Forgotten History

I recently came across a link to the London Science Museum on the Mind Hacks blog. It lead to an interesting morning clicking around looking at all sorts of medical oddities. Where else would I be able to find a diorama of Dr. Lister's ward where he pioneered modern antiseptic techniques? Perhaps you are interested in something older? How about a different diorama depicting the removal of a cataract in 11th century Persia? If that one didn't make you flinch how about an antique dentist chair? There is the interesting (antique acupuncture needles) and the gory (a German amputation knife). Have more prurient interests? How about a reusable condom that needed to be washed, powdered, and dried flat? How about an electric "massager" circa 1913 that physicians used to treat "hysterical" women. Talk about forgotten history!

Of particular interest to me were two grave markers in the London Science Museum collection. These markers came from a place first opened in 1765 as the House of Industry for Looes and Wilford Incorporated Hundreds (a work house for the poor), named the Suffolk County Lunatic Asylum in 1827, renamed again the Suffolk District Asylum in 1906, and then called St. Audry's Hospital for Mental Diseases from 1917 until it closed in the 1990s. The grounds are rather pretty.

Some people spent most--if not their entire--lives in this hospital. They grew up, aged, and died on the grounds of this hospital. The only memory that remains of them are numbered metal grave markers. Recently even the markers were removed when workers came in to renovate the old asylum grounds into a golf course. The surviving buildings have been converted into residences.

There was no record left of these human beings. No mention of their hopes and dreams or their struggles and pains. Reduced to small rusted metal crosses with an embossed number, these people disappeared. I wish there was some way I could reach back in time and let the persons now known as #325 and #1587 know that they were valuable just because they were.

I can't do that. None of us can. We cannot travel back in time and we cannot right what has been made wrong. We can remember the past to honor those who were thrown away. For example, there is a website that collects and chronicles the experiences of workhouses in the United Kingdom.

We can treat each person like they matter--with dignity, respect, and honor. Can you try that today?

Person to Person Narratives

There has been significant talk in the media about immigration over the last year. The leading narrative in the news is that American's want to keep immigrants out. Undocumented persons from other countries are stealing jobs from hard working Americans is what I often read. The undercurrent is that these persons from other countries are out to alter the fabric of society.

Here is one viewpoint about the "dark side of illegal immigration."  It's taken from a press release from Rep. Steve King of the 5th district of Iowa. 

• The lives of 12 U.S. citizens would be saved who otherwise would die a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal aliens each day.
• Another 13 Americans would survive who are otherwise killed each day by uninsured drunk driving illegals.
• There would be no one to smuggle across our southern border the heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines, which plague the United States, reducing the U.S. supply of methamphetamines that day, by 80%.
• Our hospital emergency rooms would not be flooded with everything from gunshot wounds, to anchor babies, to imported diseases, to hangnails, giving American citizens the day off from standing in line behind illegals.
• Eight American children would not suffer the horror as victims of sex crimes.

Of course, King's comments are written without any supporting facts. If one digs a bit deeper to understand how he came to these statements you'd see a blatant manipulation of statistics. Let's say for example that 1% of Bassett Hounds viciously lick people on their faces. If I lock up 100% of all Bassett Hounds I will prevent 100% of vicious licking attacks by happy hounds.  This is essentially King's reasoning.

My point today isn't about statistics or  my distaste for people saying ridiculous things. 

My point is that we have forgotten to put a human face onto the issues that are polarizing our society. Both my friends on the right and my friends on the left run further in their respective directions in order to prove a point. Lost is the story of real human tragedy. We are forgetting about the people.

This past week I sat with an individual who is seeking asylum in the United States. They endured brutal torture   for publicly stating that they hoped two opposing groups could sit down at a table and work toward a peaceful solution. This person had to flee their country. They left behind a home they loved along with their child and spouse. 

This is one story of the very real tragedy that some people endured prior to entering into the United States. It's the very real human face of immigration (legal or illegal). It is the story that is lost in our polarized public discussions that are more about protecting a view point than about protecting human beings.

I'd like to write more here. I'd like to put a human face on this particular tragedy. I'd like to tell you about the deep sorrow of this individual and how, at the depth of this sorrow, I found an unquenchable sense of hope.

I of course cannot. I'm bound to protect this individuals privacy and confidentiality. I hope you each find ways to make a person-to-person encounter when you think about immigration. In fact, I hope you all find ways to make a person-to-person encounter when you are thinking about any issue that is polarizing. Thinking about an issue in context--in relation to another--is transformational. You'll change--and everyone around you will change too.

Suicide Doesn't Improve the World

It seems that I have a lot to say this weekend.

There has been a lot of great attention drawn to the problems with bullying. Dan Savage started the It Gets Better Project where people from across the world record their own messages to teens telling them that indeed, things can get better. Local and national news stations are beginning to air the normally silent stories of struggles that young people face. The attention is good--it's raising awareness, starting a dialogue, and building a platform for change.

