Understanding others is a cornerstone of emotional intelligence, interpersonal relationships, and social cohesion. As today’s world becomes simultaneously more diverse, interconnected, and polarized—while moving at a faster pace than ever before—understanding others is more critical than ever.
In schools, “understanding others” is more than just being kind. It’s about cultivating empathy, developing emotional awareness for self and others, and having the ability to communicate and collaborate effectively across differences. Empathy and understanding are foundational in building inclusive classrooms, resolving conflicts, and ultimately creating compassionate communities.
While often overlooked in traditional curricula, understanding others is a critical life skill for both personal and academic success.
Why Understanding Others Matters in Education
This may be dating us a bit, but at ERA, we subscribe to Bill and Ted’s philosophy of being excellent to each other. But in addition to the reason above, which goes without saying, understanding others has broader impact on long-term success.
Students who develop interpersonal skills tend to perform better academically and socially. For example, a longitudinal study published in American Journal of Public Health1 followed nearly 800 kindergarteners into adulthood. The authors found that children who demonstrated stronger social competencies (like sharing, cooperating, and understanding each other’s feelings) were significantly more likely to:
- Graduate from high school on time
- Complete a college degree
- Hold stable employment in their mid-20s
In contrast, those with weaker interpersonal skills in kindergarten were more likely to experience academic failure, substance abuse, and legal troubles later in life.
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs in U.S. schools are also notably linked to improved attitudes, behaviors, and academic outcomes. A cost-benefit analysis on six well-known SEL programs2 determined that SEL’s value extends well beyond test scores and impacts the American economy. Benefits included reductions in substance abuse and associated crime, while also improving academic performance.
Making an active effort to teach empathy-related skills contributes to a positive school culture, helping students respect each other and creating a safe, inclusive, and proactively communicative environment. But these studies show us that SEL isn’t just a “feel-good” approach to education reform. It delivers real, measurable returns in social spaces like education, workforce readiness, public health, and criminal justice Understanding and empathy ultimately build foundational skills for the future, like civic engagement, leadership, and mental health.
Challenges and Barriers: Why Is It So Hard to Understand Others Sometimes?
Even though children are naturally curious, several developmental, social, and structural factors can limit their ability to truly understand others. These barriers tend to stem from limited exposure, uneven social-emotional development, and broader systemic inequities. Recognizing these challenges is the first step toward building more inclusive and compassionate learning environments.
Cultural and Socioeconomic Differences
We all bring our own lived experiences to every interaction. And when those experiences differ widely—especially along lines of income, race, or culture—understanding each other becomes more complex. Students from diverse backgrounds may lack shared reference points or language, especially in economically or geographically isolated communities.
Additionally, different cultures teach children to express emotions and communicate in different ways. For instance, some cultures value emotional restraint, while others encourage open expression. Without guidance, students might misinterpret these differences as rudeness or lack of empathy.
Critically, socioeconomic disparity can also play a significant role in social-emotional development. Children living in poverty often experience chronic stress, food insecurity, housing instability, and lack of consistent, positive adult presence. When children are focused on survival, empathy often takes a back seat.
Cognitive Development and Timing
Egocentrism is especially prevalent in younger children. As part of their natural development stages, children ages 2-7 can struggle with taking other people’s perspectives. In this age group, children assume others experience the world in the same way they do. Around age 7, children typically move beyond what Jean Piaget calls the “preoperational stage” and into the “concrete operational stage.” At this point, children begin to consider other perspectives and understand that people may think or feel differently. However, full perspective-taking skills continue to develop through adolescence.3
Digital Communication Gaps and Poor Communication Skills
In today’s digital-first world, many students have greater access to diversity than ever. But while technology increases global connectivity, increased screen time and reduced in-person interaction can hinder development of key interpersonal skills like the ability to read nonverbal emotional cues.4 Authenticity suffers in digital spaces as well. Digital presences are often carefully curated—even the ones that are meant to look “real.” Additionally, the pressures of social media on teens are well-documented. This combination of social comparison and detachment can result in reduced authenticity when it comes to emotional exchange.
In addition to gaps between digital vs. in-person experiences, many students lack strong communication skills in general. This includes interrupting over actively listening, misinterpreting tone or intention, and not picking up on bodily cues from nonverbal communication.
