Our next SEL unit will be on EMPATHY and COMPASSION.
While empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective and feel the emotions of another person, compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help (empathy in action). Students will learn how to feel, understand, and experience what others are feeling. The study of empathy reduces conflicts, enriches friendships, and enhances kindness as students learn to care more about others and achieve closer relationships. Identifying others’ feelings using physical, verbal, and situational clues is essential to empathy development. Understanding that people can have different feelings in similar situations, and that feelings can change, helps students develop empathy, compassion, and perspective-taking skills. Accurately identifying others’ feelings helps students make friends and avoid conflicts.
These lessons focus on the critical next step: putting empathy into action by showing compassion. One of the ways empathy makes a difference in the lives of students is by motivating them to use caring words and actions toward others. Students can channel their empathy into compassion to help peers feel less isolated, provide emotional support to peers in difficult circumstances, and strengthen friendships. Increasing students’ ability to show compassion helps create a caring and positive school climate.