Educating for Empathy by Miranda McKearney
EmpathyLab are hosting their first ever conference and it is sure to be brilliant. Check out the details below and use the links to book your space!
Educating for Empathy – a landmark online conference
With the concerning rise in children’s mental health and behavioral problems after Covid, and society becoming increasingly polarised, many are asking what we can do to create a kinder, less divided, world. The key is empathy, but how can we find new ways to develop and spread it?
On Tuesday 5 December EmpathyLab is running an online conference called Educating for Empathy, the first conference focusing exclusively on using reading and stories to build empathy. It brings together a unique inter-disciplinary blend of experts in psychology, literacy and social/emotional learning. The day will feature talks and interactive workshops from authors, educators and researchers – including Teresa Cremin, Professor of Education at The Open University, Sonia Thompson, Headteacher at St Matthews Research School, Robin Banerjee, Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Sussex, and award-winning authors Rashmi Sirdeshpande, Hannah Gold and Cath Howe.
The conference highlights that empathy is a learnable social and emotional skill and that we can build it by unlocking the power of books. Exciting research developments have shown that stories engage the brain in ways that enable us to experience characters’ feelings as if they are real – and can therefore understand and experience the emotions and perspectives of people who are different from us.
There’s still time to book your place! You will come away with practical tools and strategies to use in work with children and young people to harness reading’s power to build empathy.
The conference takes place online from 10.00am-3.30pm on Tuesday 5 December. Tickets are selling out fast – get them while you can from Ticketlab for the Special Offer price of £75 https://ticketlab.co.uk/events/empathylabuk#/
Learn more about the conference and download the programme at https://www.empathylab.uk/educating-for-empathy-conference.