Compassion in Urban Teaching: Process,Arenas,and Factors

Abstract

The current explorative study aimed at understanding the subjective meanings of “compassion” in teaching and its process and determinants. Based on 14 semi-structured interviews with teachers who are considered by their colleague to be compassionate, it was found that compassion consists of two phases—identification and compassionate behavior, and triggered by varied sources of suffering (e.g., distress at the student’s home, academic failure, chronic illness, exam anxiety, school violence, and special education needs). Likewise, four major factors of compassionate behavior in teaching have been identified: personal background, career experience, close teacher–students relations, and educational leadership. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords

teacher development urban education teacher education poverty teacher emotion

Introduction

Suffering is an integral part of human life, including young children who experience a wide range of unpleasant subjective experiences such as physical and emotional pain, psychological distress, and feelings of disconnection. Reactions to such suffering can vary widely across organizations, ranging from total indifference to one’s suffering to ultimate feelings of compassion in others (Dutton, Worline, Frost, & Lilius, 2006). In fact, compassion comes from the ecclesiastical Latin stem compati, or to “suffer with” (Rynes, Bartunek, Dutton, & Margolis, 2012). Feelings of compassion involve sympathetic sorrow for someone who is suffering physically or is otherwise distressed.

Compassion is a timely topic in the research on organizational behavior and emotion in organizations (Kanov et al., 2004; Lilius, Kanov, Dutton, Worline, & Maitlis, 2011; Lilius, Worline, Dutton, Kanov, & Maitlis, 2011; Moon, Hur, Ko, Kim, & Yoon, 2014; Opdebeeck & Habisch, 2011). Researchers have explored the meanings of compassion in the workplace, its antecedents, and consequences, and sharpened its distinctive characteristics. Yet, although teachers may experience compassion toward their students, the current research on teacher emotion elucidated, thus far, scant reference to this specific emotion. Hence, the frequency and intensity of this emotion as experienced by teachers cannot be judged from existing research, as Frenzel (2014) indicated. For example, a study that measured the intensities of teacher emotions found that the experience of positive emotions such as enjoyment and pride is dominant in teaching. Of the negative emotions, anger is the most prominent, while shame and anxiety are experienced only to a very small extent (Keller, Frenzel, Goetz, Pekrun, & Hensley, 2014). Needless to say, “compassion” was not even measured in the researchers’ inventory.

To fill the gap in this area of study, the current explorative study aimed at understanding the meanings of “compassion” in teaching. More specifically, the study posed three questions: (a) How do teachers perceive compassion in their work? (b) When and where do teachers express compassion and how? (c) What are the perceived determinants of compassionate behavior in teaching? Although research on compassion at work is still relatively limited, there is growing evidence of its importance for organizations and sound rationales for bringing it to the fore in organization research at this time (e.g., Opdebeeck & Habisch, 2011). Frost (1999) proclaimed that “compassion counts!” and further asserted (Frost, 2003) that the inevitable suffering generated within organizations requires an academic response.

The current study, though, will increase our intellectual and theoretical understanding of compassion in school, in general, and in teaching, in particular. Following McClain, Ylimaki, and Ford (2010) who claimed that compassion must take place in schools, with each and all of us cherishing our very being together, it is important to gain a more incisive understanding of the distinctive characteristics of compassion in teaching and its factors, and to provide teachers and prospective teachers with practical insights into the place of compassion and compassionate behaviors in their role.

Specifically, the research on compassion is important in urban education that in many times characterized by poverty and institutionalized racism (Alston, 2002; Altenbaugh, 2003). To wit, their students are much more likely to be poor and/or minority than those attending schools located in the suburban or rural schools (Milner, 2006). Teachers in urban schools, therefore, are expected to display varied positive emotions, including care and concern (Milner, 2012).

Note, however, that the meaning of the Israeli context in which this study was conducted differs largely from that in the United States. Although American urban areas are synonymous with terms such as inner-city, central city, poor students, and large diverse minority communities that are different, by and large, from relatively homogeneous suburban and rural communities (e.g., Milner, 2006), Israel is too small in terms of geography and population size to have clear distinctions between these areas or to have urban education districts. For example, in the downtown of Tel Aviv, there are many neighborhoods characterized by high socioeconomic status (SES) while many suburban areas in the periphery are characterized by low SES.

For the purpose of this study, though, the Israeli case resembles the type of “urban characteristic” in Milner’s (2012) evolving typology of urban education. This type describes schools that are not located in big or midsized cities, but their staff and students experience some of the challenges that are sometimes associated with urban school contexts in larger areas (e.g., cultural and ethnically diverse learners, disadvantaged communities). Consistent with Obiakor and Beachum’s (2005) construction of urban education, the teachers selected for this study work in schools that serve this kind of communities and engage in issues of equity, equality, and excellence in education.

