“It is important for the whole Church that the welcome of the poor and the promotion of justice are not entrusted to ‘specialists’, but that they are the focus of attention of all the pastoral work, of formation of future priests and other religious, of the normal commitment of all parishes, movements and ecclesial groups.”
Pope Francis, at the Centro Astalli Refugee Centre, Rome, 12 September 2013.
Lower Primary: Developing Empathy
With thanks to EmpathyLab
1. Superpower X-Ray Glasses from EmpathyLab
· use empathy X-Ray glasses to ‘read’ and understand others
· Download the
EmpathyLab glasses template for every child to decorate and make their own
· Use the glasses when listening to the story in the next activity to inspire them to use their superpower to see through the eyes of the book characters
2. Read for Empathy
Check out the
Read for Empathy Collection 2022 by EmpathyLab and choose a book to read to your class.
Focus your book discussions on characters and their feelings more than on the plot. Make it a fully sensory/physical experience. Use tastes, smells or sounds linked to the story to help children feel as the character feels.
After reading, use drama techniques like hot-seating, where children take it in turns to be the characters and others quiz them, or imagine they’re a character doing a radio/TV interview.
As a culminating activity, write letters/diaries/social media posts as the character. Encourage students to show their understanding of how that character feels in a way that is consistent with the representation in the book.
3. Watch for empathy
Check out these
Empathy Shorts – designed by EmpathyLab to make sure that every child has access to an empathy boosting story. Use the after reading and culminating activities above to assist students in developing their understanding of empathy after viewing.
4. Human Discoveries (courtesy of EmpathyLab)
This game to helps children increase their empathy by discovering more about others and understanding them better.
· Put children into pairs, one is the listener and the other is 'being discovered'.
· Give each pair a set of
‘listening prompts'.
· Children choose what they would like to share with the listener.
· They take turns to talk, listen and discover more about each other, moving on if someone feels uncomfortable.
5. Listening Switch Powerbank
· Listening is a vital part of being empathetic – talk to children about how important and powerful it is to listen to each other.
· Discuss who is a good listener in their lives, and what qualities make for good listening. You can watch
this video from Jack Hartmann on whole body listening for inspiration.
· Download the
Listening Switch Power Bank and invite them to choose which aspect of listening they’ll focus on (it could be all four!).
· Encourage them to practise listening to each other, challenging them to use the switches.
· The four switches cover: concentrating 100% on the speaker; being still & quiet; asking great questions; and checking your understanding by reflecting back what the speaker says.
6. Empathy Superheroes: The Saints
· An activity to identify and celebrate Saints who used empathy skills to make a difference.
· Go to
Saints Biographies on the
Australian Catholics Education Hub. Allow students to browse until they think they have found a saint who demonstrated empathy well.
· Students conduct further research into their saint.
· Students make a poster or slide in a whole class slideshow explaining how their saint used their empathy to help others.
· Create an Empathy Wall of Fame display in the classroom or present your whole class slideshow to assembly to highlight the achievements of these saintly superheroes.
7. EmpathyLab comic strip gift:
· Help children to create their own Empathy Superhero and write and draw a comic strip about them.
· Ask each child to give their comic strip to a younger child, friend or someone in the community or school to spread the word.
8. Empathy Resolutions
· Ask every child or family to make a resolution to use empathy to change things for the better.
· These can be big or small, e.g. “not to judge people before I’ve got to know them better”.
· Ask students to write about their empathy resolution in the religious education journal.
Upper Primary: What is Catholic Social Justice?
1. Empathy Walks
· Take a short walk around your local area or school. Notice and reflect on the situations you see - maybe a homeless person, an argument, a family having fun.
· Share your feelings about what you have seen. Draw a map or pictures of what you have seen/felt or record a short film about your walk.
Safety notes:
· Don’t take photos of people or photos on private land unless there is explicit permission.
· Walk together so that you can discuss afterwards.
Empathy Resolutions activity: Invite everyone to make a resolution which would change things for the better in their community, having experienced what they felt on their walk.
2. Read the article, ‘What does social justice mean in schools?’ by Teagan Brunner.
Before reading, conduct a whole class discussion to introduce the article. The ‘Conch’ method (aka Lord of the Flies by William Golding), is a way to prevent students from talking over one another. The idea is to have a special object that you hand to the speaker. Only the person who is holding the object is allowed to speak. Remind the rest of the students to listen with their whole body (eyes to see, ears to hear, mouths still, hands still, feet flat on the floor or legs crossed, body still, mind to understand, heart to care about the speaker and what is being said).
