There are many educators in schools today wrestling with the tension between the pressures of hitting academic outcomes and fostering the harder to measure components of whole child development. As educators we know the value of nurturing attributes such as compassion but can sometimes find it difficult to articulate what we did and why it is important to people who have never taught. Despite the difficulty of justifying our actions to others, good teachers will capitalise on serendipitous opportunities for fostering compassion.  

Compassion is a valued skill, but it is not one that should be pursued for the wrong reasons. The reason to be compassionate is not to be perceived by others as compassionate but rather to take joy and satisfaction from the compassionate act itself or rather the impact of that compassionate act on others.  

There is an interesting tension that is emerging for school leaders with the marketing component of the role. With the prevalence of social media where perception and reality can be blurred and there is a currency in being perceived as a kind, compassionate, generous, or environmentally conscientious school, educators are often asked/feel pressured to post accordingly. Through this process it is important that we as educators don’t fall into modelling exactly the behaviours, we denounce on social media by posting tokenistic and gratuitous displays of things like compassion that are inconsistent with the day-to-day experiences of students.  

Obviously, you wouldn’t dress up as movie character in book week because book week is about reading and connecting student imagination with quality literature. Posting an image of the best dressed Obi-Wan Kenobi, Barbie or Lionel Messi undermines the message for all the readers out there. Similarly, we need to be hyper conscious of what we post and who we post from the school cohort when we are ‘celebrating’ or ‘recognising’ attributes such as compassion because the students in our schools are part of the audience consuming these messages and if a student who is not ‘compassionate’ in the eyes of students is lauded for their compassion, the post can have a very detrimental impact. In the same way giving a merit award to the disruptive student in the room because they didn’t disrupt the lesson can. What about all the students who have never disrupted the lesson and haven’t got an award? 

The classic compassion conundrum question is: 

Which is more compassionate to give $1 to 100 people or $100 to 1 person? 

You can answer but what is more important is why you choose the answer you choose.  In all likelihood, you will fall into the position of craving more information. Who are these people? What situation are they in? How much impact will $1 have? How much impact can $100 have? Can I give $20 to 5 people? The motivation for the compassion and the rationale for the action is far more powerful and important than the answer. A different way to ask this is: 

In what scenario would you give $1 to 100 people instead of $100 to 1 person? 

And conversely: 

In what scenario would you give $100 to 1 person rather than $1 to 100 people? 

Or 

Would your reasoning change if it were $10 000 to 1 person vs $1 to 10 000. 

The point of these questions is to consider the rationale for the action rather than judge the correctness of the action. So, the extension of this in an educational context is:

Why am I posting what I am posting? Who is it for?  

Is this person deserved of the reward? What is the cost to others? 

Or in evaluative terms;  

Are there any unintended negative impacts as a result of my well-intended actions? 

[ Rydr Tracy is the Head of Education at Life Skills Group and former Director Strategic Priorities at CESE. He is a specialist in evidence-informed practice in educational innovation, with a career focus on strategic change that improves student outcomes. He draws on a rare blend of successful experience in schools, system leadership roles and industry practice – experience that has given him deep understanding of the complexities of the education sector from the classroom to the boardroom and a demonstrated capacity to generate practical recommendations that are grounded in context and evidence. ]