That said, they remain qualities that teachers foster in their students...
...when given the time and opportunity, that is.
Often the focus in the classroom is on curriculum: Math, science, reading, and writing. Rarely does a teacher include in her daily plans time set aside for the practice of empathy. (Whether it should be part of the daily plans is another debate entirely!). That said, fostering empathy within our students likely happens incidentally several times a day.
In fact, we are doing it whether we want to or not; in the way we handle conflicts between students, handle a descrepnancy between performance and expectation, or even simply by the way we listen to our students when they share news or their thoughts on something.
I am a strong believer that when it comes to fostering traits and qualities such as empathy, sympathy, compassion, and others, my role is secondary to that of parents.
Opportunities within the classroom, however, can give further practice, additional challenges and pressures in applying those traits and qualities, and possibly a different perspective should a classmate or teacher practice the trait differently, apply it differently, or place a different value on it.
Like the vast majority of teachers, I never included the practice of empathy as part of any lesson plan. However, if given the opportunity, I would go beyond the incidental learning opportunities and allow my students ample, diliberate, and conscious practice of empathy and other traits and virtues.
By this I mean that I would make an attempt to point out and label empathetic behaviour in myself and in my students during the regular goings-on within the classroom and my students' day. I might also open a discussion on what "empathy" means, what it looks like, and what it feels like to give and recieve it. I might find a children's book in which empathy is a theme and read it to my class.
And finally, I might give them homework to find an example of empathy being practiced in their own lives outside of the classroom walls, or to identifiy or create their own opportunity to practice empathy in their own homes or other community of which they are a part.
Opportunities to Practice Empathy
One such opportunity might be for the children to write encouraging letters to children their own age who are fighting cancer (see KidsUniteToFight). This is an initiative of C.O.L.E's foundation; an organization started by Moireen and Aaron Ruotsala after their 3-year-old son died of a rare form of cancer as a means of providing much-needed outreach and support for children and families facing a similar battle.