The Research on Compassion in Organizations

Compassion, a well-rooted concept in philosophy and religions (Lilius, Kanov, et al., 2011), “lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves” (Armstrong, 2011, p. 6). It came into the English language by way of the Latin root―passio, which means to suffer—paired with the Latin prefix―com, meaning together—to suffer together. Several definitions of compassion provide insights into the unique characteristics of this concept. Goetz, Keltner, and Simon-Thomas (2010) defined compassion “as the feeling that arises in witnessing another’s suffering and that motivates a subsequent desire to help” (p. 351). Their definition conceptualizes compassion as an affective state defined by a specific subjective feeling and differs from constructions of compassion as an attitude or as a general benevolent response to others, regardless of suffering or blame, as Post (2002) proposed. They further distinguish between compassion and empathy, which refers to the vicarious experience of another’s emotions, as Lazarus (1991) maintained. He further defines compassion as follows:

Compassion . . . is not a sharing of another person’s emotional state, which will vary depending on what the other person’s emotional experience seems to be, but an emotion of its own . . . In compassion, the emotion is felt and shaped in the person feeling it not by whatever the other person is believed to be feeling, but by feeling personal distress at the suffering of another and wanting to ameliorate it. The core relational theme for compassion, therefore, is being moved by another’s suffering and wanting to help. (p. 289)

Moon et al. (2014) extended the definition of compassion to encompass a variety of senses and behaviors:

We also define compassion as a response to the suffering of another that involves an individual seeing with the eyes of others, hearing with the ears of others, feeling with the heart of others, and taking action in a way which reveals his or her own compassion. (p. 52)

Compassion has been described as a vicarious experience of another’s distress (e.g., Ekman, 2003), a trait (Cosley, McCoy, Saslow, & Epel, 2010), a blend of sadness and love, or an emotion (e.g., Haidt, 2003). From the definitions of compassion, though, it is concluded that being a professional does not contradict being compassionate (Rynes et al., 2012); compassion plays a pivotal role in organizational life by attenuating the pain of others at work (Dutton, Frost, Worline, Lilius, & Kanov, 2002; Frost et al., 2006). Scholars widely agree that compassion involves sympathetic consciousness of the distress and suffering of others, and caring for those others frequently through communication and behavior. Yet, compassion differs from distress in terms of display behavior and automatic profiles. Likewise, although empathy includes the elicitation and experience of compassion, the latter concept does not reduce to an empathic state of fear, sadness, and distress (Goetz et al., 2010). Compassion, according to Frost (1999), is broader than empathy as it entails, even inspires, helpful and merciful action. However, it is not as encompassing as love, although it may be a form of “disinterested love.” Compassion engages empathy to act where pain and suffering are involved.

From a dynamic point of view, Kanov et al. (2004) represent compassion as a three-part process hinging on the interrelationship of self and other in the midst of suffering. Thus, compassion consists of (a) attention to or noticing of suffering, (b) empathic concern to the other, and (c) action to lessen or relieve suffering. This conceptualization moves beyond a view of compassion as an emotion or a trait (Lilius, Kanov, et al., 2011). The first phase—appraisal of suffering and pain—is a necessary precondition for the compassion process without which the person is less likely to notice that the other is suffering or in pain (Dutton et al., 2006; Goetz et al., 2010). Rather, the observer must identify the sufferer as in some way relevant and deserving of help, and the observer must make a judgment that he or she is capable of coping with the other’s suffering (Atkins & Parker, 2012). In this sense, the inclusion of appraisal as an element of compassion recognizes the importance of cognition in compassion and highlights that compassion is a regulated response involving cognition (Atkins & Parker, 2012). When a person is perceived as suffering, a feeling of empathy toward him or her is expected, leading to the behavioral phase—compassionate response—that aims at lessening, alleviating, or making the suffering more bearable (Kanov et al., 2004).

One of the questions researchers of compassion in organization are concerned about refers to the conditions facilitating the appearance of compassion among managers and employees. More specifically, physical spaces, structures, and communication routines that bring colleagues into regular and close contact (e.g., face-to-face via daily or weekly department meetings, architecturally open workspaces) provide opportunities for being aware of other employees’ suffering (Lilius, Kanov, et al., 2011). Likewise, high quality of the relationship between employees, trustful work relationships, affective commitment, and distributive justice makes it more likely that organizational members will become aware of the suffering of a colleague (Dutton et al., 2006; Moon et al., 2014). In contrast, pressures for productivity and efficiency reduce the likelihood that employees will notice the suffering of colleagues and consequently be compassionate toward them (Frost, 2003). In teaching, for example, compassion is experienced when student failure is attributed to factors beyond the control of the students, such as low ability (Frenzel, 2014). Yet, false view of compassion might also be related to students’ academic failure and low expectations from failing students. Consistent with the seminal work of Delpit (1988), feeling compassionate toward a student subsequent to his or her academic failure may result in a teacher’s decision to change the student’s grade in test just because the student had worked hard. This, in turn, might inhibit the student’s academic development. Instead, offering help to the failing student and providing him or her with another opportunity to be tested again could benefit the student to a greater extent.

Compassionate behavior in organizations, though, is associated with increased helping, trust, support, better recovery from painful experiences, organizational commitment, collegiality, employee well-being, and cooperation (Lilius, Kanov, et al., 2011; Lilius et al., 2008; Opdebeeck & Habisch, 2011). It is evident that compassion positively influences how employees see their colleagues and their organization (Frost, Dutton, Worline & Willson, 2000;) and the extent to which they are able to reduce punishment even of employees who both clearly intended to transgress and sought no forgiveness for their actions (Condon & DeSteno, 2011). All in all, compassion molds individuals’ sense-making about the kind of organization of which they are a part and the kinds of colleagues with whom they work (Lilius et al., 2008). However, compassion is potentially draining, in that repeated responses to suffering can leave individuals less willing or able to respond to one’s suffering over time (Frost, 2003; Jacobson, 2006), although some observers may feel satisfaction deriving from feeling compassionate toward one’s suffering and pain (Stamm, 2002).

