Jan 2023 – The Benefits of Teaching Young People Empathy Skills

Narrative 4 Ireland

For our first event of the new year, we held a talk by Dr James Lawlor, director of Narrative 4 Ireland. Narrative 4 is an education project that uses storytelling to teach empathy and listening skills to young people.

Story Exchange

James explained how the “story exchange” is used in schools as a social and emotional learning tool. At its heart, the purpose of the story exchange is to imagine what life is like for someone else. Teachers have used the method to connect different groups of people in creative ways – connecting students with older people in their communities, for example. A common prompt is to ask students to describe a time they overcame an obstacle.

Benefits of Empathy

The benefits of empathy education are myriad, James said, and include building trust, making people better able to resolve conflict, and being able to see the world from multiple viewpoints.
The programme is established in 236 schools across Ireland; there are over 800 secondary school teachers and youth workers in the network. Narrative 4 also works across 16 countries and can connect participants virtually. Teachers can become facilitators after completing an eight-hour training.

Dr. James Lawlor

Dr James Lawlor is the director of Narrative 4 Ireland, an education project that teaches empathy and listening skills to young people using an evidence based storytelling techniques. He is a graduate of the University of Limerick, Queen’s University of Belfast and University College Cork. He lives in Limerick. Narrative 4 is in operation in a number of countries around the world including the USA, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa. For more information, see narrative4.ie

A recording of this event is available on our YouTube channel.