empathy meaningful, creative, and fun learning and education
Cover Photo by Annie Spratt / Illustrations by Rufina Park
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Founder, Creative/Editorial Director Rufina K. Park Publisher Veronica Yeun Sook Kim Lead Assistant Editor Evelyn Pei Qi Ooi Widjaja Assistant Editor Allie Pasquier Lead Designer Rufina K. Park Assistant Designer Jiyoung Park Main Contributors in alphabetical order Antoine BĂŠland, S.A. Chandra, Melanie Charlene, Making Caring Common, Mikko Eloholma, Claudine Fernandez, James MacDiarmid, Mike Page, Rufina K. Park, Rutgers Prepatory School, Arlene Tucker, Evelyn Pei Qi Ooi Widjaja
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Š 2019 Ottiya All rights reserved. ISBN 979-11-959868-4-2 Publication Date: August 2019 All material in the publication may not be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any form without the written permission of Ottiya Ottiya reserves the right to accept or reject any article or material and to edit this material prior to publication. The articles published reflect the opinions of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the publishers and editorial team.
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Whale loves to swim and greet her friends. As she roams around the ocean, Whale discovers that everyone is special in their own way. But, will she realize that she is too? Kids will love learning about self-discovery and have interacting with the story and characters through augmented reality. This book is connected to our free augmented reality app called Pop-Up!
Letter from the Editor
It was my first week teaching kindergarten. I was in a grade-level meeting with other teachers and school administrators. We were all crouched around one of the tiny student tables discussing how to encourage kids to use "i-messages" to resolve conflicts. I was nodding along, but inside, I was getting increasingly confused. I thought to myself, "Wait...so at this school, kids send text messages with their iPads to apologize to each other on their iPads? Why wouldn't we just get kids to talk to each other?" I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself-I had already interrupted the conversation too many times as the newcomer in the group--so I just kept nodding along for a while longer. But, with a couple minutes left before the recess bell, I had to ask, "So just so I understood correctly, we need to get students to send i-messages on the iPads to each other to resolve conflicts at this school?" Everyone burst into laughter and then the Vice Principal described to me what they actually meant. She explained that when students get into a fight at the school, teachers ask the involved students to stop and say "i-messages" to each other like this: "Tommy, I feel sad when you take my crayons without asking me." and then Tommy would be expected to respond with something like, "Jane, you feel sad when I take your crayons without asking. Next time, I won't do that." In theory, the "i-messages" were supposed to help students to better understand one other and to be as specific as possible about what kind of actions or words are hurtful so that students learned from their mistakes. When I was monitoring students during recess or free play time, I oversaw multiple
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meaningful, creative, and fun learning and education
"i-message" sessions. Although it did seem to resolve the conflict immediately and peacefully, most of the time, students seemed to be saying the "i-message" phrases very quickly--without much thought and just out of obligation because an adult was telling them to do so. As educators and caretakers, we use tactics like the "i-message" for conflict management: it's because when we arrive at the moment of crisis, we usually don't know the details about what happened, but we want to intervene and resolve the conflict as quickly as possible. At the scene of hurt feelings, it's the best we can do to help children make sense of what happened and how to emphatize with one another. However, as we all know, we would be better off if we adopted a more proactive approach in creating a safer and happier classroom. We know that we should teach students about kindness, empathy, and listening skills, but in reality, these "soft-skills" get relegated and brushed under stacks of required curricula. We know that you might not have had the time to think deeply about these proactive approaches as much as you'd like to so we've done some of the hard work for you! As you flip through the pages of the Empathy Issue of the Ottiya Magazine with us, we hope that it will give you the opportunity to stop, reflect, and think creatively about teaching and learning empathy. Cheers, Rufina
Who Put This Together Rufina Park Founder and Creative/Editorial Director
Veronica Kim Publisher
Allie Pasquier Assistant Editor
Evelyn Pei Qi Ooi Widjaja Lead Assistant Editor
Jiyoung Park Assistant Designer
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H a n d -i n - H . 1 0 a
Ecopsychological Revitalisation: Can Nature Make Us More Caring? 016
James MacDiarmid 023
Developing Empathy THrough Writing
Claudine Fernandez
Nurturing Empathy in Children Trough Nature and Gardening 028
Melanie Charlene 034 Me
+ You = US
ng i n
D . 2
Mike Page
f o r Le n g i s e a
Empathy in Local Green Spaces
r
Arlene Tucker 039 Building
0 6
meaningful, creative, and fun learning and education
n d
Table of Contents
066 5
Tips for Cultivating Empathy?