Despite the popularity of “compassion” in business administration and management studies, it has been left almost untouched in the educational research, let alone in urban education. Most of the writings about education and compassion are commentaries and essays, calling to adopt a compassionate teaching in the class. Thus, Whang and Nash (2005) recommended adopting Buddhist teaching methods in which the educator acknowledges our responsibility to education through acts of compassion. In their view, effective instructional practices and an entrenched commitment to social justice require breaking down the distance that serves to anesthetize any sense of compassion for disadvantaged students, many of whom live in densely populated urban neighborhoods that are inhabited by ethnically diverse people (Altenbaugh, 2003).

Similarly, Carson and Johnston (2000) indicated that a teacher’s obligation is to notice students’ suffering and to respond compassionately. “Pedagogy of compassion,” though, may help to move teachers and students who discuss issues of racism and oppression that are common in urban education (Milner, 2006) out of a cycle of blame and guilt that can characterize the critical anti-racist classroom. In this sense, pedagogy of compassion is compatible with the views of critical race theory, in that teachers are called to analyze racism and its intersection with other forms of oppression and inequality such as sexism, classism, and nativism (Howard & Navarro, 2016; Jackson, Bryan, & Larkin, 2016) and express their compassion as part of moral obligation for social justice (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012). Thus, compassion will build trust in the classroom, recognizing the need to learn about the realities of other people, but at the same time acknowledging that we arrive from different social positions and that we should examine critically what we share and do not share.

In addition, a compassionate teacher takes into account the student’s personal and social position, respects his or her personality and identity, empowers the student, and increases the student’s self-esteem and encourages constructive behaviors in the class (e.g., Maatta & Uusiautti, 2013). This teacher is considerate, sensitive to the student’s needs, and refrains from pressuring him or her too much. Adeyemo (2013) found that a compassionate teacher will create positive climate in the class and will encourage caring and compassionate behaviors among the students. Student misbehavior, a prevailing topic in urban education (Alston, 2002), will decrease considerably in the class of this type of teachers as students will feel safe and a sense of belonging in the school. Along the same lines, Hartsell (2006) showed that a holistically based program allows gifted students to more fully explore their compassionate, unselfish sides and develop a sense of ethics that will eventually characterize them as socially responsible young adults.

Method

In light of the interpretive aspects of the current study, we used a qualitative research methodology to collect and analyze the empirical data.

Participants

In pursuit of answers to the research questions, a total of 14 interviews were conducted with six male and eight female teachers working in secondary schools located in urban areas (there are no urban districts in Israel). The 14 teachers were between the ages of 30 and 56 (43 on average) and had held teaching positions for 7 to 26 years (15.5 years on average). They came from two out of six education districts in Israel (seven from “Tel Aviv” and seven from “Centre.” Both were chosen because they include cities with 200,000 dwellers and above) and represent a heterogeneous group in terms of religiosity and class; some are non-religiously observant persons while others are observant Jews. All of them belong to the middle class, yet they teach a wide variety of subject matters in schools serving low SES urban communities (see the appendix for further information about the interviewees).

Due to the need to focus on a homogenous group of participants in a qualitative inquiry that aims at profound understanding of a certain phenomenon (Paton, 2002), the teachers in this study were selected using criterion sampling, that is, all participants who meet some criterion. That is, we purposely selected participants who represented “information-rich cases that manifest the phenomenon intensely . . . excellent or rich examples of the phenomenon of interest, but not unusual cases” (Paton, 2002, p. 171). Thus, in each school, we asked the principal, the school counselor, and teachers to recommend one teacher from their school who meets the following criteria: (a) a teacher perceived as compassionate who helps suffering students (e.g., talk with them, donate food and cloth), (b) a teacher who takes into account the personal conditions of his or her students, (c) a friendly and respectful person, (d) 5 years in teaching to allow the teacher establish in the career and be able to feel compassion toward others.

Procedure

A semi-structured, face-to-face interview was conducted with each participant during 2014-2015 (usually two meetings). At the beginning of each interview, the interviewer obtained permission to record the interview and promised complete confidentiality. In the first part of the interview, participants were asked about their personal meanings of compassion, in general, and of compassionate behaviors in the school, in particular. Questions about the ways teachers manage their feelings of compassion and choose to display or suppress them were asked next. Participants were similarly asked about the factors affecting their compassionate behavior and the sources of their perceptions and behaviors in this work aspect. Special attention was given to the social arenas in which compassion prevails in school and its plausible implications for teachers and students. It is important to indicate that the interviewer avoided using any words that might be interpreted as favorite emotions to refrain from indicating “social desirability” (Paton, 2002), and left the interviewee to provide his or her own construction of compassion in teaching.

To meet ethical requirements, a draft of the research plan was delivered to the Ministry of Education to receive its study approval, and interviewees were promised anonymity and confidentiality and provided with the research purpose before asked to waiver their consent. In no way was their interview transcription forwarded to supervisors or other informants, nor to anyone except the authors as the researchers.

The manual analysis of the interview data followed the four stages described by Marshall and Rossman (2011): “organizing the data,” “generating categories, themes and patterns,” “testing any emergent hypothesis,” and “searching for alternative explanations.” This analysis aims at identifying central themes in the data, searching for recurrent experiences, feelings, and attitudes, so as to be able to code, reduce, and connect different categories into central themes. The coding was guided by the principles of “comparative analysis” (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), which includes the comparison of any coded element in terms of emergent categories and sub-categories. To increase trustworthiness and reliability in the research, the analysis was strengthened by structured analysis and by peer review, two common indicators qualitative researchers use to build confidence in their analytic procedures (Marshall & Rossman, 2011).

