Words by Smiley Team
PRESS RELEASE: Bringing together four changemakers, Smiley Movement live streamed a Smiley Talk today entitled ‘How to change the world through empathy’. The uplifting event marked the sixth in a series based on the UN Sustainable Development Goal number four, quality education.
Hosted by Rae Snape, Smiley Talks’ education ambassador, the discussion covered how educators can use empathy to shape a brighter future for younger generations.
Rae is a National Leader of Education and a headteacher at Milton Road Primary School in Cambridge, an Ashoka Changemaker School, empowering socially-minded leaders of the future.
“Empathy is such an important commodity because it underpins civilization,” she said. To demonstrate this she drew on the teachings of anthropologist Margaret Mead, who once said that the first archaeological evidence of civilization was a femur bone that had been mended. It indicated that, possibly for the first time in human history, somebody had cared for somebody else and human empathy was born.
Citing more contemporary research into the impact of reading on the brain, speaker Miranda McKearney OBE founder of non-profit Empathy Lab explained: “You can use literature to teach empathy because reading helps you understand through characters, how other people feel. It’s a learnable skill; only 10 per cent of our empathic ability is genetic.”
Author of children’s book ‘How to Change the World’ Rashmi Sirdeshpande hopes to do just this, spreading awareness of how to collaborate with others through reading. Her book recounts 15 stories of activism and teamwork that celebrate empathy as a way of driving social progress.
Adding to the discussion, she said: “What readers will see in this book is how one thing has always been true: humans have always come together to put empathy into action. They have connected with our planet, connected with other people and decided to stand up and make a difference.”
Lead teacher Kate Clarke has also put empathy into action, incorporating research from Empathy Lab into the curriculum at Pembroke Dock community school in Wales, where she works. Providing the children with empathy-focused reading material, undergoing training and through workshops with Empathy Lab, the school has made empathy a core component of all classroom activities.
Speaking to Smiley viewers, Kate explained why she and her colleagues leapt at the opportunity to adopt such a innovative way of teaching: “We wanted the pupils to be aware that empathy wasn’t just a topic, like an add-on to the other things that we were doing, but that it was going to form part of the ethos of our school.”
United in championing empathy as a tool for creating a better world, the speakers each drew on their experiences to demonstrate to viewers how this skill can serve as an incredible force for good.
For more insights from the four speakers and inspiration for how to harness the power of empathy, watch the full Smiley Talk here.
About Empathy Lab
Empathy lab is a nonprofit that launched with a research project into human brain activity when reading, identifying with book characters, and how that reflects social stimulation in real life. Their strategy is built on two key teachings from science – that empathy is a learnable skill and that reading builds real-life empathy.
About ‘How to Change the World’
rashmisirdeshpande.com/mybooks
Rashmi Sirdeshpande’s children’s book tells 15 true stories of how human projects for social and environmental good have succeeded thanks to people uniting and collaborating. These include the women’s struggle for suffrage, launching democracy in Ancient Greece and healing the ozone layer. It offers quality reading to both adults and children alike.
About Pembroke Dock Community School
pembrokedockcommunityschool.co.uk
In West Wales, Pembroke Dock Community School puts empathy at the heart of learning. They have partnered with Empathy Lab to ensure all its pupils gain a solid grounding in how to collaborate with others to ensure a better future driven by socially-confident young people.
About Smiley Movement
Smiley Movement (CIC) is a nonprofit, sponsored by the original Smiley™ Company. With a focus on positive solutions journalism, Smiley News covers the work of inspirational charities changing the world through their frontline work in the community.
Smiley Movement’s mission is to drive positive change through empowering people and organisations doing good, connecting them to new resources and supporters through their matchmaking for good network, and through their Smiley Talks, inspiring other potential leaders and innovators to create a better world for us all.
The Smiley Talks education series of events explores how to create system change by better preparing young people for the future.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
