According to a University of Cambridge education expert, students can develop their creativity by engaging in learning activities that foster empathy, such reading about other people.
Research employing the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, which gauges students’ responses to illustrated and written questions, supports this.
According to the research, empathic instruction in the classroom can improve social skills and prepare students for life in the workplace.
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The majority of people mistakenly believe that empathy—the capacity to picture oneself in another’s shoes—is a fixed trait. One can learn empathy. According to research, reading can aid in a child’s development of empathy. Children who read about other people’s experiences can gain insight into circumstances that are extremely different from their own.
Additional research on the impact of empathic instruction in schools comes from the Empathy Week programme I assist with. It offers students documentaries with a variety of situations from many cultures in an effort to foster empathy. Early research suggests that incorporating these films in empathy lectures can increase students’ emotional awareness in as little as one week, albeit this research has not yet been peer-reviewed by other experts.
Additionally, I have discovered through my work with schools and my research that empathic learning can aid students in developing their creative thinking.
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The degree of empathy
Various factors, such as personality traits, our genes, and our environment, influence our ability to feel empathy to a greater or lesser extent. According to research, around 10% of our empathy is inherited, which is not a lot. This implies that we may be able to learn a significant amount of empathy via our regular contacts.
However, as we age, we risk losing empathy. Children between the ages of five and nine were tested in studies to see how empathetic they were when shown scenarios showing societal injustices towards children of different ethnicities.
Their brain activity was assessed using an EEG (electroencephalogram), which searched for increased levels of “mu suppression” – a brain frequency that is used as an indicator of empathy levels.
Although earlier studies with adults found that adults do have this bias in their empathy responses, the children did not exhibit racial bias in their responses. This implies that people have the capacity to form prejudices that can diminish empathy.
Empathy enables us to comprehend the thoughts and feelings of others. Children benefit by working and playing together, forming relationships, and becoming interested in the subjects they are studying.
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Encouraging originality
In my study, I looked at how empathy education affected students’ social and emotional creativity in design and technology classrooms in the UK.
At the beginning and the end of the academic school year, students in year nine—aged 13 to 14—from two schools had their creative levels evaluated. The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, which evaluates written and drawn responses to written and drawn questions, was used for this.
One school continued with its regular design and technology sessions after the students had finished their initial test. At the other school, a series of lessons called Designing our Tomorrow that concentrated on empathy were substituted for the regular lessons.
The students were challenged to design a pack that provided the knowledge and tools required to treat asthma in early children for children with asthma and their families. They were encouraged to have empathy by, for example, refraining from passing judgement on both their own and other people’s creations. Students were urged to feel sympathy for the target market they were creating a product for.
Results revealed that the only school that experienced an increase in creative responses was the one where we taught courses on empathy. These findings imply that creativity may be taught, particularly when curriculum emphasises the value of empathy for the material being studied. Empathy would be better retained by students if it were taught in the classroom, boosting learning and preparing them for adult life.
