university.nae.school
Unfinished Empathy: Building connections in a divided world
The MIT -STEAM superhero challenge has reminded me of the ‘superhero’ author David Solomons’ visit to my school in 2016. He was interviewed by students (see here) and asked: 'What super power do you think the world needs right now?’ Solomon responded that we need a hero with ‘the power to build empathy’. This idea of empathy as a superpower has stayed with me.
The skill of empathizing with others has become a vital 21st century skill. As Andy Puttock noted in his recent blog, we seek to cultivate soft skills in our students such as ‘cultural competence, empathy and collaboration’.
One relevant example of this is in our current Global Library book “The Breadwinner” by Deborah Ellis. After reading and discussing it with their peers, students who had previously never heard of Afghanistan are suddenly filled with compassion and concern for people in Taliban controlled Kabul.
David Robinson
English and History Teacher
Global Campus Leader & CAS Co-ordinator
GC Teaching Fellow
Nord Anglia International School Hong Kong
Psychologist Paul Bloom has explored dangers of empathy such as its tendency towards reinforcing bias. Quality literature can avoid this by overcoming cliché such as in The Breadwinner when an illiterate Taliban soldier asks the main character to read a
This ability to seek understanding across cultural divides is of key importance to all our futures and one that literature is primed to deliver. I hope you can all find some time this year to read The Breadwinner yourself and share your own reflections with your classes and colleagues to help us build a culture of empathy across Nord Anglia. For more information on The Breadwinner and other Global Campus projects, head on over to NAU and join in the discussion.
letter that was found on the body of his wife. Parvana, forced to dress as a boy to avoid attacks for being an unaccompanied female in public, reflects that “Up until then, she had seen Talibs only as men who beat women and arrested her father. Could they have feelings of sorrow, like other human beings?” (p.96).