Books: One Key to Fostering Empathy and Multiple Perspectives

“Some people really suffer a lot.” The 7th grader was reading Refugee by Alan Gratz in the 10-minute independent reading time at the beginning of the period, and I had stopped by for my weekly check-in. I asked, as I had each student, “What have you enjoyed about or learned from your reading since we last talked?” 

The student looked so sad, I wanted to gather her up in my arms and protect her from that knowledge. The point of view in Refugee rotates among 3 refugees at 3 different places and times: fleeing Germany in the 1940’s, Cuba in the 1990’s, and contemporary Syria. But I was also proud of her for embracing learning about the world with such an open heart.

Empathy and valuing our neighbors’ perspectives is a giant step toward emulating Jesus. If empathy is stepping into another’s shoes, Jesus did the ultimate job of that when he “became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood” (Jn. 1:14, The Message). Because Jesus took on the full human experience, from teething to puberty to death, we have a God who can “empathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15, NIV). And as recipients of that grace, that empathy, that compassion, we are empowered to empathize with the weaknesses of our neighbors who we seek to love, to live into their experiences: “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” (Heb. 13:3, NIV). 

I’m struck by all the other places empathy comes up. This week I was re-reading the first chapter of Becoming a Globally Competent Teacher to prepare for a book discussion with my department colleagues. What’s chapter one? “Empathy and Valuing Multiple Perspectives”--the first of 12 dispositions, areas of knowledge, and skills. “This fosters not only global competence but also trusting relationships among students and between the teacher and students. Consequently, students are more willing to take risks and consider perspectives they never thought of before” (21).

Books are one place where we learn about perspective taking and empathy. In last week’s blog I gave "17 Reasons for Children’s Books." Here are two of them:

• Books enable us to become someone else. They develop our ability to empathize and to feel compassion.
• Books can show us that most things can be seen from different points of view.

My middle schoolers have become so many different people in so many different times and places: a boy with a severe facial deformity (Wonder), a South Sudanese girl spending her day carrying water (A Long Walk to Water), and a Black boy in the US (Ghost Boys). And that’s just in their whole-class novels—not counting independent reading where they’ve been in Kenya, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Okinawa, Japanese-American internment camps…oh, just all over the place.

Reading is a key way to increase empathy and perspective taking. What do your students read? How does that increase their empathy and valuing of multiple perspectives?

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P.S. Six more resources on empathy:

1. "Reading Develops Empathy Even Better When It Is Targeted, Taught, and Assessed" (blog) 
2. TED Talk: "The Danger of a Single Story" (18:33) by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
3. TED Talk: "A Radical Experiment in Empathy" (17:51) A pretty powerful experiment, if you have the patience to sit all the way to the end.  
4. Brene Brown on empathy (3 minute video)
5. "6 Habits of Highly Empathic People" (Greater Good Magazine) 
6. All Learning Is Social and Emotional (ASCD book) “Developing and expressing empathy” is one of the practices for “Social Skills,” one of the 5 components of social and emotional learning (SEL). The other 4 are Identity and Agency, Emotional Regulation, Cognitive Regulation, and Public Spirit. The authors assert, “The ways in which teachers behave, what we say, the values we express, the materials we chose, and the skills we prioritize all influence how the children and youth in our classroom think, see themselves, interact with others, and assert themselves in the world. Their social and emotional development is too important to be an add-on or an afterthought, too important to be left to chance."