Drs. Rebecca Hines and Lisa Dieker, UCF Faculty members, discuss how to build empathy in all learners, but especially students with disabilities. They share practical classroom ideas along with ideas for parents. They stress the importance of giving back and service learning that is authenticate and done by people with disabilities not for them. Remember questions can be shared on Twitter @accesspractical. Follow us on itunes or iheart podcasts.
Drs. Rebecca Hines and Lisa Dieker, UCF Faculty members, discuss how to build empathy in all learners, but especially students with disabilities. They share practical classroom ideas along with ideas for parents. They stress the importance of giving back and service learning that is authenticate and done by people with disabilities not for them. Remember questions can be shared on Twitter @accesspractical. Follow us on itunes or iheart podcasts.
spk_0: 0:06
welcome to practical access. I'm Liza Dieker and Rebecca Hines. And what are we talking about today? Last one, we covered all of our deficits in life. So I'm curious to see what you got on our topic plate today.
spk_1: 0:20
Good. I gently chose one of my strengths for change. Actually. We're about one of those again that, you know, we've been talking about soft skills, and I think a lot of these skills they will then into, you know what makes a good citizen, where makes a good person what makes us productive? What makes us happy? Because all of these things are critical. You think lives. These are life phone skills. So empathy is our topic today. And one of the reasons that I think this is an important topic is it? Because if we're trying to if we're trying to create people that we want to live with and around in society and especially at times like this, when we are realizing social distancing lies that way, we miss interactions. But we assume that all kids come to school understanding how to treat people, understanding what you know what makes other people have be or knowing not to make a teacher angry or you know, all of these things. And the simple fact is they don't all arrive coming from from backgrounds where they've learned that already.
spk_0: 1:41
So you mean a kid says we're stupid, Mrs. Dieker, they don't realize they shouldn't tell me that
spk_1: 1:45
you're may not realize what that doesn't feel good. Lisa, and so you know, it's always the hard. Our knee jerk reactive is always be is always take offense, as I've you know, mentioned many times I taught kids with severe emotional disturbance, and I think one of the things that I noticed really early on was, well, these kids And at the time I was teaching mostly sixth grade. When I started, I was like, These kids really don't even know what I'm talking about. They don't even they don't understand what it is to be nice, and I'm not sure all of them had had people who were nice to them. So I used service learning as a way to get them to start, to learn how it feels to be in someone else's position. We did simple things to start. My students were among the lowest income kids in our entire district. But still we would bake pies and take them to the homeless shelter. And it was amazing to see how my students could start to look around and feel something for someone else. I used a lot of I use a lot of of pet therapy, you know, just different ways of teaching them. How do you think it feels to do this? I'm weaving in what were just basic service type things. We later built bikes. We recycled bicycles and my students who didn't have bikes themselves build them for kids in their neighborhood. And so I use that as a way to get them to start thinking about How do you think this little girl's gonna feel when you get for this bike that you made? Because it started with connecting with how how it feels to be nice to someone. So we started from a really positive place when we started to think about empathy, we started from the positive. What is some of your thoughts on this topic?
spk_0: 3:48
Well, you know, I think it's addressing. It goes back to one of our earlier podcast of you know, we both really believe kids with disabilities should be givers, not takers. Ah, and so I think empathy is about putting yourself in the place of someone else. And how can I make that person a lover? They're thinking. And I think we often either kinds of disciplines may struggle with learning your behaviors. and understanding the place you're at. And I think the best way to do that is simple, simple language of pictures, you know? Look, right now this is me mad. You know, I might make using my nice voice because I'm a parent or a teacher, But I am not happy and using very simple words like, I am not happy. I am disappointed. That was always the bad word . Here it versus You know I'm mad at you because mad is what they gave you mad is not what we want to reciprocate. And I think adult showing empathy can be very helpful. I think the other one that's really big in the area, as I think about kids needing to understand empathy, is helping them understand their strengths. And, you know, if you know what I'm good at, how do I use what I'm good at to help somebody. So it's not just service learning, but what is my strength in general? Is it smiling at somebody? Is it saying hello? Is it? You know, I think of Josh's team member. He's got a team of Rana's college team called Team Impact, who had the best smile in the world, and he might have been a young man who didn't have the ability to do anything but smile. But you couldn't leave, not smiling to me. That's that's embassy on his part. You know that a smile makes everybody happy. So again, I think we have to look at what's the strengths and how do we bring empathy? And then I think about, um, our colleague and our friends and Tucker, who does the Go Baby Go builds for kids to have physical needs and helping them build cars. And she often has neuro typical or students with disabilities build cars for babies who don't have mobility. That, to me, is the kind of thing that you want your child above it with Boy scouts, girl scouts anything that's out there that makes them a good citizen. To me, that's where you learn the skill of empathy.
