Welcome
Practicing empathy is an essential tool for authentic human connection and understanding and I believe that it can be taught and learned. I designed this curricula in order to enable my students to understand the link between empathy and critical thinking, problem solving, and meaningful communication.
This project entailed three distinct phases:
Phase 1: Preparation, Research, and Experimentation
Phase 2: Action and Engagement
Phase 3: Synthesis and the Power of Writing
At the culmination of Phase 3, I asked students to send their letters to the appropriate recipients, which you can see under the “Letter Tracker” link. I launched The Empathy Project in an Advanced Writing course and intend to expand and refine it for use in different disciplinary contexts.
Motivation:
“The Emotional Labor of Teaching: Women’s Work Inside and Outside the Classroom,” presented by Dr. Sims at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association conference:
Emotional competence – the ability to respond kindly, to empathize, and to manage conflicting emotional responses to an issue – is a valuable skill, a higher-level developmental skill, and a skill that we should expect of those in all avenues of leadership, particularly our teachers. The outcome of this kind of shift in pedagogy and professional attitudes will also, in time, retrain students to value emotional agility and to comprehend it as a prerequisite to entering into professional leadership and teaching contexts.
Rationale:
Empathy is a method of problem solving. Empathy enables more effective communication, both written and verbal, and allows us to connect with diverse audiences. Empathy allows us to explore and use the power of emotion, coupling it with – rather than subordinating it to – logic.
| The Empathy Project is proprietary curriculum designed by Deborah Sims. Please purchase here.. |
| Thank you to Ryan Danger Sims for his assistance with graphic design and web development. |