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1.1 Empathy and Intercultural understanding

The IB mission: empathy and intercultural understanding?

The IB Mission statement states how empathy and intercultural understanding is crucial in creating a better, more peaceful world. One of the benefits of this collection of resources on empathy, is it allows us to explore the true significance of the last sentence; that our IB education is there to 'encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right'

Empathy and Intercultural Understanding

Through the introduction of Intercultural Understanding, you can introduce many of the learning outcomes.

This lesson on empathy and intercultural understanding encourages students to articulate the value of culture in LO3. Implicit in this exploration are opportunities to explore LO4 and LO5 with the subtext of intercultural understanding being effective communication and considering the ethical ramifications of international mindedness in today's world.L

LO1:  Identify their own strengths and areas for growth
 
LO2: Demonstrate the ability to apply thinking processes to personal and professional situations

LO3: Recognize and be able to articulate the value of cultural understanding and appreciation for diversity

LO4: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of communicating effectively and working collaboratively

LO5: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions

esson plan: Empathy and Intercultural Understandin

Establishing a definition of empathy

Step 1. Developing our understanding of Empathy

  What is Empathy? Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference;  that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Developing empathetic skills enables us to understand different cultures.

Establish a definition of empathy with Mark Ruffalo on Sesame Street and the exercise that follows.

What is Empathy?
How do we show empathy?

E - Eye gaze. Do we seek or avoid eye contact?
M - Muscles of facial expression. Are we conscious of the facial expressions we use or how we respond to the facial expressions we use or how we respond to the facial expressions we are faced with?
P - Posture. Notice the other person's posture - is it open or closed? How do you respond to that?
A - Affect - expressed emotion. Try labeling the other person's expressed emotions - are they upset, happy, sad...?
T - Tone of voice. Listen to their tone of voice... what does this tell you?
H - Hearing the whole person; understanding the context in which others live. Do not judge and take things at face value.
Y - Your response - what you express is likely to reciprocated. How can we express empathy by reflecting their E.M.P.A.T.H...? 

Reflection

Reflect on a scenario where you showed empathy to someone or someone showed empathy to you. Go through the acronym above for E.M.P.A.T.H.Y and how each element was significant.

Further notes on exercise
You may want to carry out the above exercise as a group discussion or a role play where you consider different scenarios where the ability to show empathy would be beneficial. Students also might like to consider a situation which did not go well and they did not show the empathy needed for the situation.
Extending. Do you know how to show you are listening?
TED: 4 things all great listeners know[1]

Key points:

Once the conversation begins,one of the most important things you can do is also the most obvious—try not to interrupt.This doesn’t mean you need to stay completely silent. But if you do interject, look for natural pauses to ask open-ended questions that benefit the speaker, not just your curiosity. Questions like “What happened next?” or “How did that make you feel?”confirm that you’re following the story while also helping the speaker dive deeper into their own thoughts. Another great way to show your understanding is by summarizing what you just heard and asking if you’ve missed anything. Summaries like this show the speaker that you're truly trying to understand them rather than just waiting for your turn to talk. Speaking of which, while a good conversation requires back and forth, planning out your response while the speaker is talking is a common way to miss what’s being said. So try to stay present and if you lose focus, don't be shy about asking the speaker to repeat what you missed.This might feel embarrassing,but asking for clarification actually shows that you’re committed to understanding. Finally, don’t be afraid of silence. It’s okay to ask for a moment to formulate your response and taking a beat to think can help speakers reflect on their speech as well.

Empathy and international-mindedness

Step 2. Empathy and international-mindedness

 'Conversations with People who hate me' is a podcast by Dylan Marron where he explores how by having real conversations with some of the people who leave hateful comments for him on social media because of his sexuality and liberalism, a commonality of experience and sense of empathy can be established; in short, conversations have the ability to humanize. His TedTalk below 'Empathy is not Endorsement' is an interesting reminder about the most powerful message of international mindedness; it is not about changing minds and opinions but accepting that interculturally we vary hugely and we can live alongside each other accepting those differences.

What do you make of Dylan's approach? Have you had experience of this yourself? Could you do the same? What lessons are there to be learnt here
 

Reflection

Reflection: Can you think of examples from the global community where empathy might be the right course of action? Can you explore what the outcome might be?

'Now in every one of my calls, I always ask my guests to tell me about themselves. And it's their answer to this question that allows me to empathize with them. And empathy, it turns out, is a key ingredient in getting these conversations off the ground. So I established a helpful mantra for myself. Empathy is not endorsement. Empathizing with someone you profoundly disagree with does not suddenly compromise your own deeply helf beliefs and endorse theirs. Empathizing with someone who, for example, believes that being gay is a sin doesn't mean that I'm suddenly going to drop everything, pack my bags and grab my one-way ticket to hell, right? It just means that I'm acknowledging the humanity of someone who was raised to think very differently from me. I also want to be super clear about something. This is not a prescription for activism. I understand that some people don't feel safe talking to their detractors and others feel so marginalised that they justifiably don't feel that they have any empathy to give. I totally get that. This is just I feel well-suited to do'

Extend this activity by presenting the scenario to your peers and include suggestions for how this situation might be developed through great application of empathy. You can include reference to the scenarios and strategies explored already with your class; be sure to reference them clearly. Alternatively, mindmap in your reflective journal your ideas about possible solutions to the global example you have found.

Footnotes

  1. ^ TED-ed, 2022, retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ted_ed_4_things_all_great_listeners_know?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomsharex
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