Guidepost #2: Where Are Your Learners On Their Own Empathy Journey?
“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” – Alfred Adler
Now that you have a better sense of empathy and where you are on your own empathy journey, it is important to identify where your learners are as growing empathizers. Below we share with you one of the most significant contributions from our three-year research project: practicing empathy is a holistic, embodied experience involving thinking, feeling, and doing.
Using the “I, We, Us” framework outlined in the Welcome module, we focus on three key aspects of demonstrating empathy. Click on each label below to learn more.
It is important to recognize how empathy is manifested in others and that it does not follow a linear trajectory (moving from “I” to “us”). Rather, our research revealed that practicing empathy is iterative and multidirectional, meaning that factors can influence how we manifest empathy. For example, in one situation or context we might not be able to manifest the “doing” but can manifest the “thinking,” whereas in another situation or context we may “feel” empathic but be unable to “do” or act for a number of reasons.
What Did Our Research Reveal?
Based on our data, four key criteria for demonstrating empathy emerged:
- Feeling and emotional awareness
- Emotional consideration
- Engagement with others
- Being inclusive
As you consider your own learners and context, we encourage you to reflect on each criteria and the three domains of thinking, feeling, and doing. We have provided a few reflection questions below to get you started.
When thinking about where your learners are on their empathy journey, and how you might best support them, ask yourself:
- How do I teach my learners how to recognize their own emotions, values, and motivations, while simultaneously acknowledging and acting in ways that honours the values, emotions, and motivations of others, even if they are different?
- How do I support my learners recognize that we are not our emotions, just as others are not theirs?
- When have my own emotions interfered with learning?
- How do I help my learners recognize different ways of thinking, noticing social cues in others with empathy and flexibility?
- What ways do I support individual differences?
- What existing systems of practices have kept some learners away and how do I rebuild spaces to stretch and embrace diversity, inclusion, and belonging?
To support you adopting or adapting our research into your classroom or learning context, we have designed a rubric that you can use, formatively or summatively, to evaluate your learners. The rubric supports a holistic approach to understanding, practicing, and embodying empathy. It is not prescriptive, but rather acts as a flexible guide. Click through the slides below to learn more about the key criteria and how these manifest by thinking, feeling, and doing. A fillable copy of the Empathy Evaluation Tool is available to download at the end of this module.
