Group Writing #2 - Authenticity and Empathy in Education

Vanessa Marcotte, Myles Ettinger, Isabella Xia, Julia Bologna

Department of Education, McGill University

EDEC 260: Philosophical Foundations

Professor Jason Lister

October 9th, 2020

 Group Writing #2 - Authenticity and Empathy in Education

Bialystok and Kukar discuss what it means to be authentic and empathetic while

questioning whether or not one can exhibit both simultaneously. Authenticity refers to being true

to one-self while empathy refers to having the ability to care about another’s experience. They

point out certain tensions that can lead to the two virtues coexisting such as the reinforcement of

narrow viewpoints as they give the example of an authentically racist or homophobic person

demanding empathy. They further dispute the possibility of instructing these virtues in a school

setting despite the unexpressed agreement that such virtues are teachable. The authors consider

the challenges that may arise when asking children as well as teachers to act authentically as this

requires a strong sense of self. The struggle with empathy is that it can create sentiments of

discomfort as one tries to position themselves in the suffering of others resulting in what they

call passive empathy. Empathy is also a complex notion to teach as it is generally directed

towards marginalized groups consequently creating forms of privilege for the majority group.

It is implied that being authentic is being true to oneself and not adopting a role.

However, people take on multiple different roles on a daily basis so we might ask ourselves if all

the roles we play can or should be considered authentic. For example, the way one might act in a

professional setting compared to how they act with their friends is different. These roles are part

of one’s self; however, not all roles are appropriate in every setting. To denounce someone's

authenticity if they are omitting or portraying a different role depending on the situations may

not be just. We may instead consider that the making of an authentic or true person involves a

combination of all the different roles they play – i.e., mother, son, friend, teacher, etc.

Furthermore, authenticity can present difficulties when confronted with power and

control. When faced with an authoritative figure, one might refrain from acting authentic and
speaking what is truly in their minds to avoid being reprimanded. This might happen in

boss-employee, parent-child or any other kind of interactions where a play of power is present.

In these types of interactions, the person with the least power might respond to their superior in a

way that they know would please them or the person might give the superior an answer that they

know they are anticipating in order to avoid conflict. This exact idea of inauthenticity when

faced to a figure of authority is applied to a teacher-student interaction as students usually do not

want to get into trouble with the teacher in question. This idea is similar to Mayo’s ideas on

civility where she writes about how civility works to repress expression and maintain the status

quo.

Ultimately, our group agrees that teaching authenticity and empathy are difficult as it is

hard to reach the emotions of an individual or their “intrinsic thoughts”. Another issue with these

topics is that there is no firm definition on either which makes it difficult to teach. How can one

teach fact, when the fact is not yet written? This leads us to believe that it may be more effective

to demonstrate character traits such as honesty so that we as educators may hear what is true to

our students’ authentic selves. By embracing honesty in our pedagogy, we allow students to feel

unbiased should the need for questionable behaviour or thoughts arise and we can therefore

challenge these thoughts in an unbiased way to evolve the ill-behaviour into a misguided

thought. An educator requires a tenacious mind to be able to overcome distasteful commentary

and prove that it is indeed ineffective. This poses a remarkable challenge for even the most

strong-willed teacher.