Many schools have strategic plans around service learning, sustainability, global citizenship, or student leadership. But very few schools have clear approaches that any stakeholder can use to actually put these plans into practice with fidelity.
At Inspire Citizens, we use what we call the Empathy-to-Impact Approach. This is a way for tens of thousands of students and thousands of educators to ensure that learning doesn’t stop at caring, but moves into meaningful action. It gives students a chance to explore their curiosities, their talents, their interests, and how they want to make a difference in the world. When schools adopt a shared approach like this, we do a service to our students: we empower them with the tools and strategies they need to take action, make a difference, and believe that their learning matters.
Empathy-to-Impact is like reaching into a Cabinet of Curiosities. Students can pull out something that sparks empathy and wonder, and then step back out into the real world to investigate, apply skills, take action, and reflect. This article will walk readers through how to use Empathy-to-Impact to transform learning into real world action
(Throughout this article, feel free to visit the links provided to access a deeper step by step walk through, resources and strategies, visuals and toolkits, and examples of how other schools and educators have used these resources)
https://inspirecitizens.org/e2i25
Step 1: Start with the Why
Empathy-to-Impact begins with identifying an important ‘why’. We ask:
What do I care about? What am I curious about?
This could be a Sustainable Development Goal, a local community issue, a matter of belonging or well-being, or an issue of social justice. This could be educator selected, or student selected depending on the context.
Whether in a curricular or student-initiated context, we need to give students the space to clarify their why before diving into investigation. As educators, we can design provocations, simulations, or activities that spark empathy and curiosity. For students, we can allow time to reflect on what matters to them.
“Once we have actually identified a ‘why’ or plucked out a curiosity from the cabinet, then we have to focus on investigation.”
https://inspirecitizens.org/Care25
Step 2: Investigate and Authentic Awareness
Once students know their why, they need strategies to investigate further. They can use interviews, observations, surveys, media analysis, data collection, or a root cause analysis to unpack the issue.
In curricular contexts, these strategies should be paired with mini-lessons and skill development. In leadership or service programs, students can use them to talk with stakeholders, understand the perspectives of others, and adapt their plans.
“When they identify their curiosities, we can investigate to pull these curiosities out of the cabinet.”
https://inspirecitizens.org/Aware25
Step 3: Apply Skills to Make a Difference
Curiosity and investigation lead to meaningful action when students apply the right skills. In a curricular context, this means using the standards and outcomes embedded in the unit:
- Argumentative writing (topic sentences, embedding quotations, flow of ideas, etc.)
- Math models such as y = kx
- Science and geography standards around human-environment impact
In leadership or service contexts, this includes project management, collaboration, and communication. Students succeed when we clearly outline the skills they need and give them the support to apply those skills to their chosen issue.
If students identify what they care about or are curiosity about, they learn key skills while investigating that issue, and then they use their knowledge, skills, and understandings, to begin taking action, transferring their knowledge to novel contexts using their learning to DO… then we get deeper engagement from our students, but they also feel hopeful and empowered because they see their purpose in the learning and the potential that their agency holds. So, it is imperative that we give them an opportunity to take action with this learning.
“As students ‘acquire’ the object from the cabinet of curiosities, we don’t just want them to put it back, we want them to use it to engage with the world. So we allow opportunities for them to practice and use the object.”
https://inspirecitizens.org/Able25
Step 4: Act with and Learn from Others
The next step is identifying possible community partners and taking action that benefits all parties involved. In teaching, this means helping students connect with community assets and partners, and choosing effective forms of action. This can be done in the curriculum by providing voice in choice or a ‘menu of actions’ that students could take with their learning.
An example with argumentative writing:
Publish a feature article that teaches parents about….
Use your writing to create a video or media piece that inspires change in our advisory lessons
Collaborate with an NGO and use your arguments to create social media campaigns that the NGO can post as content on their online platforms.
This is the same ‘assessment’ for argumentative writing and doesn’t add much more work for educators or students, but the piece does not end up in the garbage after an educator has ‘marked’ it. Student learning instead, has the potential to inspire and create change in the real world.
Not all actions are equal. Fundraising or donation drives can be meaningful, but often represent a lower level of complexity and impact. If we want students to do more, we have to equip them with strategies and opportunities that make deeper impact possible. Challenge them to use a community assets map and any of the other 16+ types of action, and the possibilities are endless.
“The fourth step is figuring out who we can ‘learn from and act’ with as a means of enacting what we are curious about.”
“If we don’t provide students and educators with the skills and techniques, then we can’t really expect people to do something meaningful with what they’re curious about.”
https://inspirecitizens.org/Impact25
Step 5: Reflect for Growth
Finally, we must make sure that students reflect. This can be linked to school values, ATLs, learner profile attributes, or a school’s portraits of a learner. Reflection should happen at least two or three times in a learning journey so students can connect growth to who they are becoming.
Students can reflect on how they are growing as people and as changemakers, and whether their actions had real impact or were more investigative or theoretical. Reflection turns posters on the wall into living attributes of learning and character, and character traits that live in our students for generations to come.
https://inspirecitizens.org/Reflect25
There is No Conclusion to Curiosity, but There is to a Blog Post
One way to support curiosity and interact with the many ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ that exist in our diverse world experiences is to use the Empathy-to-Impact approach. This allows any educator to level up a learning experience, whether in the classroom, a leadership program, or a service project, so that students move from curiosity to meaningful action, and from caring to making a difference.
If we take the great work that we are already doing and we are more intentional about adding a WHY and a WHAT NOW to existing teaching and learning, we have the potential to shape thousands of lives through our respective careers and we give students the skills to contribute to a better present, and a more harmonious future.
You can join Aaron in his pre-conference workshop, “Inspire Citizens’ Empathy to Impact Approach: A curriculum enhancing approach to level up global citizenship, reciprocal service learning, and education for sustainable development”
Aaron will facilitate two session topics during our main conference:
Inspired Student Leadership
Inspire Citizens’ Empathy to Impact Approach: A curriculum enhancing approach to level up global citizenship, reciprocal service learning, and education for sustainable development.
You can connect with Aaron @inspirecitizen2
Aaron Moniz is the Co-Founder and Director of Inspire Citizens. Aaron helps schools around the world to develop whole school implementation programs for service learning and education for sustainable development as a means of developing global citizens.
Aaron uses the Inspire Citizens’ Global Impact Schools Self Discovery Tool and Whole School Global Citizenship Roadmap to conduct strategic visioning and goal setting to articulate best practice professional learning approaches and personalize them to the unique context of each school. Aaron also uses the Inspire Citizens Empathy to Impact Approach to enhance curriculum at any grade level or subject area, and he helps schools to design K-12 scope and sequences, scaffolding the development of service learning and active global citizenship.
Alongside the Inspire Citizens team members, Aaron also helps to develop student leadership programs, and supports the Inspire Citizens Global Citizenship Certificate; an online professional development program for global educators. Aaron is also the Director of the Inspire Citizens Foundation. Aaron believes that schools can become centers for community impact and strives to help schools see the large-scale impact that they can have by slightly optimizing their existing systems and centering on global citizenship education.