Implicit Bias and Stereotypes
Students (and adults!) often have unconscious biases. These can hinder both understanding and openness to hearing a new perspective. These biases are primarily due to lack of exposure to other perspectives, so actively working toward openness and sharing experiences and feelings can help reduce reactions or defensiveness caused by stereotypes.
Skills That Help Build Understanding of Others
To truly understand others, we need both strong communication abilities and practical tools for interpersonal connection. These skills can—and should—be taught explicitly, just like math or reading. Techniques to help build understanding of other people’s emotions and reactions include:
Active Listening
Active listening teaches us to listen for understanding—not just to respond. Techniques include holding eye contact, nodding, and waiting before responding. Approaches differ—like the Listen/Summarize/Ask model and the Whole Body Listening model—but the central intentions of fully understanding the communication and making the other person feel heard are always at the core.
Perspective-Taking
Perspective-taking is about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. This helps students imagine what other people might feel in different situations and help explain why someone might react a certain way or have a negative response to a situation.
Curiosity and Open-Ended Questions
Lead with genuine curiosity! Asking open-ended questions (i.e., questions that do not have a yes/no answer) can promote deeper conversations. For example, asking “What did you think about the movie?” instead of “Did you like the movie?” encourages the person to share more about their experience and opinion. This leads to more comprehensive understanding of the conversation, and it can strengthen the relationship as both people are an active part of the conversation.
“I” Statements
“I” statements can be very helpful in deescalating conflict. Statements like, “I felt hurt when…” instead of “You were mean when…” can help promote self-expression and minimize blame in a conflict-resolution setting. Bringing the focus back to the result of someone else’s negative words or actions can help reframe the conversation from an accusation and potential defensiveness to naming the core issue with the behavior in the first place (i.e., saying mean things hurts people’s feelings).
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing can be an especially effective way to ensure understanding and demonstrate active listening. Repeating back what someone else said in your own words shows the speaker that they’ve been heard and that you are on the same page about content. It also gives the opportunity for elaboration or correction if you misunderstood or misheard something.
Emotional Literacy
The first step in being able to effectively talk about emotions is to name them. Emotional literacy can help students recognize, label, and regulate their own emotions first. Some techniques for this include feelings charts or journaling to be better able to articulate emotional states.
How We Can Model and Reinforce These Skills?
Understanding others is not a one-time lesson. It’s a daily practice. And the adults in a child’s life play a crucial role in shaping how that practice unfolds. Modeling and consistent reinforcement is critical in helping students learn empathy, curiosity, and respectful communication. This modeling can come in many forms, like:
- Celebrating acts of compassion and understanding
- Actively listening in conversations
- Practicing our own emotional literacy
- Addressing bias and exclusion directly
- Creating classroom norms that value every voice and respect all perspectives
- Regularly reflecting through peer discussions
Understanding others is more than just a social-emotional skill. It’s foundational to helping students become better friends, citizens, and future leaders. When we prioritize this kind of growth in our schools and homes, we’re not just supporting individual success—we’re shaping a more compassionate world.
For us at ERA, “Understanding of Others” is the second core pillar on which we’ve built our whole organization. For us, empathy, compassion, and kindness are critical in building a better world for everyone. Life Discovery, our life skills curriculum, starts with personality testing to establish who each student is at their core—what drives them, and how do they best communicate? The course then focuses heavily on communication and the skills needed to better understand each other to collaborate, lead, and thrive. Contact us today to learn more!
References
- Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M., & Crowley, M. (2015). Early social-emotional functioning and public health: The relationship between kindergarten social competence and future wellness. American journal of public health, 105(11), 2283–2290. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302630 ↩︎
- Belfield, C. R., Bowden, B., Klapp, A., Levin, H. M., Shand, R., & Zander, S. (2015). The economic value of social and emotional learning. Journal of Benefit‑Cost Analysis, 6(3), 508–544. https://doi.org/10.1017/bca.2015.5534 ↩︎
- McLeod, S. (2025, June 4). Piaget’s theory and stages of cognitive development. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html ↩︎
- Uhls, Y. T., Michikyan, M., Morris, J., Garcia, D., Small, G. W., Zgourou, E., & Greenfield, P. M. (2014). Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues. Computers in Human Behavior, 39, 387-392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.036 ↩︎
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