More Empathic Teachers, Fewer Student Suspensions

During the past four decades, school suspensions in the U.S. increased 300%, coincident with an increasingly punitive school milieu. Because suspensions are associated with later imprisonment, researchers tested a classroom-based intervention.

In a preliminary study using college students, students had higher respect for teachers and greater motivation to learn when educators were empathetic. Then, the researchers conducted a randomized, controlled, online study among 31 mathematics teachers with a total of 1682 students in 6th through 8th grades in five schools. Teachers underwent an initial 45–minute session and, 2 months later, a 25-minute session. The treatment condition suggested nonpunitive, empathic methods of classroom management, an…