The analysis was conducted by the second author and was validated by structured analysis and through peer review by the first author. The first author took the role of a critical friend by conducting a similar analysis process on a sample of the interviews. This opened a discussion on the data interpretations by the two authors, including the themes that arose from the analysis and potential contradictions and disagreements.

To increase trustworthiness of the research, we considered our own particular characteristics that might influence our interpretations of the data. We believe that our different experiences in personal and professional lives as well as in gender provided multiple vantage points for negotiating the data and enhanced a contrastive discussion of the data and analysis. It is worth noting, in addition, that, consistent with qualitative researchers who assume that those they study interpret reality from multiple perspectives for varying purposes (LeCompte & Preissle, 1993), we were interested in revealing participants’ subjective ideas about reality, rather than finding some objective reality.

Findings

In the following pages, the process of compassion in teaching, the sources of suffering that evoke compassion, and the determinants affecting teachers’ compassionate responses are analyzed.

The Process of Compassion in Teaching

Compassion and compassionate behaviors have been used by the teachers in our study interchangeably. Yet, they could distinguish between two major stages of compassion: the identification of suffering among students and the teacher’s actual response and supportive behavior.

The first phase—identification

When the teachers were asked to talk about compassion, they claimed that teachers’ sensitivity to their students’ distress is vital to begin a process of compassion. Some of them provided the interviewer with external signs of distress among students, such as moving in the chair nervously, sadness, sudden changes in the student’s behavior, remoteness, unfocused eyes, and abrupt cry. A male science teacher added,

You can identify distress by looking at students; sometimes they are frustrated, and depressed . . . there are endless examples like a sad look, tears, and undefined senses.

Behavior modification is a central sign of student distress. A personal conversation with the “suspicious” student is perceived by the teachers to be a proper mechanism to appraise his or her condition, as a female linguistic teacher indicated:

I identify distress when a student says things or behaves in a way that is not suitable to him . . . For example, I had a student who strived to succeed and get high marks, but suddenly he didn’t come to school, and his father has called too much. So I started to realize something is wrong with this father . . . it turned out he hit him, and the boy was too quiet, didn’t want to talk . . . I always talk with students whose behavior has changed suddenly . . . .

In addition to behavior modification, a refusal to study, bad mood, withdrawal, daydreaming, and nervous responses were all signs of suffering among students, as reported by the teachers. However, the appearance of these and other signs does not guarantee identification of suffering among students. A female history teacher reported she is unable to identify every student’s distress “and then parents are coming to meet me and I am shocked I didn’t see the problem.”

The identification of distress is connected by the teachers to compassionate behavior as echoed in the subsequent quotes:

The teacher has “natural” sensitivity that allows him feel suffering and pain of pupils. As a result he tries to do something, to help, to alleviate the pain, to decrease distress . . . . (A male math teacher)

The fact I’m aware of situations that need my sensitivity, empathy, support [and] my sensitivity, as a teacher, to see there is a problem or severe problems that need further attention and support. This is in my eyes compassionate behavior. (A female history teacher)

Yet, the identification of suffering is not arbitrary or coincidental; in fact, the teachers reported initiating personal conversations with their students intended to help them be familiar with the student’s life, areas of interests, and feelings. This, in turn, helps them to identify the mental condition of their students. A male religion teacher explained,

As home teacher I have personal talks with the students, even in the breaks or in non-contact time. It begins with “how are you” and moves to talks. I take each student separately and decide if there is a need to talk more deeply with him, to listen to him or her again. My compassion is expressed by personal talks in which I get to know the student better, I can understand him better, what he needs, who he is anyway, what he likes beyond the class. And then it is easier for me to behave toward him more compassionately . . . we are much more caring toward those we know.

Conversations with parents were told by the teachers to be another means to identify sources of distress among students. A female linguistics teacher explained how formal conversations with parents might unearth the emotional conditions of the student:

A conversation with the parents will expose the sources of the problem . . . I have a student whose parents were getting divorce and they had no idea how he is feeling, and I noticed something is going wrong with him in the class. So, I saw the mother in the parents’ meeting and asked her if everything is okay, and she said, yes, he likes playing football. She talked about [the student] so much but didn’t see what’s going on with them. So I asked her if everything is okay at home and she said, no. It was three years ago . . . .

Even occasional encounters in the break or in the corridor are used to open an informal dialogue with students who seem to be in distress. Sometimes the student bursts out crying and tells “the whole story,” while sometimes he or she denies any personal distress. All in all, the identification of suffering may lead to the second phase.

The second phase—compassionate behavior

The teachers reported supporting students in pain. However, they distinguished between temporary and ongoing support and between students who seek for assistance and those who deny their need in support. Thus, the teacher can decide to invite the student in suffering to a personal meeting, to involve the school counselor, or to call the student’s parents. A male science teacher added,

When I identify a certain difficulty I address to the home teacher or the school counsellor and ask for their advice. Sometimes I talk with the kid, and I always try to find solutions to his problems . . . I certainly feel this is a kind of compassionate behavior in my work.

A teacher’s compassionate behavior includes an immediate assistance (e.g., helping students in distress during exams, calming a pupil who is feeling poorly) and ongoing support (e.g., accompanying a student whose parents are divorcing, helping a student whose marks decreased considerably during a certain term). A female history teacher elaborated on her supportive responses to a student in suffering:

. . . In fact, there are endless problems . . . if I identify a student in need, I invite him to talk with me and try to recognize the problem, to get into the roots of the problem. It can be a fight with a friend or a difficulty in understanding the subject matter. These are temporary problems . . . sometimes I share the problem with the parents to see how we can handle it . . . .

