Check out Everyday Speech’s free high school empathy worksheet! Empathy can be a challenging topic to teach, but with Everyday Speech’s Empathy Essentials lesson plans, you can teach your high school students perspective-taking, empathy, and the art of putting yourself in others’ shoes, with ease. To teach your next high school empathy lesson, download this free worksheet and lesson plan!
Teaching Empathy to High School Students
Empathy is understanding how someone else feels and then taking an extra step to show them we care. In Everyday Speech’s ‘Empathy Essentials’ lesson, learners are taught how to take another’s perspective by accessing all the information they know about that person and applying it to the social situation they are faced with. When students demonstrate this skill, they can successfully adapt their behavior to align with someone else’s mood, thereby forming stronger bonds and relationships.
Lesson Plan – Using Your Free Empathy Worksheet
1. Teach the Concept of ‘Empathy Essentials’
Start by teaching your high school students the importance of empathy and utilizing ‘Empathy Essentials’. Explain empathy as an important part of friendships and a skill that helps people bond and feel more connected to one another. To show empathy, students can first practice putting themselves in the other person’s shoes to figure out how they may be feeling. Then, students can take action and show the other person kindness and understanding by matching their mood and offering words of support or encouragement.
2. Practice Showing Empathy.
Have your student practice using Empathy Essentials with a couple of role-play scenarios. Pretend you are feeling sad about something and have your learner practice showing you empathy using the Empathy Essentials. Then pretend you are frustrated for even more practice. Take it a step further by ensuring you are modeling empathy for your students and their feelings.
3. Use Your Free Empathy Worksheet
The free worksheet is a fill-in-the-blank activity that encourages your students to practice showing empathy to others in a variety of example scenarios. Download, print, and have your high school students complete this activity to reinforce Empathy Essentials
Sample Video:
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