Making Caring Common 072
Empathy is Understading and imagining
Someone Else's Story Rufina Park
Cultivating Empathy in and Beyond the Classroom
m
nity Voices u m
Antonie BĂŠland
Seven Reflections for Serendipitous Discovery in Analog and Digital Libraries 081
S.A. Chandra
03 .
Co
077
052 Robotics
for Empathy: Interview with Nao Kondo
Evelyn Pei Qi Ooi Widjaja 048 Empathy
Our Tool to Make Technologies Humane
Mikko Eloholma 056 I
Show Empathy When
Kindergarten and Grade 1 Students from Rutgers Prepatory School
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Nurturing Empathy in Children Through Nature and Gardening words and photo Melanie Charlene
Children
Learning how to sense what another person is feeling and respond empathetically is an important part of childhood development… it is an important part of the human experience. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (New International Version, Romans 12:15). Thankfully, there are ways that children can learn to identify emotions and how to respond to others displaying that emotion. Most children begin learning how to respond empathetically from their caretakers and those around them. Children will often learn how to react to someone crying, smiling or appearing
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meaningful, creative, and fun learning and education
angry based on how others respond to them when they exhibit similar emotions. In addition to being good role models, we can teach children about empathy and help them to improve their empathetic responses by teaching children words that describe feelings and emotions, and by encouraging them, through roleplay, to be empathetic to others. A child generally needs to be able to identify their own emotions first in order to relate to someone else’s emotions and offer a suitable empathetic response. Nature and gardening are my favorite tools to help teach children how to be aware of their own emotions, cognizant of another person’s experiences and considerate of other people’s needs. Nature exploration encourages a child to look both within themselves and beyond as they observe their surroundings. Parents, teachers, and caregivers can encourage children to think beyond the surface by asking questions that inspire empathetic thought and responses.
USA
Empathy is at the core of human nature. Our ability to see and comprehend another person’s feelings is something that is innate for most, but it must be nurtured. As a society, we are often less concerned with whether a person possesses the ability to empathize and are more concerned with the way empathy is expressed; empathetic response.
n running and playing together in nature
Child outdoors in deep thought
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Child experiencing nature through her senses
While in nature, children can experience a variety of elements through their senses. “The sun’s rays shine down from the skies... warming my nose… A gentle breeze blows… tickling my arm…” (excerpt from children’s book Five Birds on a Wire by Melanie Charlene). Children’s ability to identify and understand how the various elements in nature make them feel can help them learn more about themselves and relate to how other people may be feeling. One way to encourage children to think about their feelings and consider the feelings of others is to ask questions like: “how does the sun shining on your skin make you feel?” Encourage them to use words that express an emotion like happy, sad or excited, and ask why. Then, ask them: “how do you think the sun makes me feel?” and ask them to 30
meaningful, creative, and fun learning and education
explain why. Finally, share information about your own emotions and how the sun makes you feel and explain why. This practice will slowly begin to build empathetic thought and in turn, with proper guidance, empathetic responses. Gardening can also help to inspire empathetic thought in children. It is additionally excellent at encouraging empathetic responses. For example, if a child is taught that a plant has three basic needs; light, water and soil, and assigned responsibility for caring for a plant, the child must monitor the plant and ensure that these needs are adequately met. For a plant to grow and thrive, children must consistently assess the performance of the plant to ensure that it continues to ‘look happy’ with no wilted leaves, drooping branches, discoloration, etc. Through gardening, children can learn to identify the state of the plant; and assess whether it needs water, light or other.
Ideas for Nature Time Make time for nature in your (busy) weekly schedule. During ‘nature time’, try one of these activities below and check off the ones you try. How about adding your ideas to the list?
ττ Climb a tree ττ Roll down a really big hill ττ Complete a micro hike using a mini person, magnify glass in ττ Skim a stone and watch the patterns made in the water ττ Run around in the rain ττ Fly a kite/and or make one ττ Make a flower chain ττ Create some art using natural material ττ Hold and watch an insect ττ Watch a spider weave its web ττ Catch a falling leaf ττ Explore puddles, ponds and rock pools ττ Start an edible garden ττ Go bird watching ττ ττ ττ ττ ττ ττ
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By engaging our mind we become aware and through being aware we have the capacity to apply intelligence; our ability to derive information, learn from experience, understand and adapt to our environments.
an area that is no more than a square metre
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always been quite practical - how can it make our life easier. And why should we leave technology education just for those who fit the traditional stereotype?