Ask students the following questions:
Preview
· What is the title of the article?
· Does the title provide you with any clues as to what the article might include?
· Do the images, artwork, or graphics provide you with any clues as to what the article might include?
Identify
· What is the author’s name?
· Do you know of any other works by this author?
· Who published this article? When?
· What is a magazine?
· Why do people read magazines?
· Who do you think reads this magazine? Why?
· Does the date of publication tell you anything about the contents of the article?
Predict
· Is this a fiction or non-fiction article?
· Describe how the article is organised.
· Based on the above information, what predictions can you make about the article?
Summarise
· Read the summary at the start of the article.
· Based on the summary, answer as many of the following questions as possible: Who is the article about? What is the article about? When did the events in the article take place? Where did the events in the article take place? Why did these events take place?
Connect
· What is the topic of this article?
· Do you know anything about this topic based on your personal experiences?
· Can you think of any other works you have read or seen that are also about this topic?
Students then take turns reading the article together using the round robin or popcorn strategy:
· In RRR, students read orally from a common text, one child after another, while the other students follow along in their copies of the text.
· Popcorn Reading: A student reads orally for a time, and then calls out “popcorn” before selecting another student in class to read.
While other students read out loud, the listeners underline or highlight the main points in the article. You may like to display these tips on the interactive whiteboard while students read, or give them a print or digital copy to add to their workbooks.
How to find the right keywords when reading?
· Keywords you underline are usually nouns, a group of nouns, verbs etc.
· Names (names of scientists, people etc. involved in the story)
· Locations (town, city, country etc.)
· Years or dates (1978, 12 Oct 1982 etc.)
· Figures (1.2 million, 20000 etc.)
· You may mark any word or phrase
After reading, help students to put the article in context using the RAFT strategy. Students can compete a graphic organiser or participate in whole class discussion. RAFT: after reading the article together, students identify the Role (from whose point of view), Audience (the specific reader to whom the piece is being written), Form or Format (a letter, memo, list, email, etc.), and Topic (specific subject of the writing).
Check for student understanding by asking them to answer the following questions. They can work individually and write answers in their workbooks, work in small groups to answer the questions collaboratively or you can conduct a whole group discussion.
1. What are the four principles of social justice identified by Jasmine Maharaj?
2. How does Jasmine’s definition compare to the one offered by the Catholic Church?
3. How do students at Mount Saint Joseph’s Girls’ College work to achieve social justice?
4. How does this compare to activities at your school? Are there any ideas here that would be useful at your school? Why?
5. Why does Jasmine think social justice is an important aspect of Catholic education?
6. What is an advocate?
7. How does Jasmine suggest young people become more active social justice advocates?
8. What advice does Jasmine offer social justice leaders in schools?
9. Do you think this is good advice? Why/why not?
10. What advice would you offer to build awareness of social justice at your school?
11. Are there any activities that your school could take part in that would further the cause of social justice?
12. Would you be interested in getting involved in an activity like that? Why/why not?
If you choose to complete this activity as a whole class discussion, you may like to present it as a ‘hot ‘seat’ activity. In this type of activity, the class sits in a circle and students take turns at sitting in the ‘hot seat’ in the middle to answer questions. The student on the hot seat would pretend to be Jasmine Maharaj from the article and try to answer the questions from the article. You could even let different students pretend to be Jasmine for each question. At the end, you would ask the discussion questions as part of a more free-flowing discussion and let the student off the ‘hot seat’.
3. Take a look at a case study of how students are enacting social justice at their school by reading ‘Making a difference one step at a time’ by Luciana Romanski
Students then practice guided silent reading.
· Ask students to read to the first heading and then take a break to discuss the content and check for understanding.
· Ask students if there are any sections that they feel are particularly important? Encourage them to go back over the text and underline or highlight the main points/important parts. Allow for simultaneous responses during discussion by asking students to fill out their KWL chart. Check for understanding by monitoring who is able to formulate a response in writing and who is not.
· Repeat for each section of the article until the entire article has been read.
After reading:
· Visualise: Draw a detailed picture of the contents of the article. Students can represent what they read as a picture or symbol, incorporating words, phrases, and/or quotations into their drawing. Students can be literal or symbolic in their thinking. Describe your picture using at least three complete sentences.
· Compare: Compare yourself to one of the subjects in the article. Include two similarities and two differences.
· Describe: How are they making a difference at Mt St Benedict College? How can you make a difference at school and at home?
Answer the following questions:
· What is Caritas and what does it do?
