During the coming week, please watch yourself and see if you can be aware of when you see someone as “them”: Recognize when you “otherize” someone – when you [erroneously] see them as completely not connected to you. Then cast the world through their eyes. What are they experiencing? Imagine yourself as them… what are you experiencing? Log the entire experience and Email it to me. What you were thinking, feeling; what you learn. Students often have a difficult time with this intervention. Empathy doesn’t mean you agree with them, or think they are right. It just means you can see things (at least for a moment) how you think they are seeing them.
This is not a report about empathy. I’m asking you to have an experience this coming week and log it. When did you notice you objectified someone as an “other” this week? Then be that person. What are you thinking and feeling as that person? If you say, “I don’t know what they are feeling, they might have an appointment and be in a hurry,” you are not doing the assignment. BE that person. You know what you are feeling and thinking imaging their situation… even if they might be thinking something different.
What did you learn? What do you think? What did you feel?
Please document your experience and Post it on Canvas Assignments. I will post it without your name. If you don’t want it posted at all, please let me know.
Participation from past classes:
Appropriate Technology Spring 2020
PHYS 121, Winter 2019: Physics 121 W2019, Class Reflections
PSC 320, Winter 2019: Energy Class PSC 320 W2019, Class Reflections
Fall 2018,
392 Spring 2019
310 Spring 2019
Earlier classes: Appropriate Technology Class,