The Empathy Project
This project takes a scaffolded approach to creating the Empathetic Classroom. It guides students through five “links” of empathy: first with themselves, then others, then characters, then the audience/world, and finally into a culminating theatrical presentation. Along the way, it provides resources like reflection prompts, team-building games, safe-space guidelines, and support for executing the project in a classroom context.
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01 - Step One: Link with Yourself
The first step on the empathetic journey is with yourself. How can you connect with others if you don’t know who you are? Students will explore activities that allow them to think and reflect inward.
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02 - Step Two: Link with Others
The second step on the empathetic journey is forming a link with others. Students take on activities where they have to work together and connect with others.
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03 - Step Three: Link with Characters
The third step on the empathetic journey is forming a link with your character. Students will work to link with characters who are quite different from them.
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04 - Step Four: Link with the Audience and the Outside World
After forming a link with yourself, each other, and your character, the last two links in the empathetic journey are the audience and the outside world.
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05 - Step Five: The Culminating Presentation
Students decide, design, and implement a culminating presentation that uses theatricality to share the concepts of empathy.
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Empathy: It Begins With You
Steven Stack's Keynote speech "Empathy: It Begins With You", from the DTA Virtual Conference, recorded July 2019.
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How to Execute the Empathy Project (PLC)
Join teachers who have used, adapted, and successfully led the Empathy Project with their students, and add this powerful tool to your classroom management toolkit.
