Empathy

As a teacher I seem to repeat, "How do you think that might make him/her feel?"

As much as we say it some kids just seem to lack that understanding. They seem to have trouble putting them selves in someone else's shoes. 

I had a fall at school a little while ago. It was unpleasant, my ankle hurt but that wasn't what upset me the most. I happened to fall over in front of my class. Now, most of my kids were lovely. They asked if I was o.k. and tried to help me up. There was one little charmer who decided to point and laugh, not only laugh as a shock reaction, I might add, but continuous laughter even after seeing that I was in pain.

This has been on my mind for a little while. It got me thinking about empathy (the intellectual identification with or vicarious experience of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another). 

So if this is a skill that doesn't come so easily to others, how do we teach it? 

My class had a discussion today about empathy and what it means. We did some role play activities to demonstrate how we might show empathy towards others. I mentioned "treat others as you want to be treated," quote that all of us have heard many times. After all this I still wan't sure if my message sunk in. 

I think this is a vital skill for everyone to learn if they are to function successfully in society. 

This triggered me to read a little about the development of empathy in children.

I found out that this is a skill that children learn, it is not something that comes to them naturally. 

From the articles I read there seemed to be a specific theme: when teaching children about empathy the outcome has to feel good and the problem has to be broken down for them to understand. 

It seems more complicated than I first thought. 

Here's my question though.... is it solely up to the teachers to teach their students a skill such as empathy or is it the responsibility of the family? On the other hand what happens when those skills aren't being taught at home?

Khan Acadamy

Was just watching 60 minutes and saw something that blew my mind.
I don't know if anyone else has heard of KhanAcadamy but I think we could be onto something here.
Here's the link: http://www.khanacademy.org/
Watching the interview with Sal Khan, who started it all, I could hear my own beliefs about education. Sal began posting online videos to help a relative with some school concepts they were finding difficult.  This is where the online classroom idea began. Sal began creating videos that cover a huge amount of topics from basic addition to Astronomy.
What struck a note with me though was not the incredible amount of published content that I could use in my classroom, but what Sal was saying about teaching. Sal believes that this could be used to help  the kids who are struggling with some concepts. The children can work at their own pace to fill the gaps they might have and then move on to the next concept when they are ready. The same goes for the children who are racing ahead of the others. It doesn't seem fair for them to be limited by what their class understands. It can be like having an extra teacher in the room to help explain some concepts to the children. Each video then gives the children an opportunity to practice each concept. The children can learn at their pace and can have content covered as many times as they need.
The only problem I see, is that the lessons don't use the numeracy project strategies, so could be a little hard to use in a primary school in NZ.  I see this as a useful tool to extend GATE students further. It can also be a great tool for intermediate schools. Would be interesting what teachers in NZ make of this. What do you think?