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Nobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion After Columbine

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Someone has said that every complicated problem has a simple solution-- and it is wrong. Barbers, editorial writers and other purveyors of simple solutions have said that school shootings, such as the one at Columbine High School in Colorado, can be prevented by posting the Ten Commandments, reinstituting school prayer, or kicking out "weird" students. Eliot Aronson, a prominent social psychologist, offers a more sophisticated analysis of school violence. He reminds us that in American high schools, bullying, sarcasm, threats, humiliation, physical abuse, and social isolation are commonplace. It is an atmosphere in which even favored students must tred lightly or risk exile. The shooters are nearly always those who have been pushed by their peers to the outside. Educators seldom contribute to this hostile environment directly, but they often do little to change it.

Aronson suggests some concrete steps that can be taken. In particular, he advocates that part of the school day be set aside for cooperative forms of learning. Aronson devised one form of cooperative learning, the jigsaw method, for the express purpose of reducing tensions in the process of teaching regular subjects. The jigsaw method requires students who are not members of the same clique to work together for their mutual benefit. It has been found to reduce tensions and improve the social status of "outsiders." This is NOT group therapy or social engineering; it is a way of teaching regular content that helps bring students together.

Whether cooperative teaching methods will substantially reduce the frequency of school violence is uncertain. But Aronson has at least put his finger on the central problem, the fact that our high schools are places that generate hate. I think every high school teacher and parent in the country should read this book. We need to get past the simplistic solutions. (For more on this book, see my review in the September, 2000 issue of Psychology Today.)

On one level, this book is a wonderful advertisement for the jigsaw classroom system and the benefits it can affect in schools. It also does a decent job of pointing out how many of the currently offered solutions to problems in school are really treating symptoms (violence, depression), and not the underlying causes (an overemphasis on inter-student competition). On another level, this book can serve as a very, *very* basic introduction to social psychological theory, almost like a case-study novella.

While this book is good for people looking for a quick and simple exploration of what those involved in the system can actually *do* to help make the school system a better place, the social psychology theory surrounding the ideas is explored to better fruition in his books 'The Social Animal' and 'Age of Propaganda'. Of course, those books are both more expensive and considerably longer than this slim, small volume. But if the ideas presented here spark your interest, I can highly suggest the other two books, and 'The Social Animal' in particular fleshes out the social psych theories that underlie 'Nobody Left To Hate'

This is a great book. It is perhaps the most important book I have read in the past five years. Elliot Aronson, an internationally renowned social psychologist provides us with a brilliant analysis of the causes of the epidemic of lethal violence in our schools and with some tried and true solutions to the problem. Eschewing the simple solutions like metal detectors and posting the Ten Commandments, he goes right to the heart of the matter--arguing convincingingly that in order to reduce violence in schools we must deal directly with the poisonous atmosphere of exclusion, taunting and bullying. We must not only teach reading, writing and arithmatic, we must also teach, cooperation, compassion and empathy.

His solution: We can achieve all of these things while, at the same time, improving academic performance. This can be done by employing the jigsaw method of instruction. This is a strategy which places students in small cooperative learning groups where students must cooperate with one another in order to learn the day's lesson. In the course of working together, they learn to respect one another, care about one another--even if they are from different background and different ethnic groups.

Twenty-five years of careful scientific research in dozens of scools shows that jigsaw works!

If all schools used the jigsaw at least some of the time, there would never be another Columbine tragedy. The jigsaw technique can be used by any teacher. Detailed instructions are available free on the Internet.

Nobody Left to Hate is must reading for teachers, parents and concerned citizens. The book is a delight to read: it reads like an exciting novel and it teaches like a master teacher.

Thank you, Professor Aronson for a remarkable gift!

As a seventh grade mathematics teacher, studying to be a school counselor, I found this book to be helpful. It is an easy read and offers, not only a clinical explanation why Eric and Dylan did what they did, but suggests ways to transform the atmosphere in schools so there will less likely be another event like Columbine. Unfortunately, Aronson only suggests two possible solutions for transforming the school atmosphere; increase emotional intelligence and implementing the "jigsaw" method of teaching. I agree, teachers should implement "teachable moments" on empathy so that there is nobody left to hate, but I often find it difficult when teaching algebra to use the "jigsaw" method. As I start the new year, with this book in mind, I plan to do more cooperative group work, however, it would also be nice to have other "tricks" up my sleeve to create empathy and a less competitive classroom.

