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Empathy – A tool for engaging students with the Sustainable Development Goals
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Helping our students to develop empathy seems an obvious first step in asking them to engage with issues like the eradication of poverty, or advocating for peace and justice. After all, how can students do this effectively if they don’t understand other people’s life situations? Yet, while this seems intuitive in theory, it isn’t always easy in practice.
One of the best practical measures teachers can take is to consider whether the tools they are using are best placed to generate empathy, rather than sympathy. Resources such as emotive films may make students feel bad about a global issue, but they don’t help them to fully understand other people’s viewpoints. Hence, sympathy can lead to a ‘knee jerk’ reaction in which students either switch off from unpleasant emotions or try to find a quick fix which doesn’t really address a problem effectively. Some researchers have labelled this as ‘pathological altruism’; ineffective help which may even have detrimental consequences. In contrast, facilitating students in developing real empathy enables them to analyse other people’s life situations and create well thought out strategies to target social problems.
Phillippa Tichotova
Head of EAL/EAL Teacher
GC Teaching Fellow
Prague British International School
In practice, this means it is vital for students to have the opportunity to listen to diverse perspectives. While we often encourage our students to take other people’s perspectives, very recent research has highlighted that perspective getting is significantly more effective when we are trying to understand what is going on in another person’s life. There are some ideas about how to facilitate students in getting new perspectives in the Teacher Support Material for the Global Challenge.
While first hand perspectives are ideal, rich descriptions in literature and film which go beyond ‘emotive appeal’ are also effective in helping students’ understand other points of view. Two of our Global Library books for this year, the Breadwinner and Malala’s Magic Pencil are an excellent starting point for students to understand new viewpoints and widen their worldview.