Building Cohesion and Empathy in the Classroom

As a teacher, I often try to slow down classroom discussions so that students actually listen to each other. We can all too easily get caught up in “the classroom steamroller” under the press of cramming an overloaded curriculum—along with inevitable performance expectations—into limited time. Students often listen not to understand but to respond or impress other students and the teacher—hoping to get good points for “class participation”— rather than listening to and learning from each other.

For those of us who hope that young people strengthen their capacity for empathy, creating opportunities for students to really listen and work together can pay dividends. If you are trying to create a true learning environment in your classroom, it comes down to developing cohesion and empathy between students.

So, I’ve been experimenting in my own teaching with using a game I learned from Improv training. It’s an interactive, low-pressure, brief game that I suspect teachers can use, regardless of subject matter, to help build a cohesive learning community in their classrooms. I think it’s adaptable to different grade levels and subjects. This is an idea-in-progress, so I’d welcome feedback about how well this game works from classroom teachers at different grade levels.

You may be skeptical at first, though hopefully what I have to say below will pique your curiosity.

Welcome to the Proverbs Game

The “Proverbs” game is often used in Improvisation training.

Here’s what’s involved: Students stay in whatever seating arrangement is usual in your classroom: a circle, around a table, in rows. One student starts with the first word of a (to be created) proverb. The students continue going around the circle or table or rows, each student adding one word at a time (the teacher can participate as well) until the class realizes the proverb is completed.

Believe it or not, when the proverb is completed, the class will recognize that. The entire game can take no more than five minutes and then the class can go on to the subject matter at hand.

Stop Making Sense

Before I share some examples, I want to emphasize that you are NOT looking for a traditional proverb such as “two wrongs don’t make a right” or “better safe than sorry.” Rather, what we are hoping for is a more imaginative and less direct proverb, one whose meaning is unclear—making alternative interpretations possible and raising the level of playful energy and creative thinking.

When I first introduce the idea of playing this game (and I always refer to it as a “game” rather than an “exercise"), students are of course a bit anxious and unsure. So the first few “proverbs” can be a bit formal and stilted, as students try to figure out what’s being expected of them. There can be a tremendous sense of relief when told there is no “right answer” and what’s important is whatever they can add to the developing proverb. Feel free to use your imagination and take some risks, I urge the class.

These days most of my teaching is with teachers, helping them develop listening skills so that they can better listen to—and relate to—their students. Ironically, that goal is present in the very groups of teachers I work with: how to develop the habit of listening and working together? That’s where the proverbs game comes in. After our first day together I begin every class with it.

Of course, the first time I suggest this (usually on the second day of class) there is some uncertainty about what I mean and what will happen. Here are examples of three different proverbs from the first time we played the proverbs game in a class.

First Day of Proverbs Game

• If a cat felt purple enough to go away under duress, you would sneeze.
• Given that one should listen well, we certainly will speak loudly to trumpet our love.
• Never try to judge because your feelings are not cat-like and instantaneous enough today.

So, reader, your first reaction may be: Is this nonsense? The proverbs may seem so when viewed at first from a linear, logical frame, yet they have a deeper meaning. We want to encourage risk-taking and creativity and to reward listening to each other and working together. So the silliness gives permission to the class to think outside the box, to not worry about mistakes, and to play with the assignment.

Over time, as the class feels less performance pressure and can relax, the proverbs become more creative, fun, and interesting. Here are some examples from classes that have played the game a number of times.

Three proverbs from classes that had been doing readings on issues of race and ethnicity:

• Diversity can never be helpful to those that move slowly in listening to individuals
• Once there was a girl who never felt flowery because her advisor did not
• Race, not religion, should be nurtured delicately, nor avoided when voices confuse the issue.

Hopefully, you can see that each of these make an interesting point about diversity, yet the “point” is not the issue—what matters is that class began by coming up with an unusual and interesting statement that whets everyone’s curiosity and that builds on what each person said. There was no need to delve into the “meaning” of what we created (although we could have); instead, I let each person ponder what they want to take from the “proverb” and then we go on to our class assignment and classwork.