Ice cream truck wouldn’t maybe survive robowars but it made a nice pro
Common fears and misconceptions After the course I started developing learning materials for Mehackit. We also held dozens of teacher trainings about creative technology during the following year. When it comes to technology, there are of course many types of teachers. Some teachers have been teaching programming and ICT eagerly for many years before it became part of the national curriculum. They have developed their own learning materials and have a lot of knowledge that benefits the schools they work in. Then there are teachers who don’t care much about technology. They think it is irrelevant to their teaching. But the most common group of teachers in our trainings has been those who are curious about technology but have doubts about their ability with it. I think there are some common thinking models that prevent teachers from taking the first steps. One of these thoughts is that you should know everything before starting. As I said before, that’s not even possible. So what should you know then? I think that if you are teaching e.g. a visual programming course (we use an open source tool called Processing), you have to know the approximate limits of what’s possible. If a student wants to model a 3D apartment as first thing, you might need to suggest doing a 2D model of it first. There are moments when you can encourage and others when it’s good to set constructive limits Some teachers may feel that even if it is possible to teach without knowing everything, it’s not reasonable. If we think about programmable electronics, for example, shouldn’t the teacher first carefully study the laws of electricity and computing that make everything else possible? Isn’t it impossible to apply or create with technology without knowing these laws? Expertise can be understood as a pyramid of knowledge like in the famous Bloom’s taxonomy. On the other hand, not understanding
Mehackit has hired university students to teach technology courses since Nowadays we focus on developing online content for educators and stud English (check www.mehackit.org).
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oject to our summer-vlog
e 2014. dents in
shouldn’t prevent us from trying, doing mistakes and learning from them. It’s possible to make snowballs without knowing the molecular structure of snow and it’s possible to make with technology without understanding the ones and zeros on the fundamental level. You’ll face the important questions on the way and learn as you go. Other misconception is that technology education would be just about technical details. I think a key skill a good teacher needs is the ability to listen. What is it that the students really don’t understand and even more importantly, what this technology means to them? How could they connect the project to their hobbies? The technical complexity doesn’t have to be a value in itself. Sometimes a creative idea is the thing that takes the project to a new level and boosts the motivation of the student. And it’s easier to tolerate frustration with technology when you have a meaningful goal you want to achieve. Another great obstacle is the feeling of being alone. I’m not denying that the teacher is sometimes alone in the classroom but on the other hand there’s the web-community, other teachers and of course the students - who can help. We’ve been piloting our new service Mehackit Atelier with teachers since last fall. The idea is to provide virtual classroom with world-class onlinematerials and educator support. An important promise during the testing has been that were available on phone 24/7. Quite few teachers have actually called us during the testing but the feeling of not being alone has made it possible to take the first steps. So: 1. You don’t have to know everything, 2. Lack of knowledge shouldn’t prevent you from trying, 3. Being able to discuss and listen is crucial, and 4. You are not alone. I think these ideas are summed up in empathy quite well. We should widen our definition of a technology-person to those who don’t understand technology but are curious and would like to do something creative with it. It requires empathy to allow ourselves to make mistakes and really help each other with technology. After all, it’s not humans or technology, it’s humans making things with technology.
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nI I show empathy whe her) help Justin (little brot learn to walk. Sasha Age 6
I show em path help mom y when I will my if she fa lls Kartar Age 5
y when I will I show empath e garbage. ith th help my dad w Kenneth Age 5
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I feel empathy when my friend gets hurt. Jake Age 6
Empathy is someone when you think o f and feel t he same a s someone Duhan Age 7
I feel emp athy whe n my frien d is sad. Akira Age 6
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meaningful, creative, and fun learning and education
5 Tips for Cultivating Empathy
MA, USA
words and photos Making Caring Common
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meaningful, creative, and fun learning and education
"Empathy includes valuing other perspectives and people. It’s about perspective-taking and compassion.”