Some of the teachers connected between their support of the student in suffering and their consecutive efforts to solve his or her problems, and their compassionate behavior. In their view, a compassionate teacher understands the importance of supporting students and promoting their self-concept as reflected in the following quotes:

I find my support of students as an expression of my compassion, because we need to be inclusive . . . usually in adult life, no one is considerate in our personal situation, but as a teacher I see my role as compassionate and empathic, considerate and supportive, because I’m responsible for paving the way to better lives for my students. I teach them not to give up, illuminate their abilities, never give up, demand, but be considerate, and understand the student’s constrains. (A male literature teacher)

First of all, a teacher who pays attention [to his students] isn’t someone who teaches and goes. This is the first sign of compassion. A teacher can say, I teach the student only once a week, but he prefers to recognize the problem and to be involved, and this is compassion. The fact that I put my hand on the student’s shoulder or sit next to him three seconds demonstrates my caring. (A male special education teacher)

The teachers divided between the teacher’s core responsibility to teach and “transmit” the content and their own voluntary decision to feel compassion toward a student in pain and, consequently, to try and help him or her. They further talked about the student’s poor background that pushes them to feel compassion toward him or her and be proactive in supporting him or her whenever possible. To act compassionately means, among other things, to prioritize eliminating the pain of their students over any other instructional obligations.

The Arenas of Suffering

From the teachers’ accounts, compassion toward a student is stimulated when the teacher identifies that a certain student is in distress or suffering. Yet the sources of suffering that might trigger a sense of compassion are multiple and varied. Six of them received considerable attention in the interviews with the teachers in this study.

Distress at the student’s home

Ongoing pain caused by a poor family background of the student (e.g., economic distress, emotional deprivation, violence at home) is likely to stimulate compassion among teachers as is evident in the following quotes:

. . . In the range of compassion I would look at two sides, the objective one, for example, a child whose parents died and he lives in a boarding school. So it is very hard for him, much more than a child with exam anxiety, and I feel much compassion toward him. (A male religion teacher)

The more the student’s background is difficult, the more we feel a sense of compassion . . . when you see a child who doesn’t get warmth at home, you wanna help him to succeed. I once had a student in my class who didn’t get any support at home, you could see the emotional absence he had experienced, and therefore he didn’t want to learn anything. So I began by supporting him emotionally and then helped him in other things . . . . (A female linguistics teacher)

Notably, the interpretation of the suffering is subjectively held, depending almost entirely on the beholder’s view. Yet the teachers agreed that difficult situations such as death in the family, divorce, economic distress, and orphanhood are likely to stimulate a sense of compassion among teachers. When asked when teachers should behave compassionately, a male math teacher replied,

. . . Severe family situations, illness, God forbid! . . . I remember I had a student whose mother was very sick and she passed away . . . These are severe situation that need the teacher’s compassion . . . .

Academic failure

When students feel mental distress as a result of failing a test after studying very hard, expressed by frustration, desperation, anger, and pain, teachers are likely to respond compassionately, as a female history teacher demonstrated:

For example, a female student who invested so much time and I was there, behind, and knew she had studied a lot, and the mother didn’t believe her daughter would ever succeed, and she didn’t because it was really hard for her. She got F, and she cried and went to her teacher and said, I want to raise my grade, and the teacher grasped the student’s sense of failure and felt compassion and decided to allow her feel a sense of success because she invested so much in the class, and gave her D minus in the report card. (A female home teacher)

Particularly striking is the teachers’ feeling that economic and emotional distress at home coupled with an academic failure should be reacted by compassion because economic problems at home are perceived to prevent academic success. Compassion, in this respect, “is the understanding that a student is disappointed from his lack of success and that he has no money to pay for tutors,” as a female math teacher indicated. Having said this, she added,

Listen, compassion is to feel the other person and help him. It’s not simple, not everyone has the energy to see the other’s problem because there are many students. It’s much easier to ignore them.

Chronic disease

Another source of suffering among students that might stimulate a teacher’s compassion refers to chronic illness of parents or students. A female Bible teacher reported on her compassionate behavior with a student whose brother had to undergo surgery:

For example, this year I had a pupil whose brother had kidney transplantation. It was clear I have to report on this case to the teachers. This was a long story and the parents had to spend weeks in the hospital. The oldest brother took care of his younger brother, but felt ashamed and didn’t want his classmate to know about it. Therefore, every time I checked out his brother’s condition I did it privately, and when his brother returned home, I sent them flowers and a wish for a quick recovery. This gesture touched their heart very much . . . The student needed my assistance as his home teacher with the other teachers who knew nothing about all this and I explained to them . . . .

Unsurprisingly, the teacher felt compassion toward the distress of the student’s family and did everything she could to convince other teachers to consider the unique circumstances and give the student an extra chance whenever needed. For her, it was a kind of compassionate behavior toward a student in suffering.

Exam anxiety

Interestingly, some teachers reported feeling compassion toward a student in distress during an exam, and especially toward those who experience exam anxiety. When a female linguistic teacher was asked whether she could describe a compassionate teacher, she said,

My own Math teacher. Every time there was an exam, I have been terrified and pressured, and he told me “go to the library and relax there.” He works with me at the same school now. He identified my distress and helped me. He simply felt compassion toward me.

