8th June Empathy Day What is the Role of Literature in Schools?

Empathy Day is a focal point for celebrating and growing empathy's power to create a better world in the UK. It aims to develop an understanding of books' role in raising an empathy-educated generation.

Each year Empathy Lab publish a new list of books suitable for each age group, run courses for teachers to prepare for the day and provide activities for children. 

Research tells us that children's literature has a big role to play in allowing children to live vicariously or to put themselves in others' shoes, but as educators we know students are reading less, that teachers' knowledge of children's literature needs extending, and the curriculum is becoming more crowded with less time for impromptu or sustained  reading. Here in NSW the English curriculum has become very driven by published online units which do 'use' literature, but there is always a specific teaching focus such as 'character', 'narrative' etc and there is little time for discussion of other nonrelated themes in the book. What happens to all the good books that are not referenced in the syllabus?

Yes, the literature could be read as part of a 'wellbeing' session, but often what is read in these sessions is a much more didactic text specifically on a topic such as responsibility, sharing, reconciliation etc. Teachers want to be able to tick off outcomes and they do not want to have to read the book beforehand.

If this continues we will need the equivalent of an Empathy Day here more than ever! Our students are missing out on what literature is all about - relationships, what it is like to be human, understanding how to  relate to others who've had experiences similar to their own, and different to their own. And one of the purposes of children's literature should be to give pleasure. Doing activities that are not about the text but rather are about how the text does a particular thing do not always give students pleasure and it is questionable whether  the students are transferring this knowledge to other books read. 

Nothing gives young children pleasure more than being read to, talked to and allowed to be involved in the choice of reading material. The  teachers that use our very well-stocked school library tell me they do not have time to serialise a book, time for students to read freely for a sustained length of time or time to have fun with books. One said to me...that's what Book Week's for. How sad. It should be Book Week every week. Even library sessions have been shortened so that there is barely time to read and borrow books. Just borrowing does not make the most of the knowledge a teacher librarian has of books, students and reading. I pride myself in my ability to match a student to a book. It is so important to know the students as individuals as well as readers and it is important to know what resources the library can offer each child.

The 2023 Read for Empathy collection is based on scientific research showing that empathy is learnable, and that books and stories are an important empathy-building tool: identifying with fictional characters’ feelings helps build real-life empathy.