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4.4: What can we do to help?


This activity encourages students to feel empathy with others.

Tasks

  1. Collect pictures that depict children and/or adults in a variety of situations e.g.:
    • a person crying
    • a blind person with a seeing eye dog or a white cane
    • a child in a wheelchair
    • a person doing housework
    • a teacher carrying lots of books
    • a person on crutches negotiating stairs
    • a baby with a dropped toy.
  2. Blutack four pictures onto the turntable.
  3. Give each student a turn to spin the turntable.
  4. Ask students to examine whichever picture directly faces them.
  5. Encourage students to describe what they think is happening in the pictures, and ask what they could do for the people involved. Use a STOP THINK DO! approach.
  6. Elicit divergent opinions and solutions. After all perceptions and discussions have been exhausted replace the photographs with another four and begin again.
Teacher Notes
  1. This activity encourages students to feel empathy and feeling for others.
  2. Teachers should encourage students to analyse the situations and suggest how they could help.
  3. Leave students with the knowledge that they can make a difference.
Adapted from an activity, What can you do to help?, in HALL, Nada Saderman, Creative Resources for the Anti-bias Classroom Delmar, 1999.
Resources
  • Magazine cut-outs or photographs depicting people in different situations
  • Small turntable or lazy Susan