As we approach the end of 2013
I would like to thank readers of belizeguidance.blogspot.com and my Guidance
Counselor column for their loyalty and participation/comments, or sharing
my articles. I am thrilled to note that,
this year, readers from Belize as well as 32 other countries in six continents
read my blog and Guidance Counselor articles; many readers, including Belizeans,
expressed their concerns (via blog, email, and various media outlets) regarding
Education in Belize as well as in other countries. Despite the fact that the Belize Education
System classifies me as a “retired” educator, I still look forward to tackling
and discussing many more challenging topics on Education, including some that
many powerful people would prefer not to discuss publicly.
This year, I grew another year
older and wiser as a parent and “retired” educator; however, I remain very concerned
about the direction(s) in which youth throughout the world today seem
headed. Interestingly enough, my parents
before me and their parents before them probably thought likewise. However, this year and several times since
1999 (Columbine) in the USA there have been violent mass shootings and suicidal
massacres in Elementary and Secondary schools by students of all ages. Moreover, each year now, in an effort to
create bully-free schools throughout the world, the entire month of October is
devoted to trying to counter and diminish bullying in schools, and foster a
greater awareness of this violent and hostile problem. Considering these
psychologically and physically damaging and all too familiar occurrences in
schools today, as we end this year I directly pose more pressing questions to
all readers, especially parents and educators throughout the world,
1.
Do young people today know what it is (or how)
to empathize with others?
2.
Have we taught our young people, past or
present, the great value of experiencing empathy?
3.
Is it really their fault if they (youth) choose
to stay on a very indifferent or self-centered road, as so many of them now
seem fully entrenched on?
4.
Unlike robots, can students “learn” values
without experiencing empathy?
5.
In this highly-advanced and rapidly-advancing
Technological Age, are we adequately preparing our youth to live in a world of
tomorrow, where many of us adults today will not exist?
A “no” answer to any one of
the above questions signifies that already our young people are in big trouble,
and are fully headed for even worse!
Many hostile and dehumanizing
criminal events often disrupt daily life in Belize today. They not only keep increasing an already high
level of poverty and crime in our society, but very negatively affect our once
world-renown peaceful way of living.
Worse even, they are causing our youth to feel less and less human, and
become more and more violent and indifferent toward each other. Yet, political leaders, Education
policymakers, and the overall public in Belize seem to stubbornly and adamantly
prefer to think that the problems caused by and/or among our youth today will
probably or eventually “blow over like a lee sea breeze”. Well, no matter how often that very convenient
Belizean phrase may be used by those who are “in charge”, current problems,
especially in schools, will not just blow over.
Today, many people in our
global society feel no empathy (not sympathy) whatsoever for others. As a result, the rich keep getting richer and
the poor even poorer, and this vast polarization keeps getting wider. The new Pope, leader of the Catholic Church,
considers this concern a top priority and constantly reminds everyone of the
urgent need to address this situation. Unfortunately, many rich and/or poor parents
today do not have the time to teach or show (by example) our children how to
cope with conflicts -- internal or external. It also seems that both the busy
professional/career parents and the extremely poor ones who are always away
from the home now expect schools alone to teach values, including empathy! But, should schools bear that responsibility?
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
defines em-pa-thy as, “the feeling that you understand and share another
person’s experiences and emotions: the ability to share someone else’s
feeling”. The full definition provided
includes, “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and
vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience of another of
either the past or present without having the feelings thoughts and experience
fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner”. In simpler terms, we empathize with others
when we try to identify with them and make an effort to understand their
circumstances and behavior(s), especially if they are different from ours. Teachers, administrators, guidance
counselors, social workers, politicians, and all those who work directly with
the public (all ages) must make an effort to have/experience empathy for the
people with whom they deal everyday.
Those who administer Human Resources in corporations, unions, or any
institution are required to be professionally trained and qualified to
empathize with employers and employees.
English teachers explain to students who must study great works of
literature (plays, novels, short stories, poems, etc.) that the way to
appreciate them is by trying to empathize or live through the characters that
each author portrays, whether they be rich or poor, good or evil. The opposite of empathy is indifference, or
“I could care less about you”.
Before our modern and global
Age of Technology, “parenting seminars” or “motivational speakers and coaches”
were rare, yet today they are needed more and more.
Society used to hold Elementary schools responsible only for teaching
students the 3 R’s or basic Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be the
only responsibility of schools today.
More and more, social and emotional learning, SEL curricula, are being
introduced in schools in developed countries like the USA. Just as we learned to use (and copy, i.e.
CXC) the British system of Ordinary and Advanced (O and A) Level examinations,
I am sure that we could learn to work more positively and productively with
young students in Belize today by studying how schools in other countries
implement SEL curricula. One such school
in the USA (Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility) stresses the
4 R’s with students: Reading, Writing,
Respect, and Resolution. Without a
doubt, these type schools advertise new job descriptions and
preparation/qualification requirements for teachers. In the peaceful and compassionate spirit of
Christmas, I encourage policymakers of our Belize Education System to adapt
similar SEL curricula to help provide young students with much-needed coping,
communication, and resilience skills that so many of them just are not getting
at home anymore. In another article I
will provide detailed examples of SEL curricula.
Once more, thank you readers
for your loyalty this year and for your participation and comments, going back
to when I first loudly urged everyone in Belize to, Wake Up And Smell the Coffee.
Author’s Note:
On belizeguidance.blogspot.com
the article that received the highest readership and got the most comments this
year was, Belize: A Nation at Risk
These articles are not intended
to be comprehensive or complete. They
are written and contributed in an effort to provide a “starting point” for
valuable discussion amongst educators, students, and the community. If we discuss and review students’ learning
capabilities and the ways in which we currently try to educate them, then we
can learn from our mistakes as well as success.
Way to go, fellow educators!
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