· What annual event does Mount St Benedict College hold for Project Compassion? What does this event involve?
· This event’s theme was ‘For all future generations’. What did this theme encourage students to do?
· How did year 12 student Evelyn describe the experience and how did it make her feel?
· What is Caritas conversations? How does it work?
· How did Year 8 student Imogen find from participating in the conversations and what effect did it have?
· What does Deputy Dean of Mission, Kerry Bailey say the work of Caritas allows people to do?
· How does the school help students to measure their progress in the event?
· Why does Mrs Bailey think this is a valuable activity for students?
· Does your school hold any activities like this? If it does, what does that activity involve? If it doesn’t what activity do you think your school should conduct?
· Have you ever taken part in an activity like this outside of school with your family, Church or a community group? What was it like? Did you enjoy it? Did you learn anything? Did you help others? Would you do it again? Why/why not? If you have never done anything like that outside of school, what would you like to try and how could you make it happen?
4. Why not help students to explore the concept of social justice by having a board games lesson!
Caritas Australia has seven different board games for students to play, most of which are supported by a case study. Divide the class into six groups and give each group a case study to read. They can take turns reading around the group, a paragraph at a time. When they have finished reading their case study, they raise their hands and they are given the corresponding board game, a counter for each player and die. At the end of the lesson, hold a class discussion to ask students what they learned, or ask them to fill out an exit card that you will read at the start of the next lesson.
Sample reflection questions:
· What do you remember about what you learned today? Write down as many things as you can in 30 seconds.
· Of what you remember, what seemed to be the most important ideas? Write down 3 things in bullet-point format.
· Were you an active or a passive learner? Did the learning activity allow (or force) you to be one or the other (active versus passive)?
· What did you notice others doing during today’s lesson? Include other students, the teacher, etc. Infer cognitive behaviours (what they were doing ‘in their minds’) along with listing physical and observable behaviors.
· How did you respond when struggled with today (if you did)?
· What did you find most surprising about social justice and the work of Caritas?
· How did your understanding of social justice change today?
· Of what you learned, how much of it was new, and how much of it have you seen before?
· What was most interesting? Least? How can I learn new things if I’m not ‘interested in’ what I’m learning? What do others do in these cases to learn?
· What seems most important about what was learned?
· What should I do with what I’ve learned and how should I respond to what I didn’t learn?
· How have I been changed by what I’ve learned?
· How do I feel about this content? Interested? Enthusiastic? Curious? Bored? Indifferent? Other? Why?
Lower Secondary: Social Justice and Refugees
1. Help students develop empathy and their visual literacy skills by analysing one of the images from the EmpathyLab illustrators’ gallery and writing a paragraph about their findings.
Choose a picture from the gallery to analyse and then write a well-structured paragraph in response to your analysis.
Strategy: See, think, me, we
· What do you see?
· What does this piece make you think about?
· What connections can you make between you and the work?
· How might the work be connected to bigger stories— about the world and our place in it?
There is a video on how to do it here.
The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) approach was co-developed by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine. In the VTS approach, students silently examine carefully selected art images. The teacher asks these three open-ended questions:
· What’s going on in this picture?
· What do you see that makes you say that?
· What more can we find?
You can find out more from this La Trobe Universtiy guide.
2. What is Catholic social teaching?
Ask students to go to this webpage and find out about the Office for Social Justice.
Then ask them to go to this page and research Catholic social teaching in Australia.
They can present their finding in a report.
Follow these tips on research from Education NSW who say students should ‘research widely by using multiple sources, and think about the context of their sources. They should examine:
· Where and when it comes from.
· Who wrote it.
· Why it was written.
· Who it was meant for.
· What information the author used to make it.
· Whether or not it is fact, or opinion-based.
· If it could be biased or exaggerated.
Once they have decided if a source is useful, they should write down the information they will need for their bibliography.’
Follow these tips on using the internet from Education NSW:
· Information on the internet may not always be accurate.
· Use multiple sources, and cross-references the information to judge its reliability.
· They should also pay attention to the URL of the site they are using, as it gives an idea of where the information comes from.
There are tips on report writing from The Touring Teacher here:
3. This year, Refugee Week is taking place from 19-25 June. To explore this awareness week further as part of your teaching on Catholic social justice, ask students to read the article, ‘A world in need of healing’ by Andrew Hamilton SJ in Australian Catholics. There are some great strategies for whole class discussion, reading as a group and independently and reflection in the lower primary section above. Please choose the strategies that best suit your class and then use the questions as a formative assessment tool to check for understanding after reading.
