Less Sympathy, More Empathy
by Frederick M. Hess • Mar 19, 2012 at 9:24 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
Cross-posted from Education Week
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ShareEducators and "reformers" have a knack for sympathy. They feel for the kids, decry achievement gaps, and remind us that we need to do better. Champions of reform are intent on building cultures that "put kids first" and that remind everyone "it's about the kids." As one impassioned twenty-something district official told me, "We're doing the right thing and we're doing it for the right reasons--so what the hell is the hold-up?"
Another kind of sympathy, one that would-be reformers often radiate, is: "I know those poor teachers are scared of change, but X is the right thing to do." This crocodile-tear sympathy does nothing to clarify whether the concerns of "those" teachers are legitimate or addressable. It presumes they lack the reformer's virtue and that any doubts represent the triumph of their petty fears over their concern for kids. This stance may feel great, but it makes it hard to win converts or to identify and address problems with the proposals in question.
The problem is that by approaching this as a question of sympathy it's all about how the speaker thinks the world should work, and the speaker's frustration that the world's not working that way. The emotion is