Similarly, a male Bible teacher described his compassionate behavior when a mother called him afternoon to tell him her daughter is hysterical and is unable to stop crying. He added,

It turned out that she came back from the pre-maturation exam in religious studies and had to start studying for another pre-maturation exam. She started learning without taking a rest before . . . she got totally confused. The pressure to pass the test, the fatigue from the previous exam, and she became paralyzed. I asked to talk with her daughter, I identified with her stress, I joked with her and said that the best thing to do is to say “I’m relaxed” in order to calm down. Slowly, I showed her that she won’t be able to study when she is so tired and stressful, and told her to take a shower and go to bed . . . two weeks later she sent me SMS “I got A in the test,” and her mother thanked me for my compassionate behavior.

In the teachers’ view, exam anxiety is likely to make it very hard for the students to pass the test, and, therefore, it is their commitment to compassionately help them in these rigid moments.

Violence and the injured student

Another source of suffering that stimulates compassion among teachers refers to the teachers’ need to defend the weak student, who has experienced verbal or physical violence. In this sense, the teachers indicated devoting time in their class for talking about a case of violence against one of the students, and explaining the feelings of the victim following such violence. In some way, they attempt to deliver their compassion toward the attacked student in front of the other students in their class. A male science teacher takes a firm stand against school violence, either verbal or physical:

I try in the beginning of the school year to deal with the subject of “person to person—a human being,” to talk about respect. When there is violence, usually verbal, I make efforts to cut it off, to show of force, with zero tolerance, to uproot this things . . . so when I defend the victim, this is compassionate behavior towards the victim, I have to defend the one who has been hurt by this violent behavior . . . .

A male math teacher emphasized his dual responses to student violence; “on one hand, I feel compassion toward those who are injured, and on the other hand, if I don’t cope with the violence I will cause moral weakness in the school.” Another male math teacher said explicitly that “defending the injured students is part of the teacher’s compassionate behaviors.” Having said that, he added,

We had much teasing in the class between two groups of students. I stopped the class and talked with the students for half an hour, and then the school counsellor arrived and did a great work with them. We explained the kids that nobody loves being insulted or mocked, and we asked students who witness violence to help the injured student . . . .

Students with special education needs

The inclusion of students with special education needs in mainstream schools made it necessary for teachers to deal with these needs. This results, sometimes, in compassionate responses to the students’ distress, as is reflected in the following quotes:

We have students with PDT, mild autism, and so on . . . you need to be very compassionate toward these students, very patient . . . and you look at their misbehavior from different lenses . . . . (A male science teacher)

. . . We had a student with special needs that all we wanted is to let him finish the 12^th grade. There were many teachers who had ignored him, were happy when he sat quietly in the class and played in his mobile phone . . . so the student felt no one expects him to succeed and did nothing . . . but, it was important to me to let him feel a sense of belonging and independence, so I was keen to involve him, if not in the academic sphere, then in the social sphere. So, he did a lot of things and became popular among the students. He collected money for extra-curricular activities, organized things . . . and thus he felt part of the class. (A female Hebrew teacher)

The last teacher told this story as an example of her compassionate behavior toward students with special education needs.

Major Factors Affecting Teacher Compassion

The identification of pain is vital but not sufficient for stimulating compassion among teachers. Four major determinants of teacher compassion were indicated by the teachers in this study.

Personal background

Most of the teachers indicated that compassion is strongly related to the teacher’s personality and personal history in which empathy and altruism were meaningful aspects of life. A male science teacher explained,

. . . I think that compassion is related to personality. This is what the teacher brings from home, a family that helps the poor, a person who is very sensitive to the other . . . This is the central issue, I think.

The teachers emphasized the significant contribution of “inclusion” and “sensitivity” to the teacher’s ability to feel compassion toward students. Some teachers connected between their own hard experiences during school days and their compassion toward their current students:

A teacher who has never experienced any distress is unlikely to be compassionate and empathic. It is hard for him to identify with a student in suffering if this state of mind has never been part of her. (A female history teacher)

. . . I had many difficulties in school when I was a student, and no one was there to understand my difficulties. I studied in a school that was like a factory. The only purpose was high achievements . . . so, maybe because of that I tend to identify with my students, to help them . . . . (A female linguistics teacher)

Few teachers reported being influenced by their own teachers’ compassionate behaviors toward and attentiveness to the needs of students in suffering. However, the influencing teachers could be also the academics in the college or university, as reflected in the next citation:

My lecturer in the B.A was an amazing person; he was human, he was ready to listen to each one of us, to our problems. He couldn’t solve our problems all the time, because his hands were tied, but he has always been so humane, so warmhearted, so opened to listen and help us. I think that his humanity symbolized compassion . . . he didn’t ignore the other’s distress, never said: “that’s how it is here, cope with it.” He influenced me so much in my own relationships with my students, especially when I have to be compassionate. (A female geography teacher)

Career experience in teaching

The teachers talked a lot about the impact of professional experience on their compassionate behaviors, or as a female linguistics teacher said, “as the time goes by, I become more and more compassionate, with strong abilities to identify with my students and help them.” Thus, in early career, the teachers stick chiefly to their schedule and subject content, and tend to be egocentric, that is, not sufficiently available to “see” the students. This is echoed in the following quotes:

In my first years in teaching I focused on myself, not on my students. Now I can feel compassion more than ever. An experienced teacher can identify students’ problems and distress and, therefore, to behave compassionately. (A female history teacher)

