sale and donate proceeds to a specific cause.• Participate in a charity competition event (for example, Race for the Cure or Relay for Life).• Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF (www.unicefusa.org/trick-or-treat).• Spend time with and assist people in nursing homes.Source: Adapted from Amos, 2014.
▸ At the age of nine, Neha Gupta established her organization, Empower Orphans, which focuses on providing education and health care to orphaned children. The organization has helped more than twenty-five thousand children globally.
▸ At the age of nine, Katie Stagliano started planting fruits and vegetables in her garden to help the hungry and eventually founded her organization, Katie’s Krops, which has helped feed thousands of people.
▸ At the age of ten, Zach Certner founded SNAP, which develops athletic programs for children with special needs.
▸ At the age of ten, LuLu Cerone founded LemonAID Warriors, which challenges kids to make social activism a part of their social lives.
▸ At the age of twelve, Jonathan Woods established the Under the Tree Foundation, which provides gifts to underprivileged teens during the holidays.
▸ At the age of thirteen, Claire Fraise established her organization, Lucky Tails Animal Rescue, which provides second chances for dogs that would otherwise be euthanized.
▸ At the age of fourteen, Jordyn Schara founded WI P2D2 (Wisconsin Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal), which helps people dispose of medications in an environmentally friendly and safe way.
▸ At the age of fifteen, Shannon McNamara started SHARE, which provides thousands of girls in Africa with books and school supplies.
Teachers can share such examples with students to highlight the impact young people and their altruistic actions can have on their communities. As students engage in altruistic behaviors and see this impact firsthand, they are by definition experiencing brief moments of a connection to something greater than self.
Empathy
Empathy is a direct pathway to a connection to something greater than self. When we experience empathy, we transcend our natural tendency to focus exclusively on our own needs and goals. Before teachers can expect students to practice empathy, however, they must understand the meaning of the term. Empathy is often confused with sympathy, and while both relate to others’ feelings, they are not the same. When we empathize with someone, we attempt to understand his or her perspective or circumstances as a means to connect on a deeper level, while sympathy involves commiseration and feeling sorry for others.
Examples of Empathy
There are a number of resources that provide examples of empathic behavior or highlight the differences between empathy and sympathy. To this end, educators can find stories from history and literature and incorporate them into class time. For an example from literature, students could be asked to consider Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White (1952). In the book, Charlotte, Templeton, and Fern Arable all exhibit empathy for Wilbur when his life is at risk by attempting to understand his situation as if it were their own. This inspires them to take direct actions that help Wilbur rather than simply feeling sorry for him, which would be considered a product of sympathy.
Teachers can also use historical figures to highlight instances of empathy in the real world. Chiune Sugihara is one such example.
Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania at the beginning of World War II. As the Nazis began to take over Western Europe, Jewish refugees fled into Lithuania, bringing accounts of the atrocities of the Holocaust with them. In 1940, the Soviet Union (which occupied Lithuania) ordered that all diplomats return to their countries of origin before the Nazi army invaded. Before Sugihara left with his family, Jewish refugees gathered around the Japanese consulate hoping that Sugihara could issue them the appropriate papers to allow them to leave the country. Sugihara did not have the clearance to issue these visas without approval, but when he asked his superiors, they denied his request. Recognizing that the refugees’ lives depended on him, he asked for a twenty-day extension of his post and began issuing visas on his own, despite the fact these actions directly contradicted his orders. Sugihara spent eighteen to twenty hours a day handwriting visas for refugees, and often produced a month’s worth of visas in a single day. Ultimately, he issued over six thousand visas to Jewish refugees, which allowed them to escape the country with their lives (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2005).
Students might be asked, after hearing this story, why Sugihara’s actions are more indicative of empathy than sympathy. After students examine fictional and nonfictional accounts of empathy, they can find and explain their own examples of empathy from literature or history.
Attributes of Empathy
When teachers ask students to understand empathy as it applies to their lives, it may be helpful to highlight the following four attributes, as identified by Theresa Wiseman (1996).
1. Being able to see the world as others see it
2. Being nonjudgmental
3. Being able to understand another person’s feelings
4. Being able to communicate an understanding of another person’s feelings
To demonstrate being able to see the world as others see it, teachers might engage students in the following actions.
▸ Analyzing competing points of view: For example, debating as a means to understand multiple sides of the same issue
▸ Stepping outside their current circumstances: For example, roleplaying as notable figures (such as the protagonist of a short story or famous figures from history)
▸ Explaining other people’s reasoning: For example, explaining the reasoning behind specific opinions on a controversial issue
To demonstrate being nonjudgmental, teachers might engage students in the following actions.
▸ Becoming aware of and avoiding negative or judgmental language: For example, limiting the use of judgmental language about themselves and others and correcting it when it does occur
▸ Exploring why judgments are often inaccurate: For example, identifying a judgment or stereotype and examining how it is incorrect
▸ Identifying their own judgments: For example, reflecting on judgments they hold about something (such as a specific character in a book or the difficulty of a mathematics problem) and reflecting on why they feel that way
To demonstrate being able to understand another person’s feelings, teachers might engage students in the following actions.
▸ Using targeted questioning: For example, asking themselves a question like “If I were in this situation, how would I feel?” and so on
▸ Explaining how feelings affect interactions:
