Youth leading change: Art as a tool to inspire empathy
How can we keep our communities from growing apart?
How can we continue to create a world where we can depend on and be depended on by our family members, classmates, or neighbors without any transactional exchanges?
In a world that moves fast, in offices and classrooms that encourage competition, in everyday relationships formed through boundaries — how can we maintain habits and attitudes that are rooted in togetherness and not just individuality?
In recent years, we’ve heard a lot about introspection — where we look within ourselves to discover who we are as people and make sense of our place in the world.
But what about ‘outrospection’?
Roman Krznaric is the author of the book “Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It.” He says that outrospection is the act of “discovering who you are and what to do with your life by stepping outside of yourself, discovering the lives of other people and civilizations.”
If this sounds like too big of a responsibility, think again. The key to outrospection is a word many parents, caregivers, and educators know about. It’s also a core component of social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculums all around the country.
Outrospection happens when there’s empathy.
What is empathy?
There are many ways to describe empathy and the impact it has on young children and adults. Here are a few of my favorite definitions from online publications:
“The art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings and perspectives, and using that understanding to guide your actions.” — Roman Krznaric
“We cannot feel exactly how another person feels, but we can try as much as possible to be on their wavelength and imagine what they might be experiencing. Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. If authenticity is a habit nurtured from the inside out, empathy begs us to take the outside in.” — Maria Brito (Artnet)
“Art has the power to open up our minds, introducing us to the stories of people across space and time. And that experiencing these stories helps us connect not only across cultural differences but also with ourselves—we better understand our shared values. This is empathy, and we all have the capacity to be empathetic.” — Minneapolis Institute of Art
Why is it important to teach young children empathy?
Empathy is the foundation of all positive and healthy relationships.
You don’t ever stop learning to be more empathetic. As we meet new people and learn more about the diverse world that we live in, we’ll continue to discover more ways to support, respect, and love the people around us.
Naturally, we can’t expect each other to grow our relationships with empathy unless it’s something that is directly integrated into our understanding of community-building.
We don’t need to wait for children to be in school or involved in large group activities before teaching them empathy. Navigating relationships at home also requires empathy, and it’s a great start to familiarizing children with how to perceive their own emotions and the emotions of others. Prioritizing empathy as a core pillar of life at home will help instill better…
Emotional regulation
Active listening
Interpersonal communication
Conflict resolution
Acceptance and understanding
Community involvement
How does art build and foster empathy in young children?
Research shows that art-based teachings can help children understand the role and impact of empathy in day-to-day interactions. In the study “Creating Compassion: Using Art for Empathy Learning with Urban Youth,” researchers recorded increases in empathy across three of the four students who went through an art-based empathy curriculum.
Like many studies out there, this research does have its limitations, but it did show a significant potential for schools to adopt art-based empathy programs as part of their SEL programs. With art, educators can give children hands-on experiential learning that contributes to their understanding of empathy through:
Identifying emotions: To empathize with others, children must first learn how to identify emotions. This practice starts from within. Art helps children picture their feelings, allowing them to map emotions to a specific visual or auditory cue. For example, you can have children draw a self-portrait to get an understanding of their self-concept and self-esteem.
Deeper observation and perception of others: Art unlocks imagination, which is important to help children look beyond the environment that they see right before them. This helps them put themselves in others’ shoes, be more culturally aware, and imagine what it would be like to face the hardships or discomfort that they’re going through, even if it’s far from a shared experience.
Collaboration: Many art activities are not done alone. For example, art activities done in a classroom require children to work together to create a beautiful final product. It’s a journey that allows children to see the results of togetherness unfold right before their eyes. It also gives kids a shared goal to work toward, cultivating a sense of shared pride and belonging.
Simplifying complex and difficult topics: Whether it’s a social injustice, a personal hardship, an environmental disaster, or a pandemic, art is used as a tool in classrooms around the world to unite children and get them involved. Breaking down difficult conversations into art-based activities makes it easier for young children to digest how negative or positive events impact the community and inspire action.
Examples of art activities that build empathy
What can you do at home or in the classroom to cultivate empathy? Here are some of my favorite examples that all readers can replicate or adapt with the art supplies they have at home!
Art reflection
Joanne Gonzales writes on her blog, Craft Whack, about how her and her kids reflected on art instead of creating art to learn about empathy instead of creating something from scratch. This is a great twist on traditional art-based approaches that showcase how art aids the process of identifying emotions in young children. Check the post out and try it out for yourself!
Collaborative activities
This classroom act project by students at Wilson Elementary is the perfect example of how one shape can become a masterpiece when it’s layered up with lots of other shapes too — a pretty great representation of what an empathy-driven community is, right? This video dives into how school counselor Melissa Alfstad, made it happen.
Interaction-based activities
Some activities can be done by a single student for the purpose of engaging with others through a verbal interaction or an act of kindness. In this particular activity, children can make compliment sticks to pass out kind words to their peers or family members! There are more empathy-based art activities that you can browse on ichooseempathy.org.
