Through Other Eyes: Developing Empathy and Multicultural Perspectives in the Social Studies

by Joan Skolnick

What happens when children develop their capacities to think about how the world might look and feel through someone else's eyes? They build the foundations of multicultural and historical understanding, according to Joan Skolnick, Nancy Dulberg and Thea Maestre. Full of practical strategies and lesson plans, their book Through Other Eyes is brimming with clear and inspiring ideas for teachers eager to help their students develop an empathic and accurate understanding of history. Devoid of jargon, it employs key social studies themes and the tools of the historian to help students understand the perspectives of others in historically authentic and developmentally appropriate ways. The authors provide a curriculum model - adaptable to any curriculum context - of carefully constructed learning sequences they term the "Thinking-Feeling Spiral." Following this model, teachers can design standards-based lessons using primary sources, literature, writing and the arts. Students learn to understand the feelings of people in history and in the present who are different from themselves (empathize), explore how the world might look through their eyes, and then try to explain it (take perspective). Illustrated with realistic, poignant and, at times, humorous examples from the authors' own extensive teaching experience, Through Other Eyes will appeal as much to experienced teachers looking for fresh inspiration as to those just beginning to implement a multicultural social studies curriculum.

Genres: Teaching

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 26, 1999

Reviews

[Monica Kirkpatrick]

This book gives an excellent framework (The thinking-feeling spiral) for teaching social studies through a multicultural perspective. Instead of teaching using one group's perspective and teaching a "single story", teachers can use this book to expose students to history through "other eyes." Each event in history may look different to a child, a Chinese immigrant in the 1800's, a white factory worker, a king....

The other 2 important themes in this book is using social studies to teach student empathy and perspective taking. The book gives many strategies, and even several example of full lesson plans to explicitly teach students HOW to empathize and see the world through different perspectives. It teaches students to always ask questions and be considerate of how certain rules can target specific groups. To teach these skills of empathizing and perspective taking, students are asked to interact with history through writing historical fiction, role playing, and other strategies that being history to life and connect it to the present.

[Michelle G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The authors of this book are unafraid to explore the uncomfortable topics in history/social studies in a way that makes students care and feel for what they are learning about.