spk_1: 5:58
Absolutely. It is as a parent and also as a teacher. But I find myself, you know, especially my kids were younger. I would do simple things, like reading the reading articles in a newspaper. I would read an article and tell them about this and say, Oh, I wonder how that mom feels that this happened or I wonder how her brother feels and that this is a really horrible, horrible story. But I can tell you honestly, when my own children developed, it was very clear they had developed this sense of empathy because I do have twins and they were. They were little and there was the story of the news, and some of you may remember it of two kids, that brother and sister who were walking down the sidewalk and they got in a fight. And the sister walked ahead and she was abducted right in front of her brother, and they later found her. . And when the stocking and horrible story. And no, I did not read that intentionally out loud to my Children. However, because they were close to each other, it was the first time they could hear a story. They they saw it themselves on the news and they they could immediately feel, Oh, my gosh, imagine how that brother felt, you know? So obviously I'm not suggesting that we use horrifying stories, but there is something about current events and staying on top of current events and ones that on that egregious but that can give us a a natural conversation about how about how this person just also in a positive way, you know, kids get a scholarship, he said. Wow, I wonder how his mom felt not just the kid, but how the mom felt. The brother felt the dad felt the grandpa felt and that idea, really getting kids to understand all of the layers involved with with every action that we that we have?
spk_0: 7:52
Yeah, and I think part of empathy to that. We got to keep reminding our young Children young adults, whatever age preschool Children is, I think often there is no empathy when there's jealousy, and I think there's got to be this respect that that person one today you didn't, but you should be excited for them because they feel good or you have been very lucky and didn't lose your job or you didn't have a struggle in life that somebody else did have. And so we should have empathy for helping that person over whatever that is. And I think it goes in this time that we're all worried about its struggling. It is the time to reach out and help each other in what we're doing.
spk_1: 8:31
Well, you know, I I mentioned service learning early in this conversation, and I think one of the things that I learned this from my good friend Dr Trey Stewart, who I did a service learning grant with many years ago now and trays an expert in service learning in the main. The main thing that I learned from trait is that service actually starts with brainstorming and identifying and need in the community. And so that idea of need is central to service learning. And we're used to volunteerism, which is where we just have to volunteer for things. But service and conducting true service is more about uncovering a need and then brainstorming ways to fill that need and to make a difference. So I would say to all of my friends who are looking for projects and service and etcetera explore service. Learning Aziz as a field. Not just that idea volunteering because we news dig deeper and identify the need and kids start to identify needs. That's where they start thinking more deeply about others and on our project. Dr. Stuart and I were very careful to call our project. A Czar subplot heading WAAS was teachers in action, but it was service learning with and four persons with disabilities. So the persons with disabilities were included as part of the service providers. It wasn't always people doing things for them, these people doing things with that and doing service projects with them. So I think that idea of inclusive service projects is really important, especially if it's kids with more significant disabilities, because they might need to rely on someone else to help them. But kids, all ability levels could be included in that kind of work. Yeah,
spk_0: 10:18
and I'm gonna go with kind of my lot side. Here is something you and I will talk about is kind of this cognitive restructuring. If your telling doesn't really know what empathy looks like, Think about taking some pictures out of the community and seeing a young child pick a flower that isn't from somebody's garden. Of course, you know, even if is a danda looking, handing it to somebody. Somebody letting somebody go in front of them in line of waiting their turn clearing the dishes from the table. Whatever it is, taking some pictures and saying, Look, that's putting yourself in my place. Mommy has a lot to do. Daddy has a lot to do if you pick up your plate off the table that kids need more time and it makes me smile. So a picture of me smiling with them putting up, placed in the dishwasher. It's those types of things, because I think we often think many of our kids don't know what it looks like to show empathy. If you think your child doesn't know, give them some visual models of what it looks like and say, I need you to do either this or this. You can take the trash out or you can put your dish in the dishwasher. But one of the few mommy's asking, because that's being kind and having empathy for her, that she needs help sometimes, just like you need help sometimes. And I think again, it's that really simple giver action. Depending on the age of your child, they're very, very young getting their shoes out. Maybe they can't put them on, but getting them out, having a picture of getting your shoes out instead of Let me go get your shoes. Let me put them on your feet. That's again goes back to managing themselves. But it's also giving of empathy of saying yes, I have other things to get myself ready. Let's see if we can share this and have a better world for everybody. And I do think empathy is about sharing the load in your household. So keep that in mind. A Zaghloul for kids,
spk_1: 11:59
Absolutely. And, you know, just keeping in mind. There's a difference between sympathy and empathy, and if you don't know the difference, you might look them up because I think our kids don't fully understand that either, and they might feel bad for someone. But unless and they can internalize it to a degree and feels that they have something in common with that person or way of viewing something with that person, it may or may not just having sympathy may or may not help shake their future actions.
spk_0: 12:32
All right, well, so we do have empathy for everybody who's struggling for you moms. Who just survived Mother's Day. We We respect all that you're doing in the home as family members of people with disabilities and all those great teachers out there. Thanks for all you do. And if you have questions for us, please tweet us @accesspractical.