The empathy symbol has been used in K-12 schools from Phoenix, Arizona to Ontario, Canada; from Houston, Texas to The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Here are some ways you can use the empathy symbol to foster the core value of empathy in your school, as well as ways that schools have promoted increased empathy in their students:
Print and distribute the free downloadable empathy symbol materials from this website: the bookmarks can be passed out to students, and the posters can be displayed in classrooms and common areas.
Print the empathy symbol onto the top of a blank piece of paper, and have an essay contest about empathy. Students could write about how they learned to be more empathetic and understanding of someone different from themselves, or why their school would be a better place if all students and teachers practiced empathy toward one another, or similar topics. Essays could be read at a general assembly, or printed in a school newspaper.
Use the empathy symbol as part of a “values” curriculum at school. Each week, focus on a different value. In addition to empathy, symbols that already exist for pro-social values such as peace and compassion can be displayed each week (such the peace symbol, a heart for caring, and so on.) For those important values not already associated with a particular symbol, such as respect and teamwork, a great art project would be to have students create their own symbols for those values.
A middle school in Champlin, Minnesota had “mixed-up lunch”, in which students were assigned to sit at lunch tables with kids they normally didn’t sit with, thus offering a wonderful opportunity for kids to get to know other kids unlike themselves in a relaxed setting.
Many schools invite speakers to share with students their experiences—as an immigrant, as a gay person, as a Native American, as a person with a disability, and so on.
To help children recognize the common humanity we all share, regardless of apparent differences, students of all ages can play the “10 Things We Have in Common” game. Mix students up randomly into groups of four to six, and ask them to come up with a list of ten unexpected things they have in common
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