October 2020
This month's voice:
Michael Free, "On the Value of Empathy"
Introduction
By Lindsay Herron
Editor, KOTESOL Voices
When I approached 2020 KOTESOL International Conference Chair Michael Free about writing for KOTESOL Voices, I specifically chose the month of October. After all, had COVID never occurred, Michael would be counting down the days to our conference right now, and I thought he might be interested in crafting a piece on what it's like to be in this disjointed space, plans stymied and scrambled by the current situation. Instead, he eagerly accepted my invitation and asked if he could write on the topic of empathy, a theme that has been haunting him over the past year. The resultant reflection, which I'm delighted to share below, really resonates with me. It is delicate and deliberate, pensive and insightful; it makes one proud to be a teacher while also prodding us to contemplate our own attitudes and preconceptions. Are we doing all we can for our students—not just in the roles of teachers and learners, but as human beings mutually encountering, exploring, and experiencing life? I hope you enjoy his words and draw inspiration from them as much as I did. Happy reading!
On the Value of Empathy
By Michael Free
COVID-19 has taught us teachers a lot of lessons, hasn’t it? We’ve learned about technology, moving from questions like, “What’s Zoom?” through “Did I forget to unmute myself again??” to “How can I rename my breakout rooms so that students have a choice as to whether to work quietly, share ideas, or ask me questions?” We’ve learned about adaptability in the midst of a situation that was (and is) complex, dynamic, and (possibly) never-ending, moving from “When are they going to tell us if we’re online or F2F?” through “But are we going to be online for the whole semester?” to “How can I better prepare/adapt my materials for either online or offline?” Many of us dropped the “how” from that last question, and eventually ended up asking ourselves, somewhat despondently, “Can I even do this?” The answer to that last question, for most, was yes, in case you’re wondering. In the next few lines, I’d like to share some thoughts that I had as I reflected after last semester ended. It’s about empathy, and more specifically the value of empathy.
I’m going to forego defining the term, beyond noting that it often overlaps with sympathy. If you’re reading this, you’re most likely a language teacher and don’t need me to whip out my Merriam-Webster. Believe me, I understand and share your feelings about people who define terms when they don’t need to. [Insert wink emoticon here.]
If you know me only in passing, it might seem strange that I would have thought about empathy at all, let alone found it to be one of the most important lessons from last semester. After all, I’m a fan of vulgar humor (thanks largely to Frankie Boyle), a lover of extreme horror movies (France’s Martyrs and South Korea’s I Saw the Devil are among my favorites), and you’re more likely to find me at a pub than working on my mindfulness. But to quote President Beck (Morgan Freeman’s character in Deep Impact), “It just seems that way.” In fact, I’m coming to believe that it is our empathy and the value we place on it that connects us to each other as members of the teaching profession, as well as being one of the most important qualities we can offer our students—and indeed, ourselves.
I first realized the importance of empathy when I was near the beginning of my teaching career. It was “that time of the semester,” when I found I had a modest line of students waiting outside my office. (Yes, that’s how long I’ve been teaching, since the days when teachers had office hours and students showed up for them in person.) Near the back of said line was a student who was obviously upset. As in, I don’t know if she would have been able to stay in the line and wait her turn. So I motioned for her to come with me and politely made an excuse to the first person in line. Turns out she was upset and had a very good reason to be (no, I’m not sharing it). She didn’t know who to talk to but knew she had to talk to someone. We didn’t speak for long, but I gave her the best advice I could, pointed her in the direction of student mental health services (which she’d never heard of), told her to email her other professors and then to go home (home home, not campus home). She was rather shocked that I suggested she go home, but left, she said, feeling as though I had listened to her, provided some options, and was in her corner. Myself, I did not feel as though I had done anything particularly remarkable, but was happy that I had been able to help, even if only somewhat.
The above is what is called, apparently, compassionate empathy: “feeling someone’s pain, and taking action to help.” (I know because I just googled it.) If you’re interested, you can compare this with a few other types of empathy: cognitive, emotional, spiritual, and even somatic. I think this is a very common trait amongst career teachers.
More recently (we’re now in the present century), I had a student appear at my door at the end-of-semester “grade challenge” period. He had been absent for a significant part of the term but had explained his situation, and we had worked out a plan so he could complete the coursework. I thought he was going to complain about his grade, which had taken something of a hit due to the absences. Instead, he said he wanted to thank me for caring so much and helping him. I was baffled: what had I done that motivated him to come to campus to see me? Surely his other professors had made similar arrangements. Yes, he said, but I had listened and understood his situation without judging him. Perhaps this is what John Medina had in mind when he wrote, “Empathy works so well because it does not require a solution. It requires only understanding.”
I found it amazing that something I did quite naturally, as a matter of course, could have so much value to a student. These things we do, the many “understandings” that we have about our students in regular semesters, that we hardly notice, can have such a positive impact on our students’ lives. It feels like, at least in my case, my empathy is sort of hidden. I wondered if there were other students I had affected in a similar way who never mentioned anything (or, on the other side of the coin, students I had failed in some way because I didn’t understand or wasn’t listening).
Last semester, of course, was anything but regular. It was, for a good while, pure pandemonium. Students were confused and stressed. The administration was confused and stressed. Teachers were—well, you know! My overall response was to keep things as simple as possible, be as flexible as possible, and to make absolutely sure that my students knew that I understood they were under enormous amounts of stress. Moreover, that regular rules about deadlines and attendance were, while not forgotten, somewhat more...flexible. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt wherever I could. This was not always easy, because I was quite stressed out a lot of the time. But I was committed to the idea of being as empathetic as I could, because I saw the immense value of it. Because at the most important moments, that’s just what our students might need, or what our colleagues need, or what we need. And these days there are a lot of those moments—and it doesn’t just seem that way.
About the Author
Michael Free is from Canada (Toronto and Montréal). He holds two master's degrees: in TEFL (University of Birmingham) and in arts (McMaster University). Michael has worked in Korea for more than twelve years, primarily within the public school system, and always in the beautiful, spacious province of Gangwon. He is presently at Kangwon National University in Chuncheon. He is very active in professional development, organizing and presenting at conferences large and small, and doing teacher-training sessions whenever feasible. Michael was the co-chair of the 2019 KOTESOL International Conference, chair of the 2016 National Conference in Wonju, and has served as president of the Gangwon Chapter of KOTESOL. His professional interests include pronunciation, English as a lingua franca, and humanist education.
