“Empathy cannot be taught, it must be lived”

Since January, a thousand French schools have been experimenting with teaching empathy. These workshops, set up to counter school bullying, will be generalized to all schools, from kindergarten to high school, in September. But can empathy be taught?

“Empathy cannot be taught, it must be experienced. It is lived, therefore it is learned,” summarizes Omar Zanna, professor of sociology at the University of Le Mans, in France, and author of several works on the subject. This doctor in sociology and psychology has been studying empathy for several years. A notion that he defines not as the ability to put oneself in the other’s place – which is impossible – but as the ability to perceive the subjective world of others “as if” we were that person. Although humans are born with a disposition toward empathy, it must be educated to be developed. Through experience, through the body, by being in contact with others.

At a young age, children learn through mimicry. By seeing his parent smile, the child comes to understand that he is happy, therefore that he is experiencing a pleasant situation. This is emotional empathy. Another type of empathy, cognitive, begins to develop around the age of 4. If the first is innate, the second is more the result of learning, which according to several experts, must be done continuously, until the end of adolescence, both at school and at home.

Prevent harassment

In France, school bullying has been at the heart of the news in recent years, after a series of dramatic cases were exposed, some of which led to suicides. Last fall, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, then Minister of National Education, made the fight against harassment his “absolute priority” by announcing a series of measures including the generalization of “empathy courses” in the school curriculum.

What will these courses be about? It’s still time to experiment, says Omar Zanna. One of the methods tested is the “Fri For Mobberi” (“free from harassment”) program, implemented in Denmark since 2005 and in France in certain schools. The activities are designed to provide children with experiences. “We discuss, we exchange, we teach the children to speak respectfully to each other and if there are any slip-ups, we will start again by asking a question so that the child can elaborate for himself,” explains Chahra Joubrel-Mehari, former -preschool teacher and “Vivre ensemble–Fri for Mobberi” trainer in France, also qualified in positive discipline.

School staff members thus become “conductors”, she illustrates, by supporting children on a daily basis, not only in the development of empathy, but also in all socio-emotional skills. “We cannot respect others without respecting ourselves, we cannot understand others without understanding ourselves,” indicates Chahra Joubrel-Mehari, who also finds this emphasis placed by the French ministry on empathy reductive. .

For Omar Zanna, France is on the right track, but the deployment of a program adapted to all levels will take time, and that is normal.

If the teaching of empathy cannot be decreed, it is because the conditions must be created. “I can’t give you a lesson in empathy by specifying what to do and not to do. To truly solicit and cultivate empathy, it is necessary to do so in an interaction situation. » According to Mr. Zanna, it is necessary for teaching and professional practices to transform to make empathy a constant concern. In particular, it calls into question the traditional “going to the board” exercise, often individual and distressing for students, which should be reviewed to promote the learning of socio-emotional skills.

Marie-Claire Roy, teacher of 6^e year at the Rocher–D’Auteuil school in Rimouski, also thinks that the teaching of empathy must be transversal. A few years ago, she convinced the management of her school to put relational pedagogy and the learning of socio-emotional skills at the heart of the establishment’s educational project.

” The Ministry [de l’Éducation] provides us with a very thick catalog of socio-emotional skills, in which there are many prescriptions and ideas for activities, in French, in visual arts, in ethics, she underlines. It is very good. But we ask ourselves: “How do we apply it on a daily basis?” This is the question I wanted to answer. »

In several schools, workshops are organized through programs such as Moozoom and Vers lepacific, but this teaching is not systematic.

Work to do

“An immense amount of work has not been done,” laments François Richer, professor of neuropsychology at UQAM. In 2017, he signed in The Press an opinion letter to denounce Quebec’s delay in this area, in comparison to countries like Australia, other provinces such as Ontario and British Columbia where the Roots of Empathy/Racines de l Empathy is particularly well established.

Read the opinion text “Quebec late”, by François Richer

“Large compilations of scientific studies indicate that emotional and social learning in school improves attitudes, psychological well-being, social skills and social adjustment,” he wrote.

Seven years later, the scientific findings remain and the situation has changed little despite the recent reform of the Quebec Culture and Citizenship course, he deplores. While the challenges facing young people are significant: climate crisis, effects of the pandemic on the social fabric, omnipresence of screens and social networks, increased prevalence of anxiety and depression.

“I believe we are at a pivotal moment for [intervenir] “, says Mr. Richer, for whom the teaching of socio-emotional skills is an “essential part of the solution”, “one of the least expensive in addition”.

For psychoeducator and author Stéphanie Deslauriers, the school program, which she describes as “very outdated” in this regard, must evolve. She cites the example of reward and punishment programs, applied by many primary school teachers and daycare educators. “It no longer holds water. Research shows it, we see it on the ground, an update is necessary. »

Asked about the place of teaching empathy in schools, the Quebec Ministry of Education said it was concerned about the development of this skill among students. “This aim is achieved both in the Quebec school training program, in terms of the resources made available and through the training and support offered for school staff,” said Bryan St-Louis, responsible in writing. press relations at the Ministry.

The Violence and Bullying Prevention Plan in Schools 2023-2028, whose deployment is planned over two years, provides for the training of students “so that they develop more personal, social and emotional skills”, as well as as that of teachers and school staff. This teaching will be compulsory, but limited to 7 and 9 hours per year in primary and secondary schools.