Page - 97 - in Reflective Cosmopolitanism - Educating towards inclusive communities through Philosophical Enquiry

CHRIsTIAN (MANUAL) 97 in the situation is thinking or feeling, explaining their reasoning. We think about whether we have experienced something similar. Once we finish with the description, the person who wrote the card can say if s/he felt that way. In case the group has difficulty coming up with situations, you can give some simple examples: At some stage, someone criticized you for something you hadn’t done; I had a date with some friends and they didn’t show up; I pass an exam after having studied hard... Discussion Plan: Putting yourself in the place of the Other 1. If you think about the previous exercise, even if you have not been through the same situation but a similar one, can you compare how you felt to what the other person felt? 2. In the previous situations, does having been through similar situations help you put yourself in the place of the other? Even if your experience was not identical? 3. Do you really need to go through similar or identical situations to put yourself in the place of others? 4. Can I put myself in the place of the hungry people in Somalia? 5. Can I understand what they feel? Did it happen to me? 6. Can we empathize with someone who is very old? 7. Can we empathize with a newborn baby? 8. Can we empathize with people we don’t like at all? 9. Can we empathize in the middle of a heated argument? 10. Is it easier to put yourself in the place of someone you like or of someone you are angry with? 11. What about someone you dislike, even if you are not angry at him? 12. Is it possible that certain cultural/lifestyle differences can keep us from know- ing what it feels like to be in someone else’s shoes? Does this mean we can’t be sympathetic to their situation? 13. Can empathy be trained? If so, how? Note: In this exercise and discussion, it is especially interesting to make students defend the opposite point of view (counter arguing), or give them two minutes to change who they are and become the person they were arguing with (giving reasons the other would give). It is a good idea to first try this in low-stakes situations without significant tensions. This is valid for any exercise or discussion plan in the manual, but here it can be used as a practical way to cultivate empathy. Episode 3: How to form teams Leading Idea 1: Prejudice - getting to know the Other When we form groups or teams at school, the logical thing would be to use the candidates’ skills or abilities that we think are relevant for that given activity as criteria. However, we often use certain general characteristics that we think define the candidates based on their belonging to a certain group, class, or stratum. This is the case when the other children are