Why empathy skills are so crucial and how we can imbed them, with Kiran Satti.
Trigger warning. This article contains sensitive content including mentions of violence, Auschwitz and the Kigali Genocide Memorial.
When I visited Rwanda in 2022, I had the privilege of visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial. I remember a quote displayed referencing Auschwitz – “We thought Auschwitz would never happen again”. Many will know of the 1994 atrocities that plagued Rwanda. After visiting and helping build a school there, I hold on to the power of hope and kindness being our guiding light as humans. Rwanda is healing, the memorial was a beautiful and peaceful place that highlighted the true power of humanity – forgiveness, empathy and love.
After the summer of riots in the UK, we are in the process of healing. The reason why I started this piece with my Rwanda visit is because of the statement I saw there – “We thought Auschwitz would never happen again”. It’s a disgusting legacy that, unfortunately, I believe has stained humanity – I don’t think Auschwitz ever really stopped; the ideology that fuelled such evil, enabled an individual to blind humans with hatred, deafen them to hope and love, and to quell any empathy. An echo from a history that became louder during the summer.
My first experiences of racism
When I was 11, I encountered my first experience of racism. The family next door had a dog and they would shout ‘attack’ once we were home from school. So we would run straight into the house to avoid getting mauled. Another experience, the night before my GCSE’s a grown white man was waving an axe outside of the house threatening to behead us. He was also threating to burn the house by threatening to pour petrol at the front door. There was a toxic mix of racism and misogyny; I still wonder whether we were targeted because it was a single mum with two girls. Would we have experienced what we did if mum had two boys?
Women, very sadly, can also employ white supremacist tendencies and biases. Unfortunately, many experience biases employed by men, women, different races and different cultures. Bias is learnt. Hate is learnt. Both are born out of fear, ignorance or a misconception about what power actually is. All experiences shape you – as Maya Angelou said, “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
These are echoes that haven’t been silenced because they are part of the reason why I believe in the power of education, hope, kindness and empathy. Education starts with understanding how empathy works – heart work. Without heart, you can’t educate the mind.
A work of heart
As educators, how do we guide the young learners in our care to navigate a world that holds a symphony of echoes that range from racism and prejudice to generational traumas – and an emerging echo of a climate crisis? For some, they will have experienced racism and prejudice. Some families will have experienced many traumas and harrowing experiences. Many humans will have the fortune of a sheltered life because their privilege serves them up a protection many others could only ever imagine, maybe.
There is an enabler I believe, that can help us as educators help the learners we serve make sense of the world.
- Encourage empathy through stories and picture books.
- Use empathy as a lens of compassion.
- Utilise empathetic understanding to become critically aware and thoughtful.
The Empathy Lab is a powerful source of information and resources that encourage educators to adopt the mindset that empathy is learnable.
Empathy is made up of 3 elements:
- Feeling: where we resonate with other people’s feelings.
- Thinking: where we use reason and imagination to work out how someone else feels.
- Acting: where we are inspired to help others, having experienced what they are feeling. 1
The power of story
Story is one of the best vehicles to engage with and exercise our empathy skills. It invites us to become self aware and critically aware. We have to step outside of our experience to imagine another’s lived experience. It’s not about sympathising; it’s about connection.
Stories serve as an intersectional lens so we can gain insight into another’s lived experience.
The Empathy Lab has a collection of powerful and high quality books in their ‘Read for Empathy’ collection as well as the ‘Don’t Hate, Educate’ collection. Empathy Day takes place in June and Empathy Month takes place in November. But, empathy Day and Month should not be one offs – empathy has to be woven into everything we do through the time we have with the learners in our school communities. Research into the value of empathy in teaching demonstrates that empathy is highly effective in promoting student learning. 2
Empathy is our greatest strength as humans because it enables us to open our minds and hearts. It enables us to bridge the gaps by inviting us to engage in the lived experiences of others – without ‘othering’ them, such as refugees, immigrants, those who own protected characteristics… the list is infinite because empathy is an enabler to further learning, understanding and ultimately becoming more human.
It is a very messy world – empathy is the compass we must equip our learners to use so they can orientate without losing their humanity.
References
- Empathy Lab (2024) ‘Research and Strategy’. Available at: https://www.empathylab.uk/research (Accessed: 12 August 2024).
- Z. Zhou (2022) ‘Empathy in Education: A Critical Review’. National University of Singapore, 16 (3). Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1373293.pdf (Accessed: 12 August 2024)
Author
Kiran is an experienced primary teacher and leader, specialising in literacy and reading. Kiran is passionate about reading being an enabler for all children by ensuring intersectional lived experiences are represented. At the core of her passion is enabling empathy to develop through reading.
