “Understanding” is also an action word. It means that I have the will to get to know a particular situation. It doesn’t have to be a person, it can be anything, but the will to really step into a situation the way that situation is, not trying to change it, but trying to be there and fit comfortably in that situation and understand how you feel in that situation.

SK: What are some blocks to empathy?

EB: Shame is a huge block to empathy. It’s hard to empathize if I feel like, at the end, I’m going to be faced with some type of shame.

SK: What can be done? Is there anything a person can do to reduce the shame?

EB: It depends on what you’re talking about. The first thing that comes to mind for me is racism. I think that white people have a sense of shame coming into a conversation about racial healing or racial justice or racial anything which makes it hard for them to empathize.

In situations like that, the thing that we have to do as opposites or black people or brown people is find the language to once again make white people feel comfortable enough in order to have this conversation. I think that it forces empathy.

Whenever I’m in a situation where I’m talking to white people about race, there is a stopping point and that stopping point comes at accountability when it sounds like the finger is being pointed at them. I’ve been in that situation myself quite a few times where the conversation stops when I have to start being accountable. I can listen to your problems all day with a sense of sympathy because I don’t have to have an action for that. I can say, “That’s too bad. I feel sorry for you” and we can move on, but once I’m forced into a situation where I have to empathize, that means that I have to look inward to find a reason to care enough to put myself in your situation.

SK: But language is really hard because we all have our own language and meanings. What can people do to try to find a shared language?

EB: I think intentional conversations are important. We are constantly, in the world of restorative justice, looking for reasons and resources in order to have these intentional conversations.

In fact, I’m having a conversation on Wednesday with about ten black dudes and ten white dudes on the conversation of race. In order to get those people at the table together, I had to have a relationship with almost all of those people or those people that I have a relationship with had to have a relationship with the people that they’re inviting. I think relationships and intentionally building relationships is the key start to finding out what our common language is. We don’t have any idea and the reason why we don’t have any idea is because we don’t care.

SK: Relationships are on a continuum; some are close and some are not that close. What are some tips you can give to our listeners about how to create those good relationships?

EB: It’s not something that you can necessarily give tips on. Like I said, you have to have a reason to want to build those relationships in the first place.

A good reason now to build relationships with people is the state of affairs that our country is in right now. We are being divided by an outside representative of something else and the reason why we can’t break free to the other side is because we don’t know each other.

When we are invited to a conversation about something that’s going to be hard to talk about, we should dive into those opportunities. Instead, we flake on them. They are all around us, people who want to have these conversations.
I think that the best advice that I can give is whenever there is an opportunity to have a difficult conversation, try to open your heart up to have that conversation.

SK: I’m not trying to be tough, I’m just curious. What can a person do to open their heart?

EB: We can continue to ask “why” and that could be a continuum, but we’re doing it now in this conversation. I think the answer is within in. For people who don’t have a problem opening up their hearts, to really go out and try to manipulate some of these relationships (and I know manipulation is a dirty word).

When we really, really want to meet people, we find a way to find the language to speak to those people. For people who are “woke,” maybe we should lead that charge in building those relationships.

I think that we kind of have an idea of how to do it, we just don’t want to do it. If you find somebody for example physically attractive and they go to church and you don’t go to church, when you’re in company with that person, you may find yourself pulling Bible verses out of your ass and that’s the manipulation of the relationship because the reason why I want this relationship is because I find this person physically attractive.

I work with kids all the time. I think that it’s very important that kids get as much education as possible. As a teacher, I have to be appealing to those kids. Often times, in order to manipulate those conversations, we don’t talk about algebra or whatever course I’m teaching, we’ll talk about life and maybe we’ll have an old school rap battle, ‘90s rap music versus the new age rap music, (something that I care nothing about) in order to manipulate that relationship. I have to get them interested. The burden is on me, the person with the most knowledge. As the person with the most knowledge in the room and the expert communicator, it’s my responsibility to find out what that language is.

I think that the advice that I would be giving is that the people who are truly “woke” and truly want to make a difference, those are the people that need to start this movement. Understand that there are going to be doors slammed in your face and when that happens, you just have to try to open that door again.

