EMPATHY
The world of today and tomorrow is becoming increasingly diverse, and there is no way to cordon oneself off from this diversity. Accordingly, we must respect those who differ from us as well as those with whom we have similarities. Recognizing that nowadays one can no longer remain within one’s shell or on one’s home territory, the respectful mind notes and welcomes differences between individuals and between groups, tries to understand these “others,” and seeks to work effectively with them. In a world where we are all interlinked, intolerance or disrespect is no longer a viable option.Howard Gardner, Five Minds for the Future. Harvard Business Press, 2008
Empathy is attuning oneself to another. It is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what that person is feeling. It is the ability to stand in others’ shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts. Empathy isn’t sympathy – that is, feeling bad for someone else. It is feeling with someone else, sensing what it would be like to be that person. Empathy is a stunning act of imaginative derring-do, the ultimate virtual reality – climbing into another’s mind to experience the world from that person’s perspective.Empathy allows us to see the other side of an argument, comfort someone in distress, and bite our lip instead of muttering something snide. Empathy builds self-awareness, allows us to work together, and provides the scaffolding for our morality. Empathy is an ethic for living. It’s a means of understanding other human beings, a universal language that connects us beyond country or culture. Empathy makes us human. Empathy brings joy.
Empathy is an essential part of design, because good designers put themselves in the mind of whoever is going to experience the product or service they’re designing. Empathy is related to synthesis – because empathic people understand the importance of context. They see the whole person much the same as seeing the whole picture. The aptitude of story also involves empathy.
Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Riverhead Books, 2006
Americans are not likely to succeed unless many more of us than at present understand a good deal about the other peoples of the world: how they think, why they think that way, what they like and do not like, and how they operate. This kind of international empathy and knowledge will be no less important than language literacy, mathematical literacy, and scientific literacy.National Center on Education and the Economy, Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, Revised and Expanded. Jossey-Bass, 2008
The rapidly changing demographic makeup of the United States and the advent of technologies that make it possible to communicate information over vast distances compel us to reassess our participation in a global society. During these opening years of the 21st century, mass media and the global span of technology allow us to sit in our homes and schools and easily observe and communicate with people in distant parts of the world. Immigration is bringing new populations into our schools and colleges. As a nation and as a people, we cannot consider ourselves apart from the incredible explosion of global diversity and the crucial philosophical issues that underlie the current challenges brought about by the transforming measures of globalization.As arts practitioners and scholars, we know that the arts in human culture are as pervasive as language. They are not only a conveyor of human thought and experience; they provide an understanding of human creativity and innovation on a global scale. Issues surrounding aesthetics, diversity, identity, race, and ethnicity are at the heart of global arts learning opportunities.
Arts that derive from other world regions are often neglected or presented from a Western perspective that might not be true to its origin. An authentic and enhanced global view of the arts would enrich students’ lives and promote global literacy.
National Task Force on the Arts in Education, Arts at the Core: Recommendations for Advancing the State of Arts Education in the 21st Century, Report to The Board of Trustees, The College Board, Fall 2009
Process drama, sometimes called applied theatre, uses dramatic conventions to build participant’s empathy. These conventions (e.g., improvisation, role-play, mantle of the expert, writing-in-role) can be used for a range of purposes, from warming up and familiarization exercises to deep in-role activities. Each involves different complexities of imagination and role taking. A careful and subtle sequencing of conventions enables participants to move between spectator and actor, and between intellectual detachment and emotional engagement, building recall, trust, identification, reflection, connection, commitment, empathy, and transformative social action.
According to Dorothy Heathcote, process drama is about our ability to identify with and put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Thus it is particularly suited to exploring feelings, motivations and perspectives, and to providing the conditions where students can try out someone else’s shoes. The identification with fictional characters that ‘trying out their shoes’ allows, is necessary for commitment to the characters, to their circumstances, and to the story. This commitment is part of the experience of empathy. Engaging in dramatic roles and situations, students can explore the human condition – not as a way of answering the problems of the world, but to help develop a perspective on the world and to understand or at least struggle with the perspectives of others as we all move to a sense of social justice and equity.
Chris Holland, “Reading and Acting in the World: Conversations About Empathy”,
Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, Routledge, 2009