· What is the theme of refugee week this year?
· What is trauma?
· What cause refugees trauma and what effects can this have?
· How can refugees who have suffered trauma find healing?
· According to the article, has Australia helped refugees to find healing?
· According to the article, how can we take action. To help Australia to become more hospitable to refugees?
· According to the article, where does refugee week begin? Why?
· When is refugee week this year?
· What can you do to acknowledge refugee week and raise awareness of the plight of refugees?
· Is your school doing anything to acknowledge refugee week and raise awareness of the plight of refugees? If not, what can you and your class organise to make sure that refugee week is acknowledged?
4. Praying for refugees
Catholics across Australia are being invited to participate in a special Refugee Week prayer service that will be streamed online on the evening of Monday, 20 June 2022.
Why not organise a class or school viewing of the prayer service to raise awareness in your school? Click here for more information on the prayer service and to register.
If this is not an option, why not organise a prayer service for your school, year level or class? Australian Catholics Education Hub has a model for a Prayer rite for refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people that you may like to use for inspiration.
5. Play refugee snakes and ladders. This activity is a helpful tool for students looking to understand the experiences refugees and asylum seekers go through in escaping their homes and looking for a better life.
Upper Secondary: Empathy, Countering Hate Speech and Social Justice
1. Place this quote on the board for students to read as they enter the classroom.
'Our private worlds circle each other in wobbly orbits but never touch. Empathy is the mental superpower that overcomes this distance' Jamil Zaki, The War for Kindness
After they are seated and quiet, ask pupils if they know what empathy means? Take some ideas.
Inform them that EmpathyLab defines empathy as ‘the ability to experience and understand other people’s emotions and perspectives’. Dictate the sentence and ask students to copy it into their books. If you are not a fan of dictation or have students with learning difficulties, put the statement on a slideshow for the students to copy from.
Explain that empathy made up of three distinct elements – feeling, thinking, acting – and that it’s not the same as sympathy or kindness. Once again, dictate this to students and ask them to copy it into their books.
Bring student’s attention to the above quote from Jamil Zaki and ask student what they think it means. Ask them to copy the quote into their books and write their interpretation underneath. Then, ask students to share their interpretations with the class. Help students to develop a shared interpretation of the meaning of the quote through discussion.
Ask students to copy these notes into their book:
We’re not just born with a fixed quantity of empathy – we can build our empathy skills at any point in our lives Our brains are plastic. We can all get better at being empathetic if we expose ourselves to new experiences. Stories are a powerful way of giving us these. Scientific evidence shows that when we read about characters and take their perspective, we understand them and by doing so learn to understand other people better. This helps us practise empathy.
2. Read a parable from the Bible where Jesus demonstrates empathy. One of the most poignant examples of empathy in the Bible is when Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus of Bethany. When Jesus saw Lazarus’ friends weeping, he wept alongside them, even though he knew he could raise him from the dead (John 11:1-45). The raising of Lazarus is an example of how empathy and compassion work together. Jesus’ feelings of empathy led him to make the compassionate act of raising Lazarus from the dead four days after he was entombed.
Ask students to read the parable and make a list of the ways Jesus demonstrated empathy and then compassion in a cause and effect T-chart.
3. Pose these questions to students: The Inaugural International Day for Countering Hate Speech is on 18 June, 2022. What is hate speech? What do we need a day to raise awareness about it?
Read the article ‘Words hurt’ by Andrew Hamilton SJ in Australian Catholics and answer the following questions.
· According to the article, how can words hurt us?
· According to the article, what are some ways that the media can spread hate speech?
· According to the article, how is hate speech different to occasional angry and destructive words?
· According to the article, what can hate speech encourage people to do?
· According to the article, why is hate a problem in any society?
· How does the article suggest that hate speech be countered?
· Define hate speech, using the information from the article.
· Have you ever encountered hate speech? How did you feel?
· What can you do to counter hate speech if you encounter it? What if the hate speech is directed at someone else and you don’t feel it affects you? Should you act?
· Is it the victim of hate speech’s responsibility to counter it, or can and should others help? Why?
· In your opinion, does empathy play a role in countering hate speech?
· How can you act with compassion if you encounter hate speech?
· What actions can your school take to educate people about hate speech? What can you and your class do to raise awareness and help others to stand up against hate speech?
4. Australian Catholics asked two of our young writers to share which social justice activists, and issues, inspire them most. Ask students to read the article ‘Social justice stars’ and write a reflection in their journal about whether this example inspires them and how they can act with social justice in their own lives.