Teaching empathy

A saying that can be traced back to the Cherokee Indian tribe is something that sounds quite familiar - Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins. Lessons and sermons in empathy abound us to the extent that these are dubbed cliches. Ironically, it is because empathy could so easily be taken for granted that the understanding of its full import is prevented. On the day following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Jane Elliot, a third grade teacher in a small town in Iowa, decided to change that with her class. She did so with a powerful and bold social experiment that changed their lives. 

Elliot had her class of all-white third graders identified as blue-eyed people and brown-eyed people. On the first day, she proclaimed that the blue-eyed children were superior to their brown-eyed peers and offered them special privileges - a few extra minutes at recess, exclusive access to the playground equipment etc. She had the brown-eyed children wear collars and praised their blue-eyed classmates at every opportunity, while often taking a dig at their expense. This treatment went on for a whole day, and was reversed the next day to ensure that the shoe was on the other foot. These children in Elliot's class in Iowa, felt for a day, what marginalized groups of people - Native Americans and Blacks in the context of their country, felt the whole of their lives. During the course of the experiment, Elliot describes how she saw sweet little third-graders who were the best of friends turn against each other in a mere span of 15 minutes.  Elliot's experiment is plausibly the only way these children would have learnt true empathy for these cultures, with even an iota of authenticity. 2 decades after this experience, the children of that classroom met for a reunion, where they attested to this fact in unequivocal terms. All of this is beautifully captured in a mind-expanding Frontline documentary, which I simply cannot recommend enough (hat-tip to David McCrany's excellent podcast for guiding me to this).

The relevance of this study bears true to this day, and will continue to do so as long as I feel, sadly as it may seem, innate human mind tendency to discriminate against the other. I often wonder (and I am almost sure of undocumented cases) where an Indian teacher may have replicated this experience in our society, where barriers of caste, creed and religion have always been simmering under the surface. My own experience in our educational institutions has been one where peers who are a little differently wired are socially marginalized by their adolescent classmates - an age where friendships can be the only solace. While this quality is common among teenagers in almost every culture, I have observed sadly, that this is as applicable for a class of "mature" Indian 25-year-olds - a rot that festers deep in the roots of our society. As I recollect these rather unfortunate experiences in my own life with a twinge of guilt, I find myself awestruck by the impact that Elliot's lesson had on the impressionable minds in an Iowa classroom.