When you are young, you are preoccupied with delivering the content, and when you are a teacher in the highest grades, you have to be in control over the class. Today, I have a good reputation, yet the students see me as tough, and I am free to express compassion . . . in the first years you are occupied with yourself because you yourself are in distress and, therefore, you don’t have time to identify the distresses of the students. (A female Hebrew teacher)

In this sense, compassionate behavior is developing throughout the career cycle and depends largely on the teacher’s self-efficacy at work. Interestingly, the teacher is becoming aware of the narrow distinction between compassion and mercy, as a female math teacher showed:

Beginning teachers tend to feel mercy or to say [the student] is so poor, he has no food at home and therefore I have to help him quickly. But, these are cruel mercies because in this way I won’t push him to make efforts, and this is bad. In my first year [in teaching] I found myself engaged in many issues from an empathic and considerate point of view . . . many times it hurt because I felt mercy too much, and sometimes [the students] took advantage over me, like asking me to help them in the exam, or to go home earlier. It took me some time to distinguish between empathy in which I understand that the student wants something even against his own interests and genuine and real compassion. I mean, to know which kind of assistance the student needs and to realize I can’t always solve his problems by myself.

Close and ongoing relationships with the student

As it is unlikely to feel compassion toward a stranger, a close relationship with the student in suffering is critical for both the identification phase and the concomitant behavioral phase. Thus, when a teacher knows the students in his or her class very well for a long time, she or he is more likely to identify signs of distress among them, as reflected in the subsequent quotes:

. . . If I know the student for one, two, three years, I do able to identify unusual patterns of behavior, or something like that . . . most of the time you can feel it in your bones. (A male math teacher)

. . . One can say that being familiar with the student enables more compassionate behaviors toward her. The student is a person, and when there is an event that necessitates compassionate behavior it is easier to feel compassion because it is easier to understand that she is in distress. You behave with her more sensitively, in a caring way . . . . (A female religion teacher)

Educational leadership

Although most of the teachers felt that compassion is internally driven, some of them acknowledged the plausible impact of educational leaders upon teacher compassion. In one case, the educational leader who influenced teacher compassion was a guide from the education district, while in other cases, it was the school principal who created a climate of caring and empathy in the school that resulted in teachers’ propensity to behave compassionately wherever needed.

I wrote a letter in the past to the district’s guide who had supervised me in my first years in teaching . . . I’m glad to tell you that half of my class got A in Math, they come from low classes, by the way. Your guidance was supportive, professional and relaxing. You gave me a lot of tips . . . I remember you gave me a nickname . . . when you saw it is hard for me, you entered my class and showed me how to teach . . . in my view, compassion is to show someone else her lights, to listen to the other, never to block her or to dissuade her . . . her compassion is part of me now, in many circles of life. (A female special education teacher)

A school principal who is not only aware of the salient role of compassion in the schooling process but also provides facilities and allocates resources for helping students in suffering is perceived by the interviewees to encourage compassionate behaviors in school. For example, a male special education teacher reported storing bread, chocolate, humus, and cheese in the staff lounge, “as we know that a hungry child can’t study, and we got an email from the principal saying, the winter has started, so pay attention to what the students wear, in case there is any student who needs help.” The atmosphere of caring and compassion that dominates in the school is demonstrated in the words of a female geography teacher:

. . . I always tell the students they aren’t alone. I give them the confidence that we are a big team for them . . . a student in suffering will hold our extended hand

Discussion

The current study aimed at understanding the meanings of “compassion” in urban teaching and posed three questions: (a) How do teachers perceive compassion in their work? (b) When and where do teachers express compassion, and how? (c) What are the perceived determinants of compassionate behavior in teaching? From an analysis of the teachers’ accounts, a number of insights can be provided. First, consistent with Rynes et al. (2012), the teachers in this study juxtaposed compassion and professionalization, that is, they did not consider compassion toward students and community members as non-professional emotion or behavior, as long as it is unlikely to impede student development and growth. In other words, teachers who serve disadvantaged students from urban communities seem to include compassion as an integral part of the teacher’s professional toolkit unquestionably, because they feel that teaching of these students is embedded not only with didactics and pedagogy but also with empathy and compassionate behaviors.

They also described at length the process of compassion they undergo from time to time. Basically, and congruent with Kanov et al. (2004), this process includes identification of and empathic attention to suffering among their students and compassionate behavior to relieve the suffering. Specifically, the teachers cognitively and empathically appraised the student’s conditions, and when they felt that he or she had experienced behavior modification (e.g., from happiness to sadness, abrupt cry), they tended to seek for signs of suffering. The noticing of the suffering was claimed, by the teachers, to stimulate compassionate behavior in the form of personal assistance and ongoing support. Thus, and consistent with the third stage in Kanov et al.’s (2004) three-part framework for process of compassion—taking action—the teachers’ responses to relieve their students’ suffering were of several types, including supporting students and promoting their self-concept, assisting students in varied academic, and involving other professionals in their distress.

This finding gains support from previous works that showed that compassion means recognition of the demand that is there in the suffering face of the other (Carson & Johnston, 2000) and that appraisal of suffering is precondition for the compassion process (Dutton et al., 2006). Likewise, the process of compassion described by the teachers aligns with previous works claiming that compassion is a regulated response involving cognition (e.g., Atkins & Parker, 2012).