This morning I watched a video on Towle Road. Sean Walsh was, a 13 year old who killed himself after being bullied, left behind a suicide note. His mother made the decision to read his suicide note and tell his story on YouTube. My heart aches for Wendy. I hope her video can make a difference in an adults life by teaching them to speak up about bullying. If you'd like to watch the video, I'm including it in this post. It's sad, raw, and powerful. If you are feeling a little vulnerable you might not want to watch it.

Sean wrote, "I will hopefully be in a better place than this shit hole... Make sure to make the school feel like shit for bring you this sorrow."

There is a problem here. We aren't teaching our children that things can be better now. We aren't showing children other children who have lives of joy, compassion, and excitement. We aren't teaching children how to be resilient, how to resist bullying, and how not be be bullies. We are failing our children.

The narrative of much of what I hear is something like this:  It can't be better now--you have to wait for it to get better. Youth are suffering and miserable and need adults to rescue them. 

I am filled with sadness for the loss of Sean and the grief his mother is experiencing.

Suicide doesn't change the world. Suicide isn't an effective way to punish a school or a bully. In the end, suicide means someone is dead, some people experience profound bone breaking grief, and the rest of the world moves on. 

There are so many more effective ways to resist a bully and change the world. We ought to be teaching our youth these skills. We ought to be teaching our youth about other youth who use these skills. It can save a life--and change the world.

The Decline of Empathy: How You Can Help

A study from the University of Michigan offered a disturbing glimpse into the pro-social behaviors of young adults in America. Sarah Konrath, along with students Edward O'Brian and Courtney Hsing conducted a meta-analysis of 72 different studies conducted between 1979 and 2009. The studies all looked at college students levels of empathy as measured by paper-and-pencil tests.

Here's the shocking part:

We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000," said Sara Konrath, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research. "College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago, as measured by standard tests of this personality trait."

What does this mean in the real world? If there is transfer between how people act and what they reported on the measures, it means that young adults are 40% less likely to be able to put themselves in someone else's shoes. 40% less likely to be willing to consider another's perspective. 40% less likely to be impacted by the suffering of another's suffering.

Compared to college students of the late 1970s, the study found, college students today are less likely to agree with statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."

Curious how you compare on empathy? the University of Michigan has a survey up online. It will give you a score that you can compare yourself to the 14,000 college students that make up this study. Before heading off to the study on the following link, keep in mind that no information is provided if the university is recording your input. There is no mention of an Institutional Review Board approving of research, nor is there mention if this is for research gathering purposes (do they save your data) or is it for your own information (is data not saved). They don't ask for any identifying information. At any rate, here is the link to the survey.

How did you do? I know I was surprised. Before I started the survey I thought I'd score off the charts on empathy. While I was well above average as compared to the sample, I was surprised to see that college students in the 70s were much more empathetic than me.

Not to be overly nerdy here, but as an adult who has been out of college (and graduate school now) for a long time I can't use a sample of college students to compare myself too. It may be possible that college students are more idealistic. It may also be possible that college students tend to be more prone to black and white thinking (here, it would be "I'm always considering someone else's perspective" vs. a more nuanced perspective that comes with life experience).

And of course, there is likely to be a gap between how people identify themselves on paper and how they actually behave in the real world. There could be all sorts of interesting things that happen there.

Still--commentary on research aside--this is a disturbing trend. Inside special education circles it is often common practice to teach children empathy and perspective taking. I wonder if that happens in mainstream classrooms and within the contexts of families? I sure hope it does.

Here are a few tips for teaching empathy taken from the website Parenting Science. They are evidenced based tools to help teach empathy in children. Try them out with your own kids--or adapt them and try them out with your husbands, wifes, partners, and friends. You could make the world a little more friendly.

• Teaching empathy tip #1: Address your child’s own needs, and teach him how to “bounce back” from distress

• Teaching empathy tip #2: Be a “mind-minded” parent. Treat your child as an individual with a mind of her own, and talk to her about the ways that our feelings influence our behavior

• Teaching empathy tip #3: Seize everyday opportunities to model—and induce—sympathetic feelings for other people

• Teaching empathy tip #4: Help kids discover what they have in common with other people

• Teaching empathy tip #5: Teach kids about the hot-cold empathy gap

• Teaching empathy tip #6: Help kids explore other roles and perspectives

• Teaching empathy tip #7: Show kids how to “make a face” while they try to imagine how someone else feels. Experiments show that simply “going through the motions” of making a facial expression can make us experience the associated emotion.

• Teaching empathy tip #8: Help kids develop a sense of morality that depends on internal self-control, not on rewards or punishments

• Teaching empathy tip #9: Teach (older) kids about mechanisms of moral disengagement

• Teaching empathy tip #10: Inspire good feelings (and boost oxytocin levels) through pleasant social interactions and physical affection

The Development of Empathy