3.1 Using empathy as a curriculum tool – touching on peace in the wider world
An activity such as empathy footsteps might be used as part of curriculum learning in topics such as history and literature, helping children and young people understand the experiences of people with very different life experiences to their own. Flores and Albornoz Muñoz (2022) describe the importance of care when engaging pupils and students in such activities. They discuss the use of historical empathy in history lessons with a group of Chilean children exploring difficult passages in their nation’s past.
These authors explain that historical empathy requires contextualisation – deeper knowledge of the life experiences of others. They explain that perspective-taking and making effective connections with others are important parts of empathy. However, they also emphasise that, to truly be able to understand another’s perspective one needs detailed information about their circumstances, and this might involve a range of skills, from listening to being able to research and think critically about other life-worlds.
For children and young people to empathise they need to understand key differences between their own and the other’s circumstances, as well as their shared humanity. So an activity such as ‘empathy footsteps’ might work well as part of role play to understand the perspective of others, but it would need careful situating in a curriculum that gives children and young people as much information as necessary to understand lived experiences that differ from their own.
Activity 5 Developing skills for empathy
Return to the activity ‘empathy footsteps’. Imagine that you are using this activity to resolve a classroom conflict. Below is a list of peace education competencies from the report Peace education: Making the Case from the Quaker Council for European Affairs. The list is divided into ‘knowledge, attitudes and skills’. You will notice that empathy is in the ‘attitudes’ column here. This differs from the idea of empathy as a process or a skill that you read about earlier in this section.
| Knowledge | Attitudes | Skills |
|---|---|---|
| Direct, structural and cultural violence | Open-mindedness and inclusiveness | Constructive cooperation |
| Causes and dynamics of violent conflict | Respect for self, others and the environment | Dialogue |
| Peaceful alternatives to violence | Empathy | Mediation |
| International human rights / gender / racial standards etc. | Solidarity | Non-violent communication (including inquisitive, assertive communication) |
| Current affairs | Social connectedness | Understanding, managing, and expressing emotions |
| Environment and sustainability | Self-awareness | Active listening |
| Civic processes | Tolerance | Intercultural cooperation |
| Positive peace and negative peace | Desire to promote justice | Teamwork |
| Inclusion and exclusion | Social responsibility | Analytical skills |
| Conflict management, prevention, resolution, and transformation | Curiosity | Critical thinking |
| Interfaith and intercultural learning | Gender sensitivity | Negotiation |
| Cooperativeness | Reflection |
What skills and attitudes will children and young people need for an activity such as ‘empathy footsteps’ to build peace in a situation of classroom conflict? Use the response box below to note down your ideas.
Discussion
You may have considered that a key skill required for empathy is that of active listening. This skill is supported within the empathy footsteps by requiring the participants to repeat back and acknowledge what the other has said. You may also have considered other skills, such as the ability to communicate non-violently (that is, without judging, accusing or blaming). Skills in managing emotions would be helpful here, as might attitudes of self-awareness. Of course, you may have noted other skills and attitudes that might be required for children and young people engaging in this activity.
As you can see, an activity such as empathy footsteps is invaluable for helping children and young people develop their capacities to build peace. However, for it to be effective, there is a need for careful attention to the development of a range of skills, attitudes and knowledge in a range of activities across the curriculum, requiring patient and focused teaching. You’ll explore this further in the next activity, which looks at an account of a literature activity in a US elementary school.
Activity 6 Understanding another’s experience through literature
Read through this account of a literature activity intended to raise children’s awareness of issues around immigration and Muslim culture, carried out with a group of children in a US school (Aziz, 2016, p. 180). The children are reading the book My name is Sangoel in order to explore the experiences of a Sudanese refugee in the US.
What additional information do you think the children needed to understand Sangoel’s point of view? Use the response box to record your ideas.
Extract 1
Melanie and Zainab [the class teachers] sent home a survey asking parents to share the meaning of their child’s name, its origin and why they had selected it for the child. The first book we decided to use was My name is Sangoel (Williams and Mohammed, 2009) in which Americans struggle to accurately pronounce a boy’s name, a key part of his cultural identity as a Sudanese refugee. Students initially thought he was from America because he was playing soccer. We discussed new terms from the book: sky boat, the moving stairs at an airport and the doors that open magically when a person walks by. Students immediately knew that his lack of knowledge came from living in a refugee camp where these items were not present. Even though their response was that of sympathy for Sangoel and his situation, they thought that if they were in his place, they would change their own names to something easier to pronounce. With further interactions and discussions they came to realise the emotional attachments people have to their given names. After reading about how Sangoel represented his name as a sun and a soccer goal to help others pronounce it, students thought about their own names and created pictorial representations of them. I [Seema Aziz, the researcher] represented mine with an eye signifying ‘see’ and added the word me.
Discussion
Aziz describes how the students initially responded to Sangoel’s situation, thinking that the dilemma could be resolved with a straightforward name change. This would make the situation easier for the Americans that Sangoel met, but the class does not yet demonstrate an understanding of the implications this might have for Sangoel’s identity. The teachers then helped contextualise the story, deepening the pupils’ understanding of the character’s situation by recognising both similarities (the importance of the children’s own names) as well as differences (Sangoel’s experience as a refugee) between their situations.
Aziz describes how this activity led the children to ask others in their class how their names should be pronounced, deepening their understanding of the importance of pride in one’s name.
This section discussed the importance of empathy as an attitude or skill for fostering peace between us. It considered how empathy can be developed as part of a wider peace curriculum involving attention to a range of knowledge, attitudes and skills for peace.