Second, although compassion arises when the observer witnesses another’s suffering (Goetz et al., 2010; Moon et al., 2014), so far, our knowledge about the sources of suffering that stimulate compassion among teachers was extremely limited (Frenzel, 2014, is an exception). The current study, though, sheds light on these particular sources and shows that distress at the student’s home, academic failure, chronic illness, exam anxiety, school violence, and special education needs, most of which are characteristics of many urban districts (Alston, 2002; Altenbaugh, 2003; Milner, 2012), are related by teachers to their compassion toward students in pain. Interestingly, and inconsistent with Atkins and Parker (2012), the teachers took their capability to cope successfully with the student’s suffering for granted, either directly or indirectly (e.g., turning the student to the psychologist or social worker). Put differently, the teachers have usually felt high levels of professional self-efficacy and considered the noticing of suffering among their students to be an integral part of the teacher’s professional capabilities. Most of the time they felt capable of responding effectively to this suffering perhaps because they serve unprivileged urban communities.

Third, it was found that the teacher’s personal background (e.g., the family of origin), teaching experience, teacher–student relation, and educational leadership are perceived by our interviewees to facilitate the appearance of compassion in teaching. In this sense, compassion is related both to the teacher’s personal characteristics and to external aspects. One external aspect identified in this study—the depth of teacher–students relations—draws support from previous studies indicating that regular and close contacts among members of the organization and trustful work relationships provide opportunities for being aware of other employees’ suffering (Dutton et al., 2006; Moon et al., 2014). Yet, as teachers have been socialized to work in a loosely coupled system (Weick, 1982), and inconsistent with the research on compassion in non-education organizations (e.g., Lilius, Kanov, et al., 2011), they did not tend to connect physical spaces and organizational structures to face-to-face interactions that, in turn, allow the identification of others’ suffering. In the teachers’ view, face-to-face interaction between teachers and students, let alone students from urban areas characterized by social problems, poverty, and ethnic diversity (Rothstein, 1996), is taken for granted, probably.

What was absent in the teachers’ accounts are several points indicated in the literature about compassion. Thus, most of the teachers refrained from talking about the danger of being absorbed in another’s suffering due to the tension between distancing and connection (Atkins & Parker, 2012), and only a few of them warned against turning students into victims to be pitied, as did teachers in Arnot, Pinson, and Candappa’s (2009) study. This absence is related, by and large, to the local culture that encourages close relationships among people, let alone between teachers and their students, and is embedded with many forms of emotion display (Oplatka, 2012). In this respect, it is unsurprising that the interviewees gave the impression that teachers should feel emotional commitment toward their students and must not detach themselves from a student’s suffering. Without using the term compassionate love (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005) directly, they have legitimated the display of love, caring, concern, and tenderness toward students in suffering.

As evidence concerning compassion in urban and rural teaching is extremely thin, several suggestions for subsequent research on this emotion seem warranted. Future research should further investigate the facilitators of teacher compassion and begin to inquire how they might increase the likelihood that teachers will feel compassion toward students in suffering. Specifically, the collective aspects of compassion on the school climate level and the development of compassion capability among teachers should receive further empirical attention. Moreover, as love is tightly connected to teaching, more attention to the concept of “compassionate love” in educational research could provide us with much knowledge about teacher–students relations in schools serving unprivileged communities. Finally, the influence of compassion on urban schools, students, teachers, and racially diverse communities, which are negatively affected by poverty and racism, merit special highlighting.

On the practical level, as pressures for productivity and efficiency reduce the likelihood that employees will notice the suffering of colleagues and consequently be compassionate toward them (Frost, 2003), urban districts should balance between accountability reforms and teacher autonomy to allow teachers the time and space they need to be capable of identifying suffering and pain among their students. Likewise, leadership development programs ought to prepare future urban principals to encourage teachers to engage in compassionate behaviors as part of their “natural” duties on job. This is necessary, in our view, for educational leaders who aim to serve as facilitators of community development and to position their school as a spatial community asset (Green, 2015). Besides, as face-to-face interactions are vital to identifying others’ suffering, it is recommended to enable teachers and students to communicate with each other in small groups and in personal meetings as part of the teacher’s formal school schedule.

The Limitations of the Study

We acknowledge that the focus on teachers who were already compassionate and a lack of comparison between this group of teachers and that of non-compassionate teachers limit the strength of our conclusions about determinants of teacher compassion and decrease generalization of the findings. A future study might look at the prevalence of compassion among teachers to examine the extent to which these determinants hold up across a variety of teachers.

Footnotes

Appendix

Details About the Participants.

Interview	Teaching experience	Subject of teaching	Gender	District
1	20	Sciences	Female	Center
2	8	Hebrew	Female	Tel Aviv
3	25	Biology	Female	Tel Aviv
4	24	Hebrew	Female	Tel Aviv
5	16	Special edu	Female	Tel Aviv
6	26	History	Female	Tel Aviv
7	25	Hebrew	Female	Center
8	9	Hebrew	Female	Tel Aviv
9	16	Math	Male	Center
10	8	Sciences	Male	Center
11	8	Bible	Male	Tel Aviv
12	7	Math	Male	Center
13	12	Literature	Male	Center
14	13	History	Male	Center

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Izhar Oplatka is a professor of Educational Administration and Leadership at The School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Israel and the head of the dept. of Educational Policy and Administration. Prof. Oplatka’s research focuses on the lives and career of school teachers and principals, educational marketing, emotions and educational administration, and the foundations of educational administration as a field of study.

Orit Gamerman is a teacher and coordinator of Hebrew Studies at Alliance High School, Tel Aviv. She was an inspector of Hebrew teaching in the Education Department, Tel Aviv Municipality. She graduated her MA studies in Tel Aviv University.

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