Here are three different proverbs from classes working on adolescent development and listening skills:

• Feeling never ambitious makes a conversation difficult and lengthy for adolescents who strive towards acceptance.
• Conversations that move outside of our comfort are fabulous, however, can never fulfill a desire to solve an issue.
• Purple cats rarely flee cars chasing dark elephants because dark elephants escape injustice.

Four proverbs from a class toward the end of the course, having covered a number of difficult topics:

• Leaping across a skyscraper while chewing flavorful skittles but not tasting anything.
• Butter rolls... green meadows... ashore... now confusion about seasons, undoing any confinement regarding self.
• Tomorrow, however, we move gracefully towards undulating within, soft breath, feeling easy enough now.
• Relationships can bounce back without elasticity but one may attempt to listen hopefully.

Consider these last examples. As we looked toward the end of class and our time together, the proverbs evoke the sense of movement and change (“leaping,” “seasons,” “tomorrow,” “bounce back”). However, the exact, literal meaning is not the point and deciphering these proverbs is not the goal. I’d caution against trying to make too much sense out of them.

A Team Creation: Encouraging the “creativity habit”

The purpose, rather, is to encourage divergent thinking on the part of the students and to build cohesion by providing students an opportunity to listen to each other and accomplish a work goal together.

The proverbs become a team creation. After all, you have to focus on what the person preceding you just said in order to say something meaningful yourself. In fact, you need to be aware of the entire sequence in order to come up with something yourself. And what you come up with maybe playful and different.

The purpose, then, is to encourage divergent thinking and the “creativity habit,” defined by Robert Sternbergas students’ ability to “respond to problems with fresh and novel approaches rather than allowing themselves to respond in conventional, and sometimes automatic, ways.” The proverbs game begins a class by getting the students in the habit of creative thinking rather than simply responding in automatic or rote ways to the subject matter at hand.

The Divergent Possibilities

Consider this proverb created by a class:

• Love is always unconditional green learning is part concentration on what you know.

This proverb can be read several ways, depending on the punctuation. Below are three different ways students read this proverb; in each case, the proverb becomes a sort of poem:

1. Love is always unconditional/ Green learning is part/ Concentration on what you know.
2. Love is always unconditional green/ Learning is part concentration on what you know.
3. Love is always unconditional/ Green learning is part concentration on what you know.

Since punctuation is added afterward, the same proverb read by one person may sound very different when read by another. What an exercise in perspective-taking: two (or three or more) different people make different meanings out of the same words. What a great learning opportunity to have that basic point about living together illustrated so directly in the classroom!

What the Proverb Game Does

• Generates connection by involving everyone in a playful shared task, with shared risk.
• Creates curiosity about each other in the classroom by generating an unexpected response from people. Creates the potential for empathy and deeper understanding.
• Can provide the teacher with a deeper perspective on what students are feeling in their classroom. Over time you might listen for metaphors in the proverb. A metaphor directly refers to one thing by mentioning another, it can provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas. So sometimes what is spoken of directly in the proverb bears a connection to what is unspoken in the students’ experience in school, perhaps.

For example, in the proverb just above that begins, “Love is always unconditional” — what is “green learning?” Well, it could refer to young people, still green, or it could be conservation and protection of the environment or it could be money and learning to make money and be green in that way.

All these different possibilities are contained in the one proverb. A teacher could ask students about what comes to mind about “green learning” and see what the students come up with

Modeling Curiosity

The key for the teacher is to model curiosity and to raise questions about the proverb in a low- key manner. Phrases such as. “I wonder what XXX means…” or “What do you make of XXX?” or simply repeating an evocative word or phrase (“Wow, green learning…”) can encourage students to think more deeply, and divergently, about what they have created.

One class laughed with pleasure as they thought about these different associations. “Well, if nothing else, we are laughing,” observed one participant. "Tthat’s good in a classroom.”

Bottom Lines: suggestions for trying this out

• Introduce it as a game, not an exercise.
• Make clear that there are no wrong answers. Encourage students not to think too hard about what they add to the developing proverb.
• Tell participants not to worry about grammar, you can add punctuation as needed.
• Low key, no pressure. Start out one day, then the next. Don’t make a big deal about it.
• Most of all, encourage a playful atmosphere.
• Have fun!

I welcome feedback, questions, and suggestions about this idea. Feel free to contact me through a comment below.