Teaching SEL: Empathy
Facilitator(s): Diana Benner (@diben) | https://bit.ly/llempathy
Session Description
Teaching students to be more conscious of other people’s feelings creates a more accepting and respectful school community. In this webinar, get tips, tools, and ideas for integrating empathy into your classroom.
defining empathy
The traditional definition of empathy is “the ability to imagine oneself in another’s place and understand the other’s feelings,” in other words, to walk in their shoes.
According to the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, empathy is “the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.” Empathy is a way of connecting with others that shows you understand that what they’re experiencing is something meaningful.
empathy vs sympathy
Sympathy states “I know how you feel”. Empathy states “I feel how you feel”.
Sympathy often involves a lot of judgement. Empathy has none.
Sympathy involves understanding from your own perspective. Empathy involves putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and understanding WHY they may have these particular feelings.
Sympathy’s favorite expression is “poor you”. It creates a sense of pity over the plight of the person. Empathy’s favorite expression is “I can understand how it feels. It must be really hard”. This helps a person to feel heard, understood and validated.
Sympathy often involves giving unasked advice or being told what to do. Empathy requires active listening.
Sympathy tends to suppress your own and others emotions. Emotions get pushed aside and avoided until it culminates in an intense fit of pain. Empathy acknowledged your own and others emotions.
research and benefits
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is a trusted source for knowledge about high-quality, evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL).
Social awareness: The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. This includes the capacities to feel compassion for others, understand broader historical and social norms for behavior in different settings, and recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.
Empathy is a key ingredient of successful relationships because it helps us understand the perspectives, needs, and intentions of others. Here are some of the ways that research has testified to the far-reaching importance of empathy.
Empathy reduces bullying: Studies of Mary Gordon’s innovative Roots of Empathy program have found that it decreases bullying and aggression among kids, and makes them kinder and more inclusive toward their peers. An unrelated study found that bullies lack “empathy”.
Empathy reduces suspensions: In one study, students of teachers who participated in an empathy training program were half as likely to be suspended, compared to students of teachers who didn’t participate.
develop your empathy practice
classroom activities
If You Were In My Shoes . . .
Answer the above sentence starter in the chat.
Empathy Shoes - Ask your students to put themselves in another person’s shoes to perceive and interpret what another person is feeling or maybe even thinking.
In Your Shoes Lesson - This lesson contains sample scenarios.
Five Activities for Building Empathy in Your Students
Identifying and Modeling Emotions
Guessing Emotions
Active Listening and Showing Empathy
Feelings Collage
Empathy Busters
A Toolkit for Promoting Empathy in Schools
Pass the Face (27)
I Love My Neighbor (39)
Empathy Exit Ticket (64)
What If It's Not Me (66)
Crying Baby Empathy Activity
This is a good activity for younger students to learn about empathy. It approaches the idea of empathy through something that everyone is familiar with: the inconsistent and ever-changing moods of babies!
On the first page, students will have an opportunity to engage in a fun, creative activity – there is a cartoon crying baby that students can color in.
On the second page, the real work begins. The worksheet reminds readers that babies can get fussy or unhappy for a variety of reasons, including a stomach ache, being hungry, or getting scared by something.
Empathy in the Curriculum
There are many ways to introduce, discuss, and encourage empathy in the classroom, including tackling empathy directly by including it in the curriculum (Crowley & Saide, 2016). For example:
If you teach language arts, have the class define empathy and identify characters in literature that demonstrate empathy.
If you teach public speaking, emphasize the importance of empathizing with one’s audience – students should think about who their audience is, what interests them, etc., before stepping to the podium.
Reading stories from the perspective of characters similar to your students.
Following a students schedule for a day.
online course
If you would like to explore additional Social and Emotional skills, be sure to check out TCEA’s online, self-paced Social and Emotional online course. Priced at just $29, the course features seven modules designed to help your students understand their own self-awareness, build positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and more. Enroll today!
