Empathy: the most important skill

6th grade students respond to Mountain Elementary School’s Team Time

On June 26, Boomtown presented an article (found here: A Desperate Need for Empathy) about the social emotional curriculum three Mountain Elementary school teachers introduced to their sixth grade homerooms during the 2023-2024 school year. This week we are offering the perspective of several sixth grade students, including anonymous feedback from a collective survey given at the end of the school year, as well as comments written by several students from the sixth grade journalism club.*

*Students’ parents provided written permission to use their comments and names in this article.

Team Time, based on the Harvard University curriculum “Making Caring Common” was introduced to the 6th grade students of Mountain Elementary during the 2023-2024 school year. This program consisted of twice weekly meetings in students’ homerooms and larger whole-grade gatherings where students were introduced to relevant topics meant to develop emotional awareness and empathy in school-aged children.

Since the inception of Team Time, students have been encouraged to openly express their thoughts and give feedback to the teachers regarding the information being presented. The relationship developed between students and teachers throughout the program created opportunities for students to answer honestly, as well as for the teachers to be more receptive to suggestions. 

At the end of the school year, 53 Team Time students completed a survey over Google Forms. Questions ranged from multiple choice to open-ended responses, allowing for data to be collected and individual opinions to be heard. Overall, the program seemed to be well received by students. While some students looked forward to the time as a way to defer schoolwork for a precious few moments, 75.5% of the students polled said they felt more connected to fellow students than they had in the previous year. In addition, 69.8% reported that they felt more supported and connected to all of their sixth grade teachers. 

Sixth grader Sequoya said, “I would like to share that I honestly think that team times make a closer connection between the class and the whole grade.” Other responses included, “I like how I got to know more about people,” and “Team Time helped me out emotionally and physically.”

Other students reported a different experience. Maxwell wrote, “I didn’t think Team Time was particularly effective because I personally didn’t notice any positive effects of it…I can’t really think of anything that was useful to me or affected my life in a positive way, day-to-day.”

While a majority of students (62.3%) felt the topics covered during Team Time were helpful, some students were ambivalent about the substance of the curriculum, as nearly one-fifth (17%) said they found no use in the information provided.

When students were asked which topics they felt were the most important, “racism” was the top answer at 75.5%, followed closely by “bullying” at 64.2%. Hannah wrote, “I think that some of the Team Time in 6th grade was useful, like the slideshows on racism, bullying, etc. They taught us what bullying/racism was, how to deal with it if it happens, and more. ”

Other topics recognized as valuable by a majority of students included “body image and body shaming” (56.6%), “discussion prompts” such as the Rose, Bud, and Thorn exercise (54.7%), and “I’m just joking…that’s not joking” (54.7%). 

One student stated, “[Team Time] was great and opened my eyes a little bit more.”

In addition to educating students about complex social emotional topics, Team Time also included a range of activities and opportunities for further engagement with the material. Students appeared to connect most with team-building activities (62.3%) and large group discussions (43.4%), recommending that these practices should be implemented more in the future. One student, Amelia, pointed out, “I like team time but they could improve on a couple of things. I really liked those bonding games with the other 6th graders.” Another student suggested, “Perhaps you could talk to sports coaches and dance instructors and have them send out the same message so people get the message from all sorts of people that they respect.”

Students were divided in their approval of exercises such as Humans of Mountain, with some students recommending Team Time contain less of it in the future (37.7%) and less than half (49%) identifying it as valuable. Some students, such as Evelyn, spoke to its benefits: “I have learned many things about my classmates from Team Time because we did a thing called Humans of Mountain School and it basically taught us about each student in the grade.” In contrast, Hannah commented, “For Humans of Mountain School, there wasn’t enough information (at least for me) to understand our classmates more.”

One student requested the ability to opt out of Team Time on their own, should they be uncomfortable with the topics being discussed: “I found Team Time sometimes really, really embarrassing. Like the body image and body shaming. It felt wrong to talk about it in a big group. I felt like... I actually don't know. I can call it embarrassment, but it's different. All I knew was that I was uncomfortable talking about these topics. You should have the option to opt out of Team Time if you're uncomfortable.”

Throughout the program, teachers were clear about the goals of Team Time and engaged with students directly for feedback. One survey question reiterated the point of Team Time was to “create empathy and connection between [students] and [their] classmates.” When asked if this goal had been successful, an overwhelming 75.5% of students said “Yes.” While only a small percentage (4.7%) responded “No,” the remaining percentage of students used open-ended responses to express more nuanced views. One student stated specifically, “Keep on doing what you did this year and focus [on taking] care of the racism in the beginning instead of near the middle of the year and bullying in the beginning of the year.” 

Sequoya commented, “One thing that I learned is that teamwork is something that leads to success and relationships with other students. If [other schools] did Team Times like we do, I think they would learn that everyone is different, with some similarities, but no one is precisely the same. And Mrs. Cook always says that the middle school environment depends on our behavior and actions.”

Final thoughts from students were varied. Some expressed positive sentiments such as, “I thought that it was great for learning about what is happening and why it's bad. It gave me a better understanding on what others might be going through.” Other comments were more neutral: “I had no particular problem with Team Time but I just didn't feel like it accomplished much, or at least I never saw the effects.” 

The Team Time program is still in its infancy at Mountain Elementary School, and though the response among students is varied, the teachers who implemented the program consider it an initial success. They have a clear understanding of their goals, and, as shown by the use of an end-of-year survey, they are committed to responding to student experiences and improving the curriculum each year. 

Learning how to cultivate and practice empathy is the stated purpose of this program, which is a life-long process. Perhaps the empathy the program was meant to nurture will go undetected by students initially because it is creating the building blocks to further social emotional education. As the students who have piloted Team Time enter into middle school in the fall, along with hundreds of other students who did not receive this curriculum, clearer results may soon begin to take shape. Even if the respect empathy demonstrates isn’t clear initially, it begins with understanding. As Sylvie stated about Team Time, “I like it. It has helped me understand people, and helps people understand me.”