Empathy is at the heart of what it means to be human. It’s a foundation for acting ethically, for good relationships of many kinds, for loving well, and for professional success. And it’s key to preventing bullying and many other forms of cruelty. Empathy is always top of mind at Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Through our reports, research and initiatives, resources, and media work, we help educators, parents, caregivers, and community members raise kids who care about others and the common good. Empathy begins with the capacity to take another perspective, to walk in another’s shoes. But it is not just that capacity. Salespeople, politicians, actors and marketers are often very skilled at taking other perspectives but they may not care about others. Con men and torturers take other perspectives so they can exploit people’s weaknesses. Empathy includes valuing other perspectives and
people. It’s about perspective-taking and compassion. At Making Caring Common, we like to say that empathy is a muscle. We all have the capacity for empathy but we need to practice it regularly to build up our strength. Based on research and the wisdom of practitioners, the following five guideposts provide specific ideas for how to exercise empathy in your daily interactions. These guideposts work because they give examples of how parents, caregivers, and educators can “walk the talk,” especially when dealing with strong emotions or conflict. Start with one or two “TRY THIS” ideas and build from there!
1. Empathize with your child and model empathy for others Children learn empathy both from watching us and from experiencing our empathy for them. When we empathize with our children they develop trusting,
secure attachments with us. Those attachments are key to their wanting to adopt our values and to model our behavior, and therefore to building their empathy for others. Empathizing with our children takes many forms, including tuning in to their physical and emotional needs, understanding and respecting their individual personalities, taking a genuine interest in their lives, and guiding them toward activities that reflect an understanding of the kind of people they are and the things they enjoy. Children also learn empathy by watching those we notice and appreciate. They’ll notice if we treat a server in a restaurant or a mail carrier as if they’re invisible. On the positive side, they’ll notice if we welcome a new family in our child’s school or express concern about another child in our child’s class who is experiencing one challenge or another.
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Can you hear me? Music is an integral part of David’s work on empathy and belonging. Below are the lyrics to the song David wrote called Can You Hear Me.
Can You Hear Me? I’m speaking softly I’m listening for a sound Or a sign I’m having a bad day I need a friend to stay To listen as I sing my song with you Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I can hear you I’m a friend so true I’m listening As you sing your song to me I will comfort you Like a sky so blue
Take your time Share your thoughts with me Cause I can hear you I can hear you Can you see me? Feeling better now Feels so good To have a friend like you When you listen makes it easier to know I have a friend like you And I’m not alone Cause you can hear me And I can hear you
“Can You Hear Me”? Copyright 2018 David A. Levine Teaching Empathy Music (BMI) You can listen to the song by going to www.schoolofbelonging.org/teacher-resources. The password is empathy.
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meaningful, creative, and fun learning and education
In an ad-hoc library at a refugee camp
oldies they belonged to out into my
hilariously utilitarian: I’ve done enough
recently, I counted 36 copies of Char-
hands. As a tween, I’d talked myself
ethnographies of young people picking
lie and the Chocolate Factory in the
into a fever of self-congratulatory
books to be humbled by a book-picking
English-language adult psychology
tastefulness about my favorite books:
answer like “No one wiped their hands
section. There was a psych class nearby,
they were expressions of my acumen,
on it,” which on the scale of favor-
and many of the teenagers who came
my individuality! But in the camp, I
ite-book answers is like someone saying
by were in the habit of making a shame-
confronted how few of us are really
they were drawn to the love of their life
faced stop by the children’s section to
choosing what we read after all. If we’re
because he had a face.
pick up English-as-a-second-language
lucky enough to have a creative, obser-
practice materials. The librarian decid-
vant librarian like the one I met, what
No, it’s not choice, but serendipity
ed to place the set--wholesale donat-
we might do well with is being placed in
that draws students to the books that
ed from an English-speaking class-
our path. And if we’re not, our individu-
click. But what is serendipity in a li-
room--randomly among the textbooks,
ality might actually be blocking us, and
brary, exactly? What is it about analog
making it easy for a teenage student to
the architecture of our libraries is just
libraries that’s so conducive to it, and
stay in “their” section rather than the
rolling smoothly around the blockage.
how can we replicate that for modern students in the digital environments
kids’ and read. And they did: all 36 wore the telltale frequent-reader accordion
But there’s a certain romance to the
we read in now? As a digital librarian, I
in their spines, beaming out at me like
image of a young person choosing a
want to invite us to consider serendip-
laugh lines.
book. We hear it and we think of play:
ity’s potential to generate empathy, to
of purposeless vectors of discovery that
imagine students’ ability to create it in
Back home, I sought out those laugh
are exploratory, creative, spontaneous,
any library, and to share a few ways for
lines in my own library and tipped the
inspired. Of course, they’re also often
educators to start sieving it out of the
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791195 986842 ISBN 979-11 -959868-4-2
© Ottiya 2019
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Empathy Issue USD $25.00 KRW 25,000
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