Top Ten Reasons School Counselors Want Students to Read: Social-Emotional Learning Opportunities! by Sarah Scheerger

Reason #1639 of why I love the Nerdy Book Club...

Reposted from the Nerdy Book Club.

Top Ten Reasons School Counselors Want Students to Read: Social-Emotional Learning Opportunities! by Sarah Scheerger

• Cultivating Empathy

When we read, we climb into the minds and bodies of our characters. We feel with them and we feel for them. I explain empathy to students as follows: Empathy is the experience of walking in someone else’s shoes and imagining how you might feel if you were in a similar situation. This is different from sympathy, which is feeling sorry for someone else. Cultivating empathy is a way to combat bullying. Reading offers a way to understand another’s behavioral choices through first understanding the underlying feelings and thoughts that propel that behavior.

Books offer a “window,” a chance to peek into someone else’s reality and feel with and for them.