SK: Eric, you work in restorative justice. The definition of that is the rehabilitation of offenders using reconciliation.

EB: No. No, that is not [the definition].

SK: Well, what is it?

EB: Restorative justice gets the definition that you just described because the way that it has been implemented in the schools is as a tool that is used to deal with kids of color that are not behaving well.

What restorative justice actually does is find out what our common value system is and then begs the question how do we use that common value system as a way to penetrate our needs.

Empathy would probably be at the very top of our value system. How do we use empathy as a way to get the things that we need, for this example, schools? We do have empathy as a value in common.

SK: Why do people say they don’t value empathy?

EB: They would be lying. If somebody says that they don’t value empathy, they definitely would appreciate empathy if it was coming towards them in a situation where they needed empathy.

Empathy, as a conversation, is kind of like forgiveness. We can’t truly give really great examples unless we’re in those situations.

For example, I have a huge heart for forgiveness. I tell people to forgive all the time. In 2009, my sister was murdered. That was an opportunity where my forgiveness was really put to the test and it ran parallel with empathy because in order to forgive, I would have to find a reason. Now that reason deals with my empathy heads on, so how do I empathize with the man who murdered my sister? It’s often impossible to practice things like empathy and forgiveness unless you’re in those tragic situations.

SK: What can people do to empathize with an offender or an enemy?

EB: Well, I would ask people to find the purest part of that person. Usually, when we’re talking about the purest part of who you are, it’s probably going to have something to do with your birth. I can think about you as a kid, whatever happened to you as a kid and learn your story.

Like I said, empathy is an action word. That means I have to be willing to put myself in your shoes. I can’t put myself in your shoes, but what I can do is walk side by side with you and through storytelling, understand what made you who you are.
Often in practices of empathy, I ask the people that I’m teaching to imagine the worst person they can possibly imagine, and we would agree on who that worst person is collectively and figure out ways to empathize with that person.

How do you empathize with say Hitler? We’re just coming from our imagination. The only way we can is probably to turn him into a little boy again and imagine what he must have been taught, abusive things, and then we can see an abused kid. I can definitely empathize with being abused as a kid. I was too abused as a kid, so I can empathize with him on that level. In order for me to go deeper to empathize with Hitler, I would have to do something in that direction to try to understand and I don’t want to. That’s the thing that’s going to stop me from empathizing with someone like Hitler, because I don’t want to. I don’t have it in my heart to.

But to say you don’t believe in empathy at all, that’s bullshit because you’re going to believe in it for the things that you care about.

SK: Eric, it seems like empathy involves intellectual understanding as well as an emotional component. I’m wondering, when your sister was murdered, you could intellectually say you understand where that person came from, however emotionally, isn’t it still difficult to deal with the forgiveness aspect?

EB: I think what you just described was sympathy where I can sit down and have an intellectual [conversation] about what you’re going through and intelligently say, “You must feel this way. I feel bad about that.” There is no action required for that except thinking. Empathy requires you to act on what you just heard in order put yourself in somebody else’s shoes.

Suzanne Kryder interviews Courtney Custer about Roots of Empathy

SK: Courtney Custer, give us a thumbnail sketch of the Roots of Empathy program.

CC: Roots of Empathy is a social and emotional literacy program for elementary school and middle school children. It’s designed to increase student’s empathy and reduced bullying and aggression and increase their social and emotional skills.

SK: Courtney, how do you define empathy?

CC: Empathy is knowing how another person feels and responding to that. It sounds simple, but there are many children that really struggle with that. They have a hard time identifying their own feelings and they have a hard time identifying how someone else feels. That lack of social understanding can contribute to bullying and exclusion and aggression in schools, so we’re trying to combat those things.

SK: Courtney, who is the teacher?

CC: The teacher is a baby actually. We introduce an infant to the classroom that will visit the classroom periodically throughout the school year to help the children learn about emotion. We also have an instructor that guides every class. It’s not just the baby, but the baby is our star and the baby helps the children learn about emotions. There is also a lot built into the program about infant safety and infant development and child abuse prevention. The baby helps the children learn those things as well.

SK: The baby comes into the classroom. How old are the students in the classroom?

