Empathy Tool

Concept: The empathy icon is a level because with empathy, we learn to balance other people’s needs, emotions, and situations with our own. Student begin by learning how they feel, and can then think about how the other person is feeling.

Hand gesture: Have students hold out their hands, palms-up, and “see-saw” them up and down, like a balance scale. This gesture can help them remember to weigh both sides of a situation and to show empathy. This gesture embodies the tagline “I care for others. I care for myself”.

Suggestions on how to introduce the tool to your students:

• What does empathy mean? (Thinking of how another person is feeling and trying to understand why they feel that way) What does it mean to walk in someone else’s shoes?

• Ask students to physically trade shoes with you or another adult? (imagine what it would be like to be Mr. Fitzsimons or Ms. Martin for a day)

• What would it be like to be in the shoes of someone in this picture? (show attached photo or another one of your choosing)

  • What kind of problems might that person have?

  • What is that person responsible for?

  • What might make that person happy, sad, frustrated, etc?

• Repeat tagline “I care for others. I care for myself.” With the hand gesture.

Practice and implementation- choose from the following:

• Share with your students when you are giving empathy to yourself. “wow, I had a really hard morning today so I’m going to give myself some empathy for having to deal with…..[traffic, my kids, my cold, the classroom behavior, etc].

• Notice when empathy is being used by your students with each other and offer appreciation for their examples of kindness.

• Look for examples of empathy in the literature you’re reading.