During my Empathy, Balance, and Inclusion (EBI) session last Sunday, Lowers were asked to explain their “boundaries” for the third time this term, and everyone repeated nearly identical responses: “Don’t steal people’s things.” “Knock before entering someone’s dorm.” The answers weren’t born out of reflection but routine, rehearsed lines delivered just to move the class forward. EBI fails to teach any of these three essential qualities. What was meant to create understanding has become another box to check, a ritual of forced reflection that leaves students more dejected than compassionate. While the intention behind the program is noteworthy, at its core, it accomplishes the opposite of its purpose.
EBI classes strive to teach self-awareness and compassion. At its current state, it teaches performance; we recycle buzzwords such as empathy, allyship, and inclusivity until they lose meaning. No one questioned why these ideas kept repeating or what deeper meaning they might hold. With one eye on the clock, we nod, affirm, and move on. It’s not that we don’t care; it’s that the structure leaves no room for caring to be real. Compounded with the promise that we “can leave if two more people participate,” EBI becomes a place of senseless jargon. You learn quickly what to say to be done as fast as possible, which defeats the purpose entirely.
The balance of EBI encourages us to prioritize self-care and stress management. Yet Andover is an environment where students often measure their own worth by exhaustion, driven not by institutional mandates but by personal ambition, peer comparison, and the looming weight of college admissions. EBI aims to address these concerns and help educate to find this balance in the midst of obligations; however, “how to be mindful” does not address any of the real concerns students have. For example, in one session, students were asked to create skits of what they would do if they caught their friends using AI, an activity so detached from the most pressing stresses of student life that it felt more performative than restorative. While another ideal EBI attempts to address is communicating Andover’s expectations to new students, it is ineffective, as seen in The Phillipian’s State of the Academy (SOTA) survey, detailing that more than half of lowerclassmen have used AI without permission.
The inclusion aspect of EBI is likewise flawed: it pretends to engender open exchange, but really reproduces a culture of polite avoidance. Inclusion means pushing boundaries, which only exists with tension and disagreement. The nature of EBI and our school ensures that every conversation is carefully curated to be comfortable, which in turn avoids the very sort of candor the program attempts to impart.
EBI runs inadvertently under the assumption that it can effectively cover the complexity of topics like privilege and mental health within a 60-minute period. Time limits force the oversimplification of issues that require lived experience, not lesson plans. Genuine empathy, balance, and inclusion grow through conflict, discomfort, and self-confrontation. They don’t emerge from mindless agreement but from the friction of understanding someone else’s pain or perspective when it challenges your own. Yet EBI treats empathy as a formula: share, affirm, conclude. The class fails not because students are apathetic, but because the environment refuses to tolerate the vulnerability it demands. Thus, most EBI sessions are dominated by awkward silence, making students even less likely to share.
In an effort to combat the differing attitudes around values such as empathy and balance of our diverse campus, EBI teaches students an objective way to care for others. Empathy is industrialized, becoming less a natural pull and more something you are told to do. As a result, Andover students simply accept this notion as a way to keep EBI moving, and by the end of that period, whatever moment of sincerity might have existed has already been forgotten.
Nevertheless, EBI’s intention isn’t pointless. In an environment as rigorous and relentless as Andover, the concept of finding time for introspection is commendable. Where EBI falters is not in its mission but in its approach. You cannot choreograph humanity. Empathy can’t be legislated, inclusion can’t be imposed, and balance can’t be instructed in PowerPoint presentations. While it can be argued that Andover’s diversity necessitates some standardization of topics such as empathy, balance, and inclusion, EBI’s attempt to standardize the communication of these issues is unnatural.
If Andover truly wants to teach empathy, it should stop institutionalizing it. No longer should we have EBI forced upon us, as doing so defeats its purpose of wholeheartedly valuing compassion. A study published by Harvard University reported empirical evidence for why programs like EBI don’t work: “We expect that two common features of diversity training— mandatory participation and legal curriculum — will make participants feel that an external power is trying to control their behavior.” Harvard found that programs like EBI can promote “hostility and resistance, and trainees often leave ‘confused, angry, or with more animosity toward’ other groups,” completely defeating the purpose of EBI.
Genuine empathy occurs in Commons, on the walk back from practice, or in the quiet after a bad day when someone simply chooses to listen. Until Andover learns that empathy is lived, not lectured, EBI will continue producing experts in surface-level discussion but amateurs in understanding. To foster the essential values that EBI aims to instill, one idea is for the school to encourage mixed-grade mentorship, building relationships on experience rather than instruction, where empathy develops through guidance, balance is achieved through example, and inclusion is promoted through genuine connection. The most empathetic, balanced, and inclusive approach the school could take is to stop lecturing us on these values through abstract scenarios and instead model them in our day-to-day lives.