Elliot Aronson is a social psychologist who has written a number of books and has published his research in journals. Nobody Left to Hate Teaching Compassion After Columbine is an insightful book that looks at what the school climate is across our nation, particularly in middle and high school. Aronson points out that bullying, humiliation, and exclusion are found in schools throughout our country, not just in Littleton, Colorado. This is a town that is like so many across our nation. He shares with us a variety of approaches that can be implemented to promote respect and cooperation within our schools. This will not happen over night. Educators need to apply these strategies to create safe schools in which all students feel accepted and safe. The strategies that he has presented are easy to accomplish.

The first response to our schools Aronson refers to as "pump handle interventions." These are simple interactions that may stop a problem, but don't look at the cause of the problems. Examples of a pump handle interventions are adding metal detectors, security guards and censorship of the media. These may be helpful, but not right for all schools. They also don't get to the reasons why students have murdered their classmates and why they felt that they needed to do so.

"Root cause interventions" dig deeper and look at ways to help students feel less isolated and intimidated. Teachers need to help students develop emotional intelligence (recognize the emotions and perspectives of others and to develop empathy from this) and create classrooms with cooperative learning. Aronson presents his method of cooperative learning called the jigsaw. Students this way can learn to accept and appreciate all that each other have to offer and benefit from one another.

This easy to read book provides some valuable insight into the climate of our schools today. The book gave a perspective as to why these awful things are happening. Aronson provides the reader with some easy to use and implement strategies that would not cost schools a lot of money. Aronson's strategies help students become better people and learners.

Nobody left to hate is both comprehensive and brief a rare combination in social psycho;logy texts. I do think that the title is a bit overly optimistic. Yet the clarity and the simplicity of this work will give the reader both insight and hope for a very vexing problem.

This book is recommended to anyone who deals with children and adolescents, is in the field of education, parents, and teachers.
In his book, Nobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion After Columbine, Elliot Aronson provides the public with many unanswered questions about the Columbine tragedy. He gives his readers the reasons why it is so important to address such issues as bullying, taunting, humiliation, and exclusion in the atmosphere of our classrooms across the country.
Elliot Aronson is a social psycholigist with a vast amount of experience in research and experimentation in his field. Through his experience on a social psychological level he provides his audience with specific examples that are easily understood to back up his theories. These examples are typical real life issues that face teachers and students in our schools. In addition he provides strategies for classroom teachers to promote emotional intelligence, respect, empathy, and cooperation instead of competition. His ultimate goal is to create a more compassionate and supportive environment in our schools to prevent another tragedy like Columbine.

Finally, a book that crosses all ethnic, moral, legal, and political lines regarding violence, hatred and intolerance. "Nobody Left to Hate" offers clear insight into our social delima, not only in schools, but in the general population as well. Most importantly, it provides solutions that are doable no matter what walk of life you come from.

This book is written in a very simplistic manner. I personally have not read any of Aronson's other material and, frankly, stumbled upon this by accident. Yet, there was a year in high-school when my life was made hell by one of the members of the "in-crowd" (the jock from an affluent family, figured I was easy prey).
Aronson delineates peripheral and root solutions to bullying, obviously the peripheral fixes are based on expediency (how fast, not how well). As a "real" solution he suggests his prior work implementing a "jigsaw" style class-room (think: the movie where everyone has to work together or they're all f**ked in the end - because that's the exact scenario) which is more throughly spoken of in other work.
Whether or not this is the "real" solution to the issues faced by the "out-crowd" in our school systems is debatable, but there are instances where it has certainly seemed the most prudent path.

A very good start to anything you care to read about bullying in our educational system.

This book is recommended to anyone who deals with children and adolescents, is in the field of education, parents, and teachers.
In his book, Nobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion After Columbine, Elliot Aronson provides the public with many unanswered questions about the Columbine tragedy. He gives his readers the reasons why it is so important to address such issues as bullying, taunting, humiliation, and exclusion in the atmosphere of our classrooms across the country.
Elliot Aronson is a social psychologist with a vast amount of experience in research and experimentation in his field. Through his experience on a social psychological level he provides his audience with specific examples that are easily understood, to back up his theories. These examples are typical real life issues that face teachers and students in our schools today. In addition, he provides strategies for classroom teachers to promote emotional intelligence, respect, empathy, and cooperation instead of competition. His ultimate goal is to create a more compassionate and supportive environment in our schools to prevent another tragedy like Columbine.