Unit 2
Lesson 2
By Kirsten Weir
Amanda O. was in fourth grade when her mom passed away. Amanda had been bullied before, and, incredibly, older kids at school teased her about her devastating loss. “People bullied me about how I looked, how I dressed. They bullied me about my mom,” says Amanda from El Paso, Texas
Put yourself in somebody else’s shoes.
Amanda told the Head, who called the bullies’ parents. Amanda also confronted the kids herself. “I said, ‘You didn’t know my mom. She was my best friend. If you lost a best friend, how would you feel?’”
The bullies backed off, and Amanda felt good about standing up for herself. She may not have realized it at the time, but Amanda was asking her tormentors to have a little empathy.
Empathy is a matter of learning how to understand someone else—both what they think and how they feel.
In other words, empathy is being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Many people who bully others are particularly weak in that department. Bullies don’t seem to have a lot of empathy.
The good news? Empathy is something you can learn. In fact, teaching empathy to prevent bullying is more effective than punishing bullies after the fact. And anyone can learn it. In teen programs every semester bullies change their behaviour.”
You don’t have to be a bully to benefit from developing empathy. Having compassion for others is a valuable skill that everyone should work to improve, she says. “I think everyone needs to develop more of it.”
Emotional Intelligence
Why do people bully so much? Turn on the TV, and you’re bombarded with news and reality shows highlighting people fighting, competing, and generally treating one another with no respect. Humans learn by example— and most of the examples on TV are anything but empathetic.
There are good reasons not to follow those bad examples. Humans are social by nature. Having relationships with other people is an important part of being human—and having empathy is critical to those relationships. Researchers have also found that empathetic teenagers are more likely to have high self-esteem.
Empathy is also a sign of a good leader. Good social skills—including empathy—are a kind of “emotional intelligence” that will help you succeed in many areas of life. Knowledge is important. But if you don’t have emotional intelligence, you won’t be as successful in work or in your love life.
Have you ever watched a classmate being teased or pushed around, without intervening? Imagine that victim was your little brother or a close friend. How would you feel about the situation then? It takes both courage and empathy to confront a bully or to report an incident to a teacher. It may not be easy, but working together is the best way to make schools safer.
In 2010… - 50 percent of high school students admitted that they’d bullied someone in the past year. - 47 percent of high school students said they had been bullied or teased in a way that seriously upset them.
Source: National survey by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, 2010