Why Empathy is Vital in Education

As educators, incorporating empathy into instruction can have positive results for your classroom, as well as for the community outside of the school building. Here’s why:

1. Empathy builds positive classroom culture – with the diversity of students entering classrooms each day, paralleled by an increase in globalization, it’s more necessary than ever for teachers to actively construct a positive classroom culture. Through empathy, students learn to understand each other, which helps them to build friendships based on positive relationships of trust. Taking the time to demonstrate empathy can also develop student-teacher relationships.

2. Empathy strengthens community – given that the definition of empathy involves understanding another’s feelings without having experience, empathy sets students up to deepen relationships with their current classmates and people that they know outside of school. In our increasingly globalized world, these people may be coming from different cultures and different socioeconomic backgrounds than before, thereby necessitating better developed empathy skills.

3. Empathy prepares your students to be leaders in their community – Leaders must understand the people that they lead and be able to show that they care. Leadership articles emphasize human development as an essential leadership quality. Students must be able to empathize with those whom they lead in order to make them feel valued. This validation will strengthen trust between the leader and followers. Teachers must equip our students to be the future leaders of our communities and beyond.

Outreach and community service activities are an important part of a Crestview education. Their community service projects are designed by the students themselves, with appropriate support by the teachers. Their students learn that community means now just their school community, but the extended community in which they live.

Their service-learning programs help children learn empathy, demonstrate to children that their actions can have a positive impact and help children connect to local, national, and international communities. Individual classes/grade levels adopt favorite projects appropriate to their age and understanding.

Crestview Preparatory School is located at 140 Foothill Boulevard in La Canada. Call (818) 952-0925 or see more information on www.crestviewprep.org.