CC: The students can be anywhere from kindergarten through eighth grade. The curriculum is written for all those grade levels.

SK: Okay, so the curriculum changes based on the student’s ages?

CC: It does. The content doesn’t. We cover the same content areas or the same topics, but the way in which we discuss them and present them to children is written differently based on their developmental age.

SK: Courtney, tell us a story about a student in a classroom who really increased their empathy.

CC: A couple of years ago, I was teaching in a third-grade class and our baby was visiting that day. The baby was seven or eight months old and sitting independently. The baby reached for a toy, fell over and started to cry.

My job as the instructor is to coach the children about what just happened and what they noticed. I ask the students; “Can you identify how the baby was feeling?” A little boy raised his hand and said, “I think the baby is frustrated because he couldn’t get the toy and he fell over.”

Then from there we spring-boarded to talking about times when they felt frustrated and how they handled it and calmed themselves down. How did they not get out of control? Then I asked for examples of frustration and another little kid raised his hand and said, “I’m trying to learn how to ride a bike and I can’t figure it out and I’m very frustrated.” Then his neighbor sitting next to him said, “I live in his apartment complex and I know how to ride a bike, so maybe I can help him.”

That whole exchange, just from seeing the baby play, we got to increase their emotional vocabulary, identify their feelings, identify how a friend feels, how to help a friend, how to calm ourselves down when we’re upset.

That’s the power of the baby. Whatever is happening with the baby, the instructor’s job is to use that to guide the children to increase their social emotion skills.

SK: Babies are adorable!

CC: They are!

SK: I love babies. I remember seeing research about how people are naturally drawn in their brains to cuteness. There is something about our brains that helps us take care of and be empathetic with babies because they think the baby is going to keep the species going.

CC: Right.

SK: The thing is, every mass murderer was a baby.

CC: Yes.

SK: I’m curious, how does it translate to be empathetic with the baby to then be empathetic with a mean, scary adult?

CC: One of the things we’re trying to teach children is to be respectful and inclusive of everyone, regardless of who they are. In school, that can be very challenging. There is a lot of conflict that goes on between students who are different from each other or get bullied or left out.

Like you said, babies are just adorable and everyone connects to their cuteness and their humanity. One of the things we really highlight in the program is that babies are non-verbal, but they do tell you how they feel. They tell you with their body, they tell you with their face, they tell you with their noises and we really coach the children to try to pick up on that because if they can pick up on that in a baby, they’re more able to pick up on that in themselves and in others.

SK: I see, so when I’m older, if I was in the program, I would learn to read people’s faces and know if they are upset, so I should get away.

CC: Some children have a really hard time with that. Even if you ask them how they think their friend is feeling, they might have a hard time connecting with that. If we can build that empathy and that social and emotional vocabulary, it puts them in a better position to connect to their peers.

One of the things we know about bullies is bullies really do have a difficult time identifying emotion, either in themselves or in their victim, so if I can help them connected; “How do you think it felt when you pushed him down the slide and called him names and pointed at him? How do you think he felt?” Bullies have a hard time connecting to that and so if we can increase those social and emotional skills, they’re less likely to be unkind and mean because they know what that experience is going to feel like [for someone].

SK: The people in the program learn, even though they might be in kindergarten or first grade, to read people’s faces.

CC: Yes.

SK: That’s interesting because this guy, Paul Ekman, he’s done lots of studies on people’s faces. There is online test that I failed several times! It’s pictures of different faces, but he says it’s cross-cultural; it makes no difference what the culture is, all around the world, people still have the same facial expressions, but they’re very, very subtle.

CC: Yes, and babies are subtle in their facial expressions. That’s another thing we have the children do, a guided observation with the help of their instructor; “How would the baby tell us if they’re happy? What would their face look like? What would their body look like? How will the baby let us know if he’s feeling sad and needs mom? How will the baby let us know if he’s tired?” He might rub his eyes. He might yawn. We’re constantly coaching the children to try to pick up on those non-verbal cues because that’s what they have to do all day long with their peers. They have to be able to read each other’s cues in order to get along.

SK: Is reading cues part of the test?

CC: We don’t give any tests to the Roots of Empathy children, but the curriculum is designed to increase those skills, to increase their ability to identify how they are feeling, how a friend is feeling, what they can do to help and be changers in their environment.

Most kids are not bullies or victims, they’re bystanders to both of those things. One of the things we’re trying to do is empower those children to [realize that it’s okay to] advocate for themselves and friends. When they see someone being picked on on the playground, they can help them. If they are the one being picked on, they can ask for help. We’re trying to empower them as a group of children to stand up for themselves, stand up for each other and teach them to treat each other with more kindness and respect.

The baby is just such a great, powerful tool for reading non-verbal cues because, like I tell my students all the time, the baby can’t tell us he’s frustrated or happy, but the baby will show us and we have to be able to pick up on that. The kids get really tuned into how their baby is feeling.

We highlight all the different pieces of the relationship with the parents; how the baby grows and develops.

We teach the children that all the love and responsiveness they get from their parents helps the baby’s brain grow and teaches the baby that the world is safe and that they are loved and how important it is to take care of the baby. They don’t just need to be fed and diapered and clothed, they need to be loved and cuddled and responded to in a consistent way. That’s one of the things that helps the baby’s brain grow. What we teach children in Roots of Empathy is that love grows brains!

SK: Oh yes! That reminds me of attachment theory; how parents and babies attach.

CC: Yes, that’s one of what we call our program pillars in Roots of Empathy. We highlight attachment. We highlight that special bond between a mom or a dad and a baby. For example, when the baby comes into the room, if he’s feeling a little nervous, we might see the baby check in with mom [or dad] a lot, maybe turn back and reach for them, wants to be held. When that happens, I highlight that for the students; “Do you see what just happened? The baby looked back at mom [or dad] and needed a little comfort, a little reassurance that we’re in a safe place and no one here will hurt the baby.” We highlight attachment.

We’re highlighting the neuroscience piece by showing that this is how the baby’s brain is developing based on what the baby is getting from its family. We highlight the social and emotion piece.

All of this happens around the green blanket while we’re just observing and playing with our baby.

SK: Courtney, have you ever had a student in class who didn’t treat a baby with respect?

CC: Never. No. In fact, we have teachers tell us all the time when the program starts that they are concerned about one or two students, maybe boys, who are particularly unruly or aggressive and are we sure that they will be okay when the baby comes into the classroom. We’ve never had an incident of a student being unkind to a baby and that’s part of the connect to, like you said, the cuteness factor and humanity factor. Some of those quote “rough boys,” they go sit right next to the baby and just silently watch the baby and get so tuned into the baby’s behavior.

SK: Let’s say we have a listener who never is around babies. How could they take what you all learn in this program and translate it into something they could do?

CC: I think anyone can benefit from increasing their empathy. Just taking the time throughout your day to notice someone in your life or even a strange and ask yourself how they are feeling. Even just taking the time to pause when someone is a little off at work or a family member snaps at you or the person who serves your coffee is rude, there are opportunities all day long to just stop and reflect and try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and then respond accordingly. It never hurts to respond with kindness.

SK: Courtney, talk more about empathy. What can parents do to increase the child’s empathetic reactions at home?

CC: I think the best way to teach a child empathy is to model it. We can tell children all day to be kind to each other and to treat each other with respect, but the best way to do that is to model it. I think the most powerful thing parents can do is to try to model that for their children. Talk to them about how they are feeling, how someone else is feeling, how we should respond. Take the time to try to take someone else’s perspective. Take the time to try to understand someone else’s viewpoint. Reflect on where they are coming from. That takes a little bit of effort, but I think that’s the most powerful thing that parents can do is to model that behavior for their children because your children are always watching you.

SK: Courtney, a lot of our listeners are outside of New Mexico. What if someone wants to be connected with the program? Talk about how they can do that or get a program in their own community.

CC: The Roots of Empathy organization is always open to possibilities of where to expand the program. In terms of expansion, the best thing to do would be to peruse the website and get familiar with Roots of Empathy at www.rootsofempathy.org and there are opportunities there to connect with our international office in Canada and see if there is a possibility